Overview

• Texas’s SB 261 took effect September 1, imposing a two-year prohibition on manufacturing, possessing, or selling cell‑cultured protein, with fines up to $25,000 per day and possible jail time.
• UPSIDE Foods and Wildtype filed the lawsuit with the Institute for Justice, naming Attorney General Ken Paxton and state health agencies as defendants.
• The complaint cites the Commerce Clause and Supremacy Clause, pointing to FDA and USDA regulatory clearances for certain cultivated products as evidence of federal authorization.
• State officials and ranching groups, including Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, support the ban as a safeguard for the livestock industry.
• Texas is the seventh state with such a prohibition, and cultivated meat had only a limited presence in the state—served briefly at Austin’s OTOKO—while a related challenge to Florida’s ban is moving forward in court.