The Month In Cultivated Meat: June
While Texas shut the door on cultivated meat, the U.S. approved its first cultivated seafood—and the UK, EU, and Australia are opening theirs even wider. All this and more in June's round-up.
This month:
The U.S. approves Wildtype’s cultivated salmon
Vow’s cultivated quail to hit restaurants across Australia
Clever Carnivore boats reduced costs as it looks to scale pork products
Texas became the biggest U.S. state to ban cultivated meat
A new British research survey looks into generational attitudes to cultivated meat
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) launched a service to assist cultivated companies to get market approval
Tastings from Umani Bioworks and Magic Valley
✅Approvals
Wildtype became the first company to get U.S. regulatory approval to sell cultivated seafood.
The FDA concluded that Wildtype’s salmon is “as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods”.
Try it today! Its sushi-grade cultivated salmon is now being served at Kann, the Portland restaurant led by James Beard Award winner Gregory Gourdet.
All eyes are now on the Czech Republic, which could be the next country to approve such products.
The news is big as approval took over three years and over eight rounds of updates and reviews, paving the way to make it easier for future companies to launch.
🍽️ Small Bites
BioCraft claimed its cultivated pet food emits 92% fewer emissions compared to conventional beef co-products.
SeathMeat is working on a new seaweed-based growth media to replace traditional high-cost and animal-laden cell culture.
GEA launched its New Food Application and Technology Center in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It’s designed to support the development and scaling of cellular agriculture processes such as cultivated meat.
Multus Biotechnology unveiled an animal-free media formulation for cultivated meat.
👕 Non-Meat
California Cultured successfully moved to large-scale biomanufacturing for its cell-based chocolate.
SMEY launched NOY, a digital bank of yeasts for cultivated oils.
💲Investment
Hoxton Farms formed a strategic partnership with Mitsui Chemicals, which included a direct investment from the Japanese giant.
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) introduced a pilot support service to assist cell-cultivated companies in receiving UK market approval.
New Harvest Canada secured $500,000 from Alberta Innovates to support its Cellular Agriculture Prairie Ecosystem (CAPE) Project.
🤝Partnerships
Cultivated at Scale—a facility designed to support the scaling of cellular agriculture—partnered with biotech firm Sartorius to enhance the development and scalability of cultivated products.
Gourmey partnered with DeepLife to help optimise its cultivated meat production at scale.
🗺️Large Bites
Clever Carnivore touts cost reduction milestone
They claim to have achieved the milestone by cutting costly off-the-shelf growth serums, which are a reason for high media costs (the key ingredient to help grow cultivated meat). By mixing its media in-house and making its own growth factors, it can reach key cost reductions.
“Clever Carnivore’s cell culture media reportedly costs $0.07 per liter to produce at the current pilot scale, with further reductions expected at full plant scale. This is a fraction of the cost of industry-leading media, which are said to range from $1 to $10 per liter.” — Cultivated X via Vegconomist
It’s aiming to launch its cultivated pork in the U.S. as early as summer 2026.
Impact: Outside of consumer acceptance (including safety), the next biggest issue is price. Although cultivated meat has made progress in cost reduction, it remains significantly more expensive and has yet to achieve price parity with conventional mass-farmed meat.
“By reaching price parity, it then becomes a simple and easy choice for consumers to buy better meat for their pets.” — Helder Cruz (Chief Scientific Officer)
Cultivated meat coming to Australia by year-end
Cultivated meat is coming down under. Soon, you’ll find it in restaurants such as:
Nel, The Waratah, and Kitchen by Mike (Sydney)
Bottarga & The Lincoln (Melbourne)
The restaurants will feature Vow’s cultivated quail following official amendments to the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards. It follows April’s regulatory approval.
Impact: As more approvals come, it makes it easier for other firms to get approvals, with Upside Foods championing the first batch of approvals in the U.S. Cultivated meat is finally starting to hit restaurants and soon grocery stores, marking a pivotal moment for the industry.
🥄Tastings
Umami Bioworks held a public tasting for its cultivated white fish and caviar at London’s Underground Cookery School.
Australia’s Magic Valley, which is targeting mass-market minced products, held a cultivated meat tasting in the New South Wales parliament.
🧑⚖️Regulation
Texas became the latest U.S. state to ban cultivated meat.
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas signed Senate Bill 261 into law, prohibiting the sale, manufacture, and distribution of cell-cultured protein products for human consumption within the state.
“The bill, which will take effect on September 1, 2025, also makes it a Class A misdemeanor offense to offer or sell such products, with penalties escalating to a state jail felony for repeat offenders.”
The ban will automatically expire on September 1, 2027, unless the Texas Legislature votes to extend or renew the prohibition.
Texas joins Nebraska, Montana, Indiana, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Dakota with such bans.
📖Cultivated Reads
This month’s read looked into cultivated meat preferences among different age groups of UK consumers.
The Good: It found that almost half (47%) of those aged between 16-29 said they would consume cultivated meat products.
The Bad: Challenges still exist, as it was found that the older you are, the less likely you are to try it. Just 21% of Baby Boomers, 22% of Gen X, and 38% of Millennials said they would be willing to eat cultivated meat.
The Opportunity: Awareness still remains fairly low, with 58% of respondents saying they knew nothing about cultivated meat, and 33% have still never heard of it.
📅Looking Ahead
The EU is set to publish a document outlining a push to fast-track how novel food is approved.
This would help the EU compete with the likes of Asia, which is front-running the approval process for novel foods, including cultivated meat.
“The Commission will propose a Biotech Act to make the EU regulatory system more conducive to biotech innovation in various sectors such as health and food, and will facilitate and accelerate the approval procedures for Novel Foods”
That’s all for the June edition. As always, stay curious and stay cultivated.