Oh, boy. How will we know we're eating lab cultivated meat if it isn't properly labeled? If they do make laws about labeling, how will they be enforced? When you go out to eat, how would you know if you're eating lab cultivated meat? There are other concerns as well.
How should cell-based meat be labeled? What 1,179 comments to USDA say about stakeholders’ priorities > https://www.fooddive.com/news/cell-based-cultivated-meat-comments-usda/623028/
Excepts from the article:
"The USDA — which formally agreed in 2019 to jointly regulate products in the cell-based space with the FDA —
put out a formal request for input in September. The department asked a battery of questions about how these products should be described on packaging labels, especially compared to animal derived products. Which terms work best for this type of product? Which terms would be misleading?"
‘A direct threat’
The feelings about these products as reflected by the comments ran the gamut. While some were extremely supportive of the innovation cell-based meat represents, some were defensive about the threat the sector may pose to traditional animal agriculture.
Cell-based meat proponents are building an entire industry on the promise of removing the need to raise and kill animals from the food equation, and in doing so, avoid the livestock industry’s inherent environmental and ethical issues. The comments from those defending traditional agriculture are some of the most impassioned.
“Laboratory manufactured proteins from cultured cells is a direct threat to the livelihood and economic well-being of U.S. producers nation-wide,” wrote Agri Beef, a small company of cattle producers. “Manufacturers of cultured cell proteins have a goal to not only replace traditionally raised meats but also demean and disparage the natural production process of traditional meats, while obscuring and withholding their process of production process to consumers.”
“Allowing products comprised of or containing cultured animal cells to be labeled ‘meat’ or ‘poultry’ would place family farmers and ranchers at a disadvantage because it will be difficult for them to differentiate their products from cultured animal cell products,” the group’s comments read. “Family farmers and ranchers want fair competition between their slaughtered meat and poultry products and products comprised of or containing cultured animal cells. Fair competition requires truthful and accurate product names and labels for products comprised of or containing cultured animal cells, which will allow consumers to make informed choices about their purchases.”
"Several state agricultural departments weighed in on the debate. Absent federal regulations defining cell-based meat and setting guidelines for labeling, many states took matters into their own hands and
passed their own laws largely premised on protecting the incumbent meat industry — even though actual products were years away from appearing on menus and in stores. According to the Good Food Institute, 13 states currently have laws on the books dealing with labeling of cell-based meat."
“I believed then, as I do now, that such products should not be allowed to be marketed the same way as products from traditional animal agriculture,” Quarles said. “I believe this issue to fundamentally involve the principle of transparency. Consumers deserve to know that the word ‘meat’ means something, and that it means meat from an animal.”
"The Good Food Institute, an advocacy group for alternative proteins, argued that cell cultivation is a new way of creating products that have existed throughout human history, so new standards of identity are not needed to differentiate cell-based meat. After all, the group wrote, new standards of identity were
not required for meat made through cloning. The companies growing meat from cells will want to voluntarily differentiate themselves through labeling, the group wrote."
