Fifth Circuit Hears Challenge to Texas Lab-Grown Meat Sales Ban

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard arguments Wednesday over Texas’s temporary ban on selling cell-cultured meat, as California companies Wildtype and UPSIDE Foods pressed for a preliminary injunction while their lawsuit continues.

Wildtype sells cultivated salmon and UPSIDE Foods sells cultivated chicken. Both products are grown from animal cells and have federal clearance to sell in the United States, according to Courthouse News Service. The companies sued after Senate Bill 261 took effect in September 2025. The statute bars the sale of “cell-cultured protein” in Texas until Sept. 1, 2027; it does not ban research or distribution, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Ban stayed in place after January ruling

U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas allowed the Commerce Clause claim to proceed but denied a statewide injunction in January, leaving the ban in force. On appeal, Institute for Justice attorney Marco Vasquez Jr. told the panel that Albright failed to weigh whether the companies were likely to succeed at trial. “We have our lost revenue, our lost business opportunities, our lost goodwill and our lost time in the market,” Vasquez said, according to Courthouse News.

The companies argue the ban shields Texas cattle interests from out-of-state competition and violates the dormant Commerce Clause. They also contend federal poultry inspection law preempts the state ban as applied to UPSIDE’s chicken. Vasquez cited sponsor remarks that the bill’s goal was to protect agriculture and said Texas offered no evidence of health risks after federal regulators reviewed company safety data.

State defends uniform sales ban

Texas Assistant Solicitor General Douglass Duncan told the court the law treats in-state and out-of-state sellers the same, comparing it to Texas’s earlier horse-meat sales ban that the Fifth Circuit upheld. He said an Austin cultivated-meat CEO testified against the bill, arguing a statute that can harm an in-state firm cannot be discriminatory against outsiders. Duncan also said Texas sales were minimal — one Wildtype restaurant relationship and a single UPSIDE sale to a Travis County resident more than two years ago — and that any injury was speculative.

Judges Don R. Willett, Andrew S. Oldham and Cory T. Wilson heard the case. The Statesman reported that panel members questioned whether the appellate record was developed enough to decide the discrimination issue or whether the dispute should return to the district court. Texas became the seventh state to ban lab-grown protein sales when the 2025 law passed; Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller called it “plain cowboy logic” to protect “real, authentic meat,” language the plaintiffs treat as evidence of protectionism. The state has described such comments as stray and has framed the two-year pause as a health and safety study period.

Developing: The panel took the appeal under advisement and has not issued a ruling; the sales ban remains in effect.

Sources: Courthouse News Service, Austin American-Statesman