The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its first premarket consultation for cultured meat (also known as “cell-based” or “lab-grown” meat), in response to a submission from company UPSIDE Foods. At present, FDA has no further questions about the firm’s conclusion that its cultured poultry meat products would be safe. UPSIDE foods intends to use animal cell culture technology to take living cells from chickens and grow the cells in a controlled environment to produce cultured meat.

The voluntary premarket consultation is not an approval process. Rather, it means that after FDA’s evaluation of the data and information shared by UPSIDE Foods, the agency has no further questions about the firm’s safety conclusion. Furthermore, FDA has not identified any information indicating that the production process as described by UPSIDE Foods would be expected to result in food that is contaminated by any substance or microorganism that would adulterate the food.