The USDA’s meat safety agency aims to publish its proposed rule on cultivated meat labels this year, roughly three years after it asked consumers if names such as “steak” should be allowed, said a spokesperson on Wednesday.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said that after receiving 1,100 public comments it was “developing a proposed rule, which is projected to publish this year.”
In its 2021 Federal Register notice, FSIS posed 14 questions, beginning with whether the name of a meat or poultry product should tell consumers that it was made with cell-culture technology. Other questions ask if the names commonly applied to meat from food-bearing animals, such as “pork loin,” should be used to describe a cell-cultured product, and whether names that specify a type of meat, such as “patty,” should be available to cell-cultured products.
Legislation filed in the House and Senate earlier this week would require the word “cell-cultured” or ‘lab-grown” to appear immediately next to the name of the food on labels of cultivated meat, and in the same type size. At present, two companies have USDA approval to sell cultivated chicken meat to consumers, with the products identified as “cell-cultivated.”