For the first time, FDA approves lab-grown beef. The FDA decided Wednesday that Upside Foods' "cultivated chicken" is safe to eat.
The FDA stated that it "examined the evidence supplied to the agency and has no further issues regarding the firm's safety conclusion at this time."
Berkeley, California-based company CEO and founder Uma Valeti called this "a landmark moment in the history of food" in a statement.
The company claims that using cells from just one chicken can produce as much food as is currently produced by hundreds of thousands of farmed chickens.
Although the government judged the chicken from Upside Foods to be safe to consume, the food is not authorized for sale.
The US Department of Agriculture and its Food Safety and Inspection Service are the remaining obstacles for Upside to overcome before launching its product.
Upside's Emeryville, California, production facility will be able to manufacture more than 50,000 pounds of chicken fillet once it receives regulatory approval.
One-third of human-produced greenhouse emissions come from food production, notably cattle. Lab-grown meat would reduce methane emissions, proponents believe.