A growing number of companies produce, sell, invest in, or serve lab-grown meat, though the industry is still in its early commercial stages. The biggest names fall into three categories: startups that actually grow the meat from animal cells, traditional food giants that have invested in those startups, and a small number of restaurants that put cultivated products on their menus.
Companies That Produce Cultivated Meat
The companies making lab-grown meat (also called cultivated meat or cell-cultured meat) are mostly venture-backed startups. They grow real animal tissue from a small sample of cells, feeding those cells nutrients inside steel vessels called bioreactors. The end product is genuine animal protein, not a plant-based substitute. Here are the most prominent producers globally:
- Upside Foods produces cultivated chicken and was one of the first two companies to receive approval from the USDA and FDA to sell cultivated meat in the United States.
- Eat Just (Good Meat) is the other U.S.-approved producer and was also the first company in the world to sell cultivated meat commercially, launching in Singapore in 2020.
- Mosa Meat, based in the Netherlands, grew the world’s first cultivated beef hamburger in 2013. The company is working toward European regulatory approval.
- Aleph Farms, an Israeli company, focuses on cultivated beef steaks rather than ground meat, aiming to replicate whole-cut textures.
- Believer Meats (formerly Future Meat Technologies) is building large-scale production facilities and has focused on bringing costs down toward price parity with conventional meat.
- Wildtype produces cultivated salmon and has begun placing its product in select U.S. restaurants.
- Vow, based in Australia, takes a different approach by cultivating exotic animal cells, including quail, to create novel meat products not typically found in grocery stores.
- Meatable, a Dutch startup, uses a proprietary process to grow pork and beef from a single cell sample without requiring repeated biopsies from living animals.
- SuperMeat, based in Israel, focuses on cultivated chicken and previously operated a test restaurant where diners could try its products.
- Multus Biotechnology works on a supporting piece of the puzzle: producing affordable cell-culture media (the nutrient liquid cells need to grow), which is one of the biggest cost drivers for the entire industry.
Traditional Food Companies With Stakes in the Industry
Several of the world’s largest meat and food corporations have placed bets on cultivated meat through their venture capital arms. Tyson Foods invested in Memphis Meats (now Upside Foods) through Tyson Ventures, taking a minority stake alongside other high-profile investors including Cargill, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson. That investment signaled that legacy meat processors see cultivated meat as a potential part of their future product lines rather than just a competitive threat.
Cargill, one of the largest private companies in the world and a major meat processor, has invested in multiple cultivated meat startups. Nestlé has explored partnerships with cultivated meat firms as part of its broader alternative-protein strategy. JBS, the world’s largest meat company by revenue, has also entered the space, acquiring a cultivated protein company to develop its own production capabilities. These investments don’t mean you’ll find cultivated products in the meat aisle under these legacy brands yet, but they position these companies to scale up quickly once regulatory approval and production costs allow it.
Restaurants Serving Cultivated Meat
Restaurants serving lab-grown meat remain rare, largely because regulatory approval limits where and how these products can be sold. In the United States, only Upside Foods and Good Meat have cleared the FDA and USDA approval process, and even those products have appeared at just a handful of locations.
OTOKO, a sushi restaurant in Austin, Texas, began serving Wildtype’s cultivated salmon in mid-2025, making it the first restaurant in Texas to offer a lab-grown product. Before that, cultivated chicken from Upside Foods and Good Meat appeared at select high-end restaurants in limited quantities, functioning more as tasting events than permanent menu items. Singapore has been further ahead on the restaurant front since Good Meat launched there in late 2020, and cultivated products have appeared at several dining venues in the city-state.
The restaurant presence is expected to grow as production scales up and costs come down, but for now, you’re unlikely to encounter cultivated meat on a menu unless you’re specifically seeking it out.
Where Cultivated Meat Is Legally Sold
Regulatory approval is the gatekeeper for which companies can actually sell to consumers. As of now, formal regulatory pathways for cultivated meat exist in three regions: the United States, Singapore, and Australia-New Zealand. Singapore was the first country to approve commercial sales. The U.S. followed in 2023 when both Upside Foods and Good Meat received joint approval from the FDA (which evaluates safety of the cell-culture process) and the USDA (which handles inspection and labeling).
Several other countries are developing their own frameworks, but companies operating outside these approved regions are limited to research, pilot production, and regulatory submissions. This is a major reason why so many cultivated meat companies exist but so few products are available to buy.
Pet Food Brands Using Cultivated Ingredients
One corner of the market where cultivated protein has moved faster is pet food. Cult Food Science Corp. has launched three consumer brands built around cell-cultured ingredients:
- Noochies! uses a patented cell-cultured nutritional yeast called Bmmune to make cat and dog foods with nutrient profiles comparable to beef or lamb. The line includes supplements, single-ingredient treats, and complete nutrition formulas.
- Indiana Pet Foods is a dog food and treat brand made with cell-cultured collagen, targeting active and senior dogs.
- Marina Cat makes cat treats using cell-based fish and marine ingredients as an alternative to ocean-harvested seafood.
Pet food faces fewer regulatory hurdles than human food in many markets, which has allowed these products to reach shelves sooner. For consumers interested in cultivated protein but unable to find it at restaurants or grocery stores, pet food is currently one of the most accessible entry points.
Why Availability Is Still Limited
Despite the number of companies in this space, you can’t walk into a grocery store and buy cultivated meat. Two factors explain the gap. First, production costs remain high. Growing animal cells in bioreactors requires expensive nutrient media, and scaling from lab-sized batches to factory-level output is an engineering challenge that most companies are still working through. Companies like Multus Biotechnology exist specifically to solve the cost problem on the ingredients side.
Second, the regulatory process is slow by design. Each company must demonstrate that its specific product and production process are safe, which involves extensive testing and review. Even in countries with established pathways, gaining approval takes years. The result is an industry with billions of dollars in investment, dozens of active companies, and only a handful of products that consumers can actually buy today.