[Home](/) What we know What we know · Question 4 # What is cultivated meat, and where can anyone actually buy it? Short answer: animal cells are grown in a tank and then mixed with plant ingredients, so this is animal-derived food that is not vegan. Regulators in at least four countries have cleared it, and a person outside those markets will struggle to find it. Nothing is on sale in Canada. This entry takes one question about future food and answers it from dated sources. Sentences marked as claims carry their source, the date we checked it and the date the source was checked. Everything else on the page is our own writing, and it is not a claim. Entry checked 18 September 2026 · 25 sentences, each with its source · no person approved these sentences · [What this does not show](#limits) Filed under [cultivated](/what-we-know/#tag-cultivated) · [alternative-protein](/what-we-know/#tag-alternative-protein) ## Cells, grown on purpose Start with the plain description, because the marketing words in this category do a lot of work. Nothing here is grown in a field, and nothing here is cut from an animal. The FDA's own name for this category is human food made with cultured animal cells, and it keeps a public inventory of it. [[1]](#source-1) That inventory is the most useful page in this entry. It is short, it is public, and it is written for a technical reader rather than a shopper. At our check date that inventory listed five completed pre-market consultations. [[1]](#source-1) Those five cover cultured chicken cell material from three sponsors, cultured pork fat cells from one and cultured salmon cell material from one, with FDA response dates from November 2022 to July 2025. [[1]](#source-1) One more thing belongs here, because it decides what the food is. Very little of what is sold is a cut of anything. Most cultivated meat sold today is a hybrid: cells grown in a tank are mixed with plant ingredients rather than served as a cut of meat. [[2]](#source-2) Read that twice, because it is the sentence most announcements skip. The tank usually produces an ingredient and the meal is assembled around it. If you are looking for a steak that grew, that is a plan rather than a shelf. ## Where it is approved Two countries have cleared cultivated meat for sale on their own records, and they did it in that order. Singapore approved the sale of cultivated meat first, clearing Eat Just's Good Meat brand in 2020. [[3]](#source-3) Singapore has also approved cultivated chicken from Parima, the company formed when Gourmey bought Vital Meat. [[2]](#source-2) Parima's cultivated duck became the fourth cultivated meat product approved for sale in Singapore. [[3]](#source-3) Aleph Farms' thin-cut beef steak took Singapore's number of authorised cultivated products past the United States, to six. [[4]](#source-4) Singapore is not the only market moving. Australia and New Zealand built a route of their own, and one company has used it. Vow's cultured quail was cleared in Australia and New Zealand after a multi-year assessment. [[5]](#source-5) Vow became the first startup approved to sell cultivated meat in three countries. [[6]](#source-6) Some of the clearances in this category are not for people at all. Singapore also approved cultivated meat for pet food, a first for Asia, in July 2025. [[7]](#source-7) In the European Union, two cultivated fish ingredients for pet food were registered on the feed materials register. [[8]](#source-8) A clearance and a sale are different facts, and in this category they are years apart. Every approval below was followed by a plan, a launch window or a pilot rather than by a shelf. ## What you can actually buy Canada first, because that is where this site's readers are, and because the answer here is short. Canada's Food Directorate adds a product to its published list only after it has completed a safety assessment, so that list is where a Canadian approval would appear. [[9]](#source-9) We read that list on 18 September 2026. It names no cultivated meat, and we found no Canadian sale anywhere else. Canada appears in this entry as an absence. At our check date the newest entries on that Canadian list were an insect-protected cotton, a mycoprotein made from a fungus, and a pig bred to resist a virus. [[9]](#source-9) Elsewhere the list is short but real, and each route below is a different kind of thing. Wildtype's cultivated coho salmon went onto restaurant menus in Oregon, California, Washington and Texas, with Texas offering it for a limited time ahead of a state ban. [[10]](#source-10) In Australia, Vow sells cultured quail for home cooking under the Forged brand, in products such as foie gras and a smoked spread. [[11]](#source-11) Vow's cultured quail also sells to restaurants in Singapore. [[11]](#source-11) The first US retail sale of cultivated meat was a single event on 1 November 2025: 304-gram trays of Mission Barns pork meatballs at US$13.99, one per shopper. [[12]](#source-12) GOOD Meat's own page says its GOOD Meat 3 shredded chicken is available in the frozen groceries section at Huber's Butchery in Singapore. [[13]](#source-13) [[13]](#source-13) Keep the three kinds of route apart. One is a standing menu; one is a direct-to-consumer shop in Australia; one is a single day in a California grocery store in November 2025. The last one is the maker's own page, which carries no date and no stock line, so we report it as what the maker says rather than as what we could buy. ## Why the shelf is so thin The gap between the approvals and the shopping trip is not an accident, and the money explains most of it. Funding for cultivated meat companies fell from about US$1.8 billion in 2021 to about US$74 million in 2025, a 96% decline and the lowest total since 2018. [[14]](#source-14) [[14]](#source-14) Two companies that had cleared the hardest regulatory review then closed within eight days of each other in December 2025. Believer Meats, which had US clearance for its cultivated chicken, ceased operations in December 2025, a week after a lawsuit over about US$34 million in unpaid bills. [[15]](#source-15) [[15]](#source-15) Meatable wound down and terminated all operations after it could not secure further funding. [[16]](#source-16) [[16]](#source-16) The tasting phase that followed the first approvals has ended too, and one of the first movers paused its production. UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat paused their restaurant collaborations, and cultivated meat stopped being served in those restaurants. [[17]](#source-17) Eat Just paused production in Singapore in 2024 and called the pause temporary. [[18]](#source-18) [[18]](#source-18) The survivors are not standing still, and their changes cut both ways. Vow changed chief executive in June 2026 and cut jobs, after laying off 30% of its staff in 2025, while keeping its products on sale. [[6]](#source-6) [[6]](#source-6) That is the shape of this category: the approvals keep arriving while the companies behind them shrink, close or move sideways. A page that reported only the first half would read as good news, which is exactly why the second half sits inside the answer to "can I buy it". ## What this does not show This is the block we require on every entry that could be read as saying something about an outcome. Elements 1 to 7 apply to every entry; 8 to 12 apply where the entry makes a claim about an outcome, and this one does not, so they are answered explicitly rather than left out. 1. Dates Every factual sentence carries its source's own date and the date we checked it (18 September 2026). The FDA inventory and the maker's retail page are not dated on the page; the FDA inventory carries a page update of February 2026. The trade reports cited here carry their own publication dates, from February 2024 to August 2026. 2. What kind of evidence this is Two regulator records, one maker's own page and sixteen articles from one trade publication. No trial, no study and no life-cycle assessment is behind any sentence here, and the maker page is the maker describing its own product. 3. Who was studied Nobody. These sources describe approvals, routes, prices and company results. They do not describe a study population, an age range or a follow-up period, because they are not studies. Nothing here is evidence about what happens to a person who eats cultivated meat. 4. The comparator There is none. This entry does not compare cultivated meat with farmed meat, with plant-based meat or with anything else, and the one sentence that would have made a land-and-water comparison was written and then left out. 5. Adjustments Not applicable: no statistical model is reported in the sources used here. 6. Uncertainty as reported Two of the three routes a person could use today rest on trade reporting rather than on a menu page or a shop page we could read, so a systematic error in that publication would move both at once. The maker's page carries no date and no stock line. The one US retail sale is a single reported event on a single day. 7. What no source here can say about a product No source measures any food in our directory, its price in a shop near you, its ingredients as sold, or what it does for a person. A regulator's consultation about an ingredient, and a maker's description of a product, are both statements about food rather than about a meal. One product in our own directory is affected by this entry's limits, and its stock line stays unverified. 8. Counter-signals This entry makes no claim about diet and health, so it has no counter-signals of that kind. The findings that work against a flattering reading carry their sources anyway: funding fell 96% in four years, two approved companies closed inside eight days, and the restaurant tastings that followed the first approvals have stopped. 9. Adequacy caveats Not applicable. This entry makes no claim about nutritional adequacy for anyone, at any age. Nothing here says a cultivated product is better or worse for you than what it replaces. 10. What we did not check No menu, receipt or till roll was read for any route, so no route is verified as a purchase. The Singapore Food Agency's own list answered HTTP 200, but the response is a PDF and the stored copy is the raw PDF stream, so no sentence in this entry rests on it and the count of Singapore's approvals is not claimed here. Two of the five US consultations in the FDA inventory are named in the entry's record but not on the page, and we did not read a single one of the FDA's underlying safety narratives or letters. No person reviewed or approved these sentences before publication. 11. What would change it One readable regulator PDF, one menu or shop page we could quote, one new approval, one closure, or someone reviewing these sentences. Any of those would move a sentence in this entry. 12. What is not on this page Some sentences written for this entry are not here. They are left out when their source could not be retrieved, when the source did not carry the point the sentence made, when the source contradicted it, or when the wording was too hedged to state plainly. Nothing was left out to make the category read better, and this entry publishes what it checked rather than deleting it. The full list of what was written and left out is in this entry's record, not on this page. This page is general information about published sources. It is not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health professional. No clinician has reviewed it, and we do not know anything about your diet, your medication or your health. If a health question brought you here, take it to a professional who knows you. ## Our position Written by Find My Next Bite · 18 September 2026 Cultivated meat is the hardest case in this section to write about without either cheerleading or sneering, because both stories are true at once. The approvals are real, they are recent, and they came from serious regulators. So is the contraction: the money fell 96%, two approved companies closed inside eight days, and the restaurants that served the first tastings have stopped. We think the reader deserves the second half inside the answer to the first question. "Where can I buy it" is not a polite way of asking about the technology, and a page that answers with a funding chart instead of a shop has changed the subject. So the routes come first, and the reasons the list is short come with them. One line in this entry is a maker's own claim rather than our observation, and it is the only cultivated product in our directory. We have kept it as what the maker says, with the missing date stated on the page, because that is the honest version of a listing whose stock we cannot confirm. Every change this site makes to a sentence it has published is recorded, dated, at [Corrections and revisions](/what-we-know/corrections/) — what it said before, what it says now, and which kind of change it is. Nothing here is rewritten quietly. ## Where to go next If you came here to understand the food, the directory is where the useful part starts: it carries the cultivated products we can list with dated sources, kept separate from ordinary shopping because access is limited. Ordinary links on this site earn us no commission, and no product, maker or merchant paid for a mention in this entry. [See the cultivated foods we list →](/foods/?category=cultivated) [See everything in the directory →](/foods/) Nothing in this entry is for sale, and no promotion or paid placement appears inside it. ## Sources Every numbered sentence above was checked against the source with that number on the date shown. The number links to the entry in this list. Animal cell culture food inventory. US Food and Drug Administration. regulator. [Open the source ↗](https://www.cfsanappsexternal.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/?set=AnimalCellCultureFoods) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 3 sentences in this entry. Singapore approves Parima's cultivated chicken. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/parima-vital-meat-gourmey-lab-grown-meat-cultivated-chicken-singapore-approval/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 2 sentences in this entry. Singapore approves cultivated duck. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/parima-lab-grown-meat-cultivated-duck-gourmey-singapore-approval/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 2 sentences in this entry. Singapore approves Aleph Farms' cultivated beef. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/aleph-farms-lab-grown-meat-cultivated-beef-singapore-approval-launch/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. FSANZ approves Vow's cultured quail. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/vow-cultured-quail-lab-grown-meat-australia-fsanz-approved/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. Vow cuts staff and changes chief executive. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/vow-australia-ceo-layoffs-lab-grown-cultivated-meat-startup-cultured-quail/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 2 sentences in this entry. Singapore approves cultivated pet food. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/friends-and-family-pet-food-company-lab-grown-cultivated-meat-approval-singapore/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. Umami Bioworks enters the EU feed materials register. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/umami-bioworks-lab-grown-meat-fish-eu-approval-pet-food/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. Completed safety assessments of novel foods including genetically modified (GM) foods. Health Canada. regulator. [Open the source ↗](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutrition/genetically-modified-foods-other-novel-foods/approved-products.html) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 2 sentences in this entry. Wildtype cultivated salmon reaches restaurant menus. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/wildtype-salmon-fda-lab-grown-cultivated-meat-restaurants/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. Vow's cultured quail reaches Australian retail. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/vow-cultured-quail-lab-grown-cultivated-meat-australia-forged/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 2 sentences in this entry. Mission Barns sells cultivated pork in a US supermarket. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/mission-barns-lab-grown-meat-cultivated-pork-supermarket-berkeley-bowl/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. GOOD Meat at Huber's Butchery. GOOD Meat. company. [Open the source ↗](https://www.goodmeat.co/butchery) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. Cultivated meat funding falls to its lowest total since 2018. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-outlook-funding-companies-challenges/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. Believer Meats shuts down, facing a lawsuit. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/believer-meats-cultivated-lab-grown-meat-shuts-down-lawsuit/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. Meatable winds down after failing to raise funds. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/meatable-lab-grown-meat-cultivated-pork-startup-funding-shuts-down/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. UPSIDE Foods and Eat Just pause restaurant tastings. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/upside-foods-eat-just-cultivated-meat-tastings-restaurant/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. Eat Just pauses Singapore production. Green Queen. press. [Open the source ↗](https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/eat-just-good-meat-cultivated-chicken-singapore-operations/) Checked 18 September 2026. Backs 1 sentence in this entry. How this was written ## Method and care Every factual sentence here was checked against a retrieved copy of the source it names: one sentence, one retrieved source, one verbatim quote, one checked date. No person reviewed or approved these sentences before publication. Reviewed by: — no named reviewer has reviewed this entry, and no clinician has. It is a compilation of published sources by this site. Written by: Find My Next Bite's writing agent, 18 September 2026. No person reviewed or approved these sentences before publication. Funding: this section is unfunded. It takes no sponsorship, and the rule we adopted in advance says no funder may ever be a company whose products the entries or the directory describe. Corrections: if a source here has changed, moved or been retracted, tell us and we will suspend the sentence and record the change. Sources used: the FDA's inventory of human food made with cultured animal cells, Health Canada's completed novel-food assessment table, one maker's retail page, and sixteen dated articles from Green Queen. Request a correction ↗ [Read our approach](/#how-it-works) [Explore the food →](/foods/)