TALLAHASSEE --- A federal judge said Monday he intends to rule quickly on a request to temporarily halt a new Florida law banning meat that state officials have lambasted as “fake.”
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker held a more than two-hour hearing on the request for a preliminary injunction filed by UPSIDE Foods, Inc., a California-based company that is challenging the constitutionality of the law banning the sale and manufacturing of cultivated meat.
Walker indicated he would rule before an early November date that UPSIDE Foods attorney Paul Sherman said was needed for the company to prepare its poultry-based products for Miami Beach’s Art Basel event in December. An injunction would allow the company to sell the products while the underlying legal challenge moves forward.
“I usually don’t let grass grow on these things,” Walker said.
UPSIDE Foods, which contends in part that Florida’s law is improperly designed to favor in-state businesses over out-of-state competitors, has also expressed a desire to distribute its products at the 2025 South Beach Food and Wine Festival in Miami-Dade County. It says Florida’s ban has affected the company’s revenue, promotional opportunities and reputation.
The company, which is represented by lawyers from the Institute for Justice legal organization, filed the lawsuit in August and named as defendants Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, Attorney General Ashley Moody and four state attorneys.
Walker on Monday removed two state attorneys as defendants: Bruce Bartlett, the state attorney in the 6th Judicial Circuit, which is made up of Pinellas and Pasco counties; and Andrew Bain, the state attorney in the 9th Judicial Circuit, which is made up of Orange and Osceola counties.
Walker said UPSIDE Foods in the lawsuit specifically noted events and unnamed chefs in Miami and Tallahassee as potential clients, while no direct sales or distribution links were available for the areas covered by Bartlett and Bain. The other state attorneys who are defendants are Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the state attorney in the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, and Jack Campbell, the state attorney in the 2nd Judicial Circuit, which includes Leon and surrounding counties.
The ban was part of a broader Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services bill (SB 1084) that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on May 1 at an event in Hardee County that featured a sign proclaiming, “Save Our Beef.”
DeSantis, who has described cultivated meat as “fake meat,” said during the bill-signing event that the law would protect against “an ideological agenda that wants to finger agriculture as the problem.”
The law, which makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to sell or manufacture cultivated meat, doesn’t prohibit cultivated-meat research because of concerns that such a ban could affect Florida’s space industry.
The manufacturing process for the products includes taking a small number of cultured cells from animals and growing them in controlled settings to make food.
David Costello, a senior deputy solicitor general in Moody’s office, told Walker the state has the power to regulate food, health and safety and questioned UPSIDE Foods’ chicken as a poultry product. Costello agreed the initial cells come from slaughtered poultry, but the state considers what is grown in lab settings as a different product.
Costello also argued that UPSIDE Foods isn’t blocked from manufacturing its products outside of Florida, as its manufacturing facilities are located in California.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture last year approved UPSIDE Foods to manufacture and sell its products. Since then, the company has distributed cultivated chicken products at restaurants and tasting events across the nation, including in Florida.
The lawsuit contends Florida’s ban violates the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution because of federal laws regulating meat and poultry products. The Supremacy Clause generally leads to federal laws trumping state laws. Also, the lawsuit alleges the ban violates what is known as the “dormant” Commerce Clause by insulating Florida agriculture from out-of-state competition.
Alabama followed Florida in approving a similar law. Similar bans have been proposed in states including Kentucky, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Texas.