Good.
A federal judge in McLennan County delivered a setback to the State of Texas on Jan. 20, denying its motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban on lab-grown meat sales.
U.S. District Judge Alan Albright ruled from the bench that the lawsuit’s constitutional claims can move forward, marking an early win for two California-based cultivated meat companies. However, Judge Albright also denied the companies’ request for a preliminary injunction, meaning the ban remains in effect while the case proceeds through discovery and further litigation.
Wildtype and UPSIDE Foods produce what they call cultivated meat — real chicken and salmon grown from animal cells without raising or slaughtering animals. Both companies have passed federal FDA and USDA safety reviews and received approval to distribute their products across the United States.
Before Texas banned sales in September 2025, Wildtype was selling cultivated salmon at OTOKO, a sushi restaurant in Austin.
The lawsuit argues that Texas’s ban, Senate Bill 261, violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause by discriminating against out-of-state businesses to protect local agriculture.
“Texas is trying to use government power to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, favoring in-state agriculture to the detriment of innovative, out-of-state competitors,” said Paul Sherman, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which is representing the companies. “The Constitution doesn’t allow states to wall off their markets just to protect politically powerful industries from out-of-state competition. Texans—not politicians—should decide what’s for dinner.”
[…]
Texas lawmakers and agricultural officials maintain the ban is necessary to protect the state’s robust farming and ranching industry.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller dismissed cultivated meat as “a flash in the pan” that consumers have rejected.
“The cultured meat phenomenon, it was a phase it went through,” Miller said. “There were some companies really geared up and sucked a lot of money into producing lab-raised meat and basically the public just rejected it. It’s not a thing anymore.”
Miller argued that cultivated meat would create direct competition for Texas farmers and ranchers.
“We don’t need any competition. We’ve got plenty of that from foreign countries and other protein sources,” Miller said. “People flat out love their real beef. They don’t want artificial beef.”
[…]
According to the lawsuit, Texas legislators were explicit about the ban’s purpose to protect agriculture, not address safety concerns.
Court documents cite statements from bill author Senator Charles Perry saying the bill would “support traditional agriculture,” and lead House sponsor Representative Stan Gerdes stating the goal was “to protect our agriculture industry.”
The Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association was the only group to testify in favor of the ban during committee hearings.
Notably, the ban allows Texans to consume cultivated meat—just not purchase it within the state. The companies argue this proves the ban isn’t about safety.
See here for the background. As I said before, I buy the plaintiffs’ argument and think the state’s defense is ridiculous. By the same logic, they could pass a law banning veggie burgers, and if the public really has rejected the lab-grown meat concept, the Texas beef producers should have nothing to worry about. Also, too, does anyone else remember when Republicans claimed to support the free market? Boy, those were the days. The Express News, whose story was in the print version of the Chron business section on Thursday, and the Chron have more.
Agreed – “nobody wants this, so let’s ban it so that it doesn’t overtake what everyone wants” is a weird argument. Either consumers won’t buy it and it’ll never gain enough market share to be a threat or it is potentially popular competition and a threat, but both cannot be true. And yeah, let the market decide; I thought these guys didn’t want to pick winners and losers?
Agreed. Capitalism is taking it in the rear end on this one.