A federal judge in Austin has cleared the way for a high-stakes legal challenge to Texas’ ban on selling cell-cultured meat, keeping the state’s two-year prohibition in force while the case moves into a new phase.

U.S. District Judge Alan Albright denied Texas’ bid to throw out the lawsuit brought by two California companies, Wildtype and UPSIDE, according to court filings in the Western District of Texas. The ruling allows the case to proceed but does not lift the ban before the court reaches a final decision—meaning cultivated meat remains off limits for sale in Texas for now.

The fight pits a fast-growing food technology industry against a state that is both an agricultural powerhouse and one of a small but expanding group of states that has opted for an outright ban rather than labeling rules.

A two-year ban, and a constitutional argument

Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 261 in 2025, creating a two-year ban on the sale of “cell-cultured” or “cultivated” meat products. The law took effect Sept. 1, 2025, according to Mondaq.

Wildtype and UPSIDE argue the law runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause by discriminating against out-of-state businesses, according to court filings in the Western District of Texas. Their central claim: Texas is not simply regulating a product; it is walling off its market in a way that disadvantages companies headquartered elsewhere.

The policy dispute is also about timing. Supporters of the Texas law have described it as a pause—an effort to slow adoption of cultivated meat while regulators and the public catch up. “It’s a preemptive position for us. We want to put this in a moratorium, at least a two-year ban, until everything checks and the balances are there for them to take the product to retail,” said Carl Ray Polk Jr., president of the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, according to The Texas Tribune.

Opponents counter that even a temporary ban sends a long-term message. “Now investors aren’t so sure that Texas is friendly to business, and they don’t want to invest in businesses where they’re not even sure the product can be sold,” said Katie Kam, founder of BioBQ, according to The Texas Tribune.

The legal question: regulation or protectionism?

The Commerce Clause gives Congress authority over interstate commerce. Courts have long interpreted it to also include a “dormant” limitation: states generally cannot enact protectionist laws that advantage in-state economic interests at the expense of out-of-state competitors.

That dormant Commerce Clause doctrine operates as a “negative command” against protectionism, while still leaving room for states to regulate for goals like public health and safety, according to the Wisconsin Law Journal. The key question in such cases is whether a state measure is discriminatory in purpose or effect—targeting out-of-state competitors—or whether it is a nondiscriminatory regulation that incidentally affects interstate commerce.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court case, National Pork Producers Council v. Ross (2023), sharpened the debate over how far states can go. The court upheld California’s Proposition 12, a law regulating pork sold in the state based on animal-housing standards, and confirmed that nondiscriminatory state regulations that affect out-of-state producers are not automatically unconstitutional under the dormant Commerce Clause, according to National Pork Producers Council v. Ross — Wikipedia.

Texas’ cultivated-meat ban will test how that principle applies to a new category of food—and whether a flat prohibition is closer to permissible regulation or impermissible economic protection.

Why Texas ranching politics matter here

Texas agriculture is vast, and lawmakers who say they are acting to protect ranchers are leaning on an economy where farming and livestock have deep roots.

In 2022, Texas farms reported $32.2 billion in agricultural product sales, up from $24.9 billion in 2017, and the state led the nation with 230,662 farms and ranches spread across roughly 125.5 million acres, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.

The Texas Farm Bureau describes an even broader economic footprint around food and agriculture. Agriculture-related jobs in Texas exceed 4.4 million, generating about $246.26 billion in wages, with nearly 2.3 million jobs directly in farming and ranching earning roughly $84.46 billion, according to Texas Farm Bureau. The group’s report says the agricultural sector produces nearly $868 billion in total economic output, contributes about $15.3 billion in exports, and yields approximately $94.9 billion in tax revenue.

Those numbers help explain why, in Texas, cultivated meat has become a cultural and economic flashpoint rather than a niche curiosity.

A fragmented national map, and a growing market

Texas is not alone. As of mid-2025, seven states had enacted outright bans on cell-cultured meat, including Texas’ Senate Bill 261, according to Mondaq. But the national picture is far from uniform.

Some states have moved in a different direction, choosing labeling requirements rather than bans. Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, South Dakota, and Iowa require specific labeling when cultivated meat is sold, according to the National Agricultural Law Center (Penn State). That divergence has created a regulatory patchwork that companies must navigate—and that courts may increasingly be asked to referee.

The stakes are amplified by the industry’s growth expectations. Market research values the global cultured meat market at approximately $336.8 million in 2024 and projects it could reach $3,249.0 million by 2033, a compound annual growth rate of roughly 28.64%, according to GlobeNewswire. The same report says the sector includes more than 170 companies and over 20 production sites worldwide, with North America accounting for about 37% of the market.

Even so, cultivated meat remains scarce in Texas. Only one restaurant—OTOKO in Austin—has served cultivated meat (cultivated salmon from Wildtype), and cultivated products have not been sold in grocery stores statewide, according to The Texas Tribune.

For now, the ban stays in place and the lawsuit heads into discovery, according to court filings in the Western District of Texas. The case will ask a federal court to weigh Texas’ interest in protecting a cornerstone industry and shaping food policy against the Constitution’s promise of an open national marketplace—an issue likely to resonate well beyond cultivated meat as states continue to experiment with how, and whether, to regulate the next generation of food.

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