Companies creating lab-grown steak, chicken, and fish see a recent White House announcement as a signal that meat grown without animal slaughter is on the cusp of being legally sold and eaten in the US.

“We are laser focused on commercial-scale production, and for us, that means moving into competing with conventional meat products in scale,” said Eric Schulze, vice president of product and regulation at Upside Foods, a cultivated meat company, as the industry calls itself. The goal is to be selling its meat on the US market within the year.

The traditional meat and poultry industry reacted strongly to President Joe Biden’s executive order last month on biotechnology and biomanufacturing, which observers say could push federal agencies to allow commercial sales of meat grown from an animal’s cells.

The world’s first commercially available lab-grown chicken nuggets were sold just two years ago in Singapore. That’s still the only country where meat grown artificially from animal cells is eaten. But startups and a few established food companies in the US say they have products ready to go; companies in Israel are close to bringing theirs to market; and China signaled it could allow lab-grown meat sales within the next five years.

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