USDA approves sale of 'lab-grown' chicken from two Bay Area companies.

The US Agriculture Department has approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat, to offer "lab-grown" meat to restaurants and eventually supermarkets. The move aims to eliminate harm to animals and reduce the environmental impacts of traditional meat production. Cultivated meat is grown in steel tanks, using cells that come from a living animal, a fertilized egg, or a special bank of stored cells. However, the cost of cultivated chicken is much higher than meat from whole, farmed birds and cannot yet be produced on the scale of traditional meat.