After Cultivated Meat, Mississippi Becomes First US State to Ban Cell-Cultured Dairy

Mississippi has enacted the US’s first ban on the sale of cultivated dairy products, with Governor Tate Reeves allowing the bill to pass without his signature.

A US state has outlawed a food category that is nowhere to be seen yet.

Mississippi has banned the production and sale of cultivated dairy products, such as milk, cheese and more, becoming the first state in the country to do so.

The law will come into effect on July 1, and businesses found violating it could have their licenses revoked or suspended, and be fined up to $500 a day, with a maximum penalty of $10,000.

It comes a year after Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill to prohibit the sale of cultivated meat, which is produced using a similar technology.

Mississippi ban on cultivated dairy passes without the governor’s signature

The bill was introduced by Representative Bill Pigott, a beef and dairy farmer who has long been an opponent of alternative proteins.

HB 1153 defined cultivated dairy products as those “intended to replicate or to substitute for milk” and “derived from animal cells cultured outside of a live animal”.

It doesn’t include precision-fermented products, which do not use animal inputs in their products, instead relying on yeast to produce recombinant dairy proteins and fats. Several companies have already received approval and commercialised animal-free dairy products produced with this technology.

Pigott’s proposal travelled through the legislative chambers without much opposition, which is why Governor Tate Reeves allowed the bill to pass without his signature.

Andy Gipson, the state’s agriculture commissioner, praised the measure during a speech at a National Ag Day event last week. “We are living in a time where it seems everything is artificial, and you wonder what is real,” the 2026 gubernatorial candidate said.

“We’ve seen everything from fake grass – Astroturf – to fake meat, and now they’ve come up with lab-grown, or fake, milk. So today, we’re especially proud to be here to celebrate agriculture and to promote real food for real people. Thank you to our legislators for making Mississippi the first state in America to outlaw fake milk.”

Cultivated dairy isn’t even on sale yet

Mississippi’s decision to ban cell-cultured dairy follows its ban on cultivated meat, both of which resulted from a bill sponsored by Pigott and fellow Republican Representative Lester Carpenter.

Pigott’s policy challenges against alternative proteins date back to 2019, when he floated a bill to restrict how these products are labelled in the state. That effort was unsuccessful, but it preceded a similar measure to restrict the labelling of cultivated meat, which Reeves signed the same year.

Further, this latest bill expands and tightens Mississippi’s rules on how meat and related products can be labelled, in an effort to ensure a food isn’t “misbranded as a meat product”. It will update multiple sections of state law to clarify the legal definition for meat, manufactured proteins, cultivated meat, plant-based alternatives, and more.

The attack on cultivated dairy seems a bit futile, given that no such product has reached market anywhere in the world so far. And very few companies seem to be working on this specific technology, such as Opalia, Wilk, Senara, and Brown Foods.

Opalia is coming close, though, having secured the world’s first commercial supply agreement for cell-based dairy last year. It’s now preparing to file for regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Legislative bans on cultivated proteins are a growing trend in the US, including Mississippi. Eight states have now banned or placed a moratorium on the sale of cultivated meat: Florida, Alabama, Montana, Indiana, Nebraska, Texas, and South Dakota.

Other states are hoping to hop on the bandwagon. Arizona is attempting to ban cultivated meat with a bill that could put violators in prison for 18 months, and Virginia has floated a bill to impose labelling restrictions on these proteins.

Will Mississippi’s latest measure open the floodgates for cultivated dairy, too?