In an effort to maintain trust with consumers and protect livestock producers, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds recently signed into law SF 2391, a bill prohibiting the misbranding of certain food products, including lab-grown meat.
Beginning July 1, lab-grown meat and plant-based imitation meat and egg products will have to be labeled with words such as fake, lab-grown, meatless, imitation or vegan, if sold in Iowa stores. The labeling requirements also apply to meat alternatives made with insect protein.
Gov. Reynolds shared her response to signing SF 2391.
“This legislation prohibits companies from exploiting the trust consumers have with our livestock producers and misleading consumers into buying products they don’t want,” she says. “This is about transparency. It’s about the common-sense idea that a product labeled chicken, beef, or pork, should actually come from an animal.”
Rep. Heather Hora, R-Washington, sponsored the bill in the House. As a pork producer herself, she says the bill protects farmers’ checkoff dollars that are used to market meat and eggs.
According to an Iowa Public Radio (IPR) article, the law will require the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing to inspect food processing plants or grocery stores for compliance if they receive a credible complaint about food products being mislabeled as meat. The law also provides penalties for not following labeling rules.
Furthermore, the law prohibits school districts, community colleges and public universities in Iowa from purchasing lab-grown meat and any foods misbranded as meat or egg products. In addition, the law requires the state to request a federal waiver to prohibit the use of federal food assistance to buy imitation egg products.
While many praised the legislation, some Democrats said their issue was with the purchase of egg alternatives.
IPR reported Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, says he was proud to vote for the original version of the bill but had concerns with the final version.
“Truth in labeling is certainly something that I strongly believe in for consumer protection,” he says. “But I’m also concerned with consumer nutrition. And there are some people who can’t eat eggs because of allergies but still need the nutritive content that might be supplied by alternative products.”
That same day, Gov. Reynolds signed HF 2649, a bill providing capital gains relief for farmers and ranchers selling certain classes of livestock. This was a bill to reinstate previous tax break exemptions that had ended in 2022.
“Our tax code should promote livestock production, which we know is often how beginning farmers get their start in agriculture,” says Rep. Derek Wulf, R-Hudson, who co-sponsored the bill. “We know that livestock production supports rural communities and drives our rural economic activity…We want to make sure that we don’t increase taxes on our livestock producers and farmers here in this state.”
Continued legislation against lab-grown meat
Iowa becomes the third state in the country to pass legislation regarding lab-grown meat. Florida and Alabama both passed laws banning the sale of the cell cultured alternative meat product in their states this month. Florida’s law was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 1, 2024, and Alabama’s Gov. Kay Ivey signed the Alabama Bill, which the prohibits “the manufacture, sale, or distribution of food products made from cultured animal cells,” on May 7.
Jack Hubbard, executive director of the Center for the Environment and Welfare, shares that consumers have several concerns in the matters of cell cultured meat.
“Policymakers nationwide are grappling with growing consumer concern regarding lab-grown meat’s use of immortalized cells, bioreactors, chemicals and the lack of long-term health studies,” Hubbard says. “I think a lot of this legislative activity is politicians and elected representatives voicing and acting on the concerns of constituents who are saying ‘what is this stuff and have we done our due diligence.’ And to be frank, there is a major yuck factor that a lot of people have when they actually learn about how this is made.”
Hubbard see additional states likely following suit in creating legislation.
“From a transparency perspective, it just seems like the right thing that consumers ought to have a right to know what they’re buying,” he says.
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