MOMENTS OF
TRUTH
This project spotlights people in Texas who experienced turning points that reshaped the course of their lives.
ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN IBAÑEZ
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KATIE KAM: Pretty much anyone I have a conversation with, I’ll be like, “Hey, have you heard about cultured meat? This is what it is. I think it’s the future.” I am Katie Kam. I’m the CEO and Founder of BioBQ, a cultured meat company based here in Austin, Texas. We are focused specifically on creating beef brisket from culturing cells.
Cultured meat is when you take the cells of a living animal and continue growing those cells outside the animal to create the meat that you want.
There’s certainly some threats to the cattle industry here in Texas. You have the screwworm coming up from Mexico, you know, we could have some drought issues.
So to create a more resilient food and agricultural economy in Texas, we really need the state of Texas to embrace cultured meat. This is the win-win solution where people get the meat that they want to eat without having the negative aspects of slaughtered meat – the animal welfare, the environmental, um, the worker conditions.
We pull the cells from live animals. Well, we can, we keep those animals alive. They continue to live and graze on Texas land.
The decision to focus on barbecue brisket goes back to, you know, living in Austin and knowing people talk about how good the brisket is at different barbecue restaurants. You know, I just knew that that was like, “oh yeah, that’s, that’s the product I want to introduce to the world.”
STATE SENATOR KELLY HANCOCK: (Bangs gavel) Senate committee on water, agriculture and rural affairs. Come to order. Clerk, call roll.
KATIE KAM: There was a law introduced at this 2025 Texas legislative session to ban sales of cultured meat.
STATE SENATOR KELLY HANCOCK: At this time, chair lays out Senate bill 261. Recognizes the author, Chairman Perry, to explain the bill.
STATE SENATOR CHARLES PERRY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members, no cell cultured meat. The introduction of lab grown meat could disrupt traditional livestock markets affecting rural communities and family farms. There’s some concerns over the transparency in labeling, risk of contamination and long-term health impacts…. (Audio fades out)
KATIE KAM: I have never been involved with state politics before at this Capitol, so this was a new experience for me, but I went and testified.
KATIE KAM (speaking at hearing in March): As a lifelong Texan, I appreciate the committee’s concern for Texas’ traditional industries. However, I must testify in strong opposition to Senate Bill 261.
KATIE KAM: Uh, just asked them to, “Hey, I want you to be proud that BioBQ is a Texas business, and I want you to want us to be successful and to create another, uh, line of meat business in Texas.”
But my heart is set on this. I’m determined to make this happen, and I have a whole crew of people that are in the same – they also have a passion for this, and so we’re just gonna keep moving forward and, uh, yeah, hopefully I’ll have my barbecue food trailer with smoked brisket out for sale in Austin, Texas in a few years.
Why this proud Texan wants the state to embrace lab-grown meat
Katie Kam, the founder of BioBQ, poses in front of the Texas Capitol on Aug. 25, 2025. BioBQ is a lab-grown meat startup focused on barbecue brisket.
JESSICA SHURAN YU / NEXTGENRADIO
Katie Kam dreams of selling lab-grown barbecue brisket out of a food truck. As an Austinite and longtime vegan, she thinks paying homage to the food truck scene in her hometown would be the perfect way to one day launch her product.
Kam, a fourth-generation Texan, is the founder and CEO of BioBQ, a cultured-meat startup. Cultured meat, also commonly known as lab-grown meat, is made from taking cells from live animals and growing them in an incubator or bioreactor until they form a meat-like product that can be consumed by humans.
“Pretty much anyone I would have a conversation with I’d be like, ‘Hey, have you heard about cultured meat? This is what it is. I think it’s the future,’” Kam said.
Kam shows an image of a cultured-meat sample next to an image of conventional beef brisket on her phone. BioBQ has created prototypes but is not ready to sell its products.
JESSICA SHURAN YU / NEXTGENRADIO
Cultured-meat researchers and proponents believe the product can one day provide a more resilient food source that’s safe from diseases such as bird flu or parasites, including screwworms. However, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law this year that bans the sale of lab-grown meat for two years, starting Sept. 1.
“Introduction of lab-grown meat could disrupt traditional livestock markets, affecting rural communities and family farms,” state Sen. Charles Perry said at a committee hearing in March. The Lubbock Republican authored the bill aimed at regulating lab-grown meat.
Kam, who has never been involved with state politics before, testified against the bill.
Experts in the cultured-meat industry say Texas’ ban – one of seven state bans nationwide – likely will have minimal impact on the food market, since the industry is not ready to sell its products on a large scale.
“The amount of cultivated meat being produced and being sold is going to be so small over the next two years … that there’s really no viable economic impact,” said Paul Mozdziak, a North Carolina State University professor who has been studying cultured meat since 1992. “It’s really a political ban, rather than really having an impactful ban on the cultivated-meat companies.”
Kam, however, is worried that this ban will have a “chilling effect” on investors.
“If investors see that the state government will just go and ban a business or an industry without good reason, … it increases the uncertainty that they don’t like to have when they’re investing in a company,” she said.
Kam grew up eating meat and worked as a waitress in a barbecue restaurant. When she was 18, she decided to become a vegetarian after reading about the environmental impacts of eating meat. Ten years later, she made the switch to being a vegan.
For years, Kam thought and talked about cultured meat constantly.
“This is the win-win solution where people get the meat that they wanted to eat without having the negative aspects of slaughtered meat, the animal welfare, the environmental [impacts] … the worker conditions.”
Kam understands that the cattle industry is an important part of Texas heritage, but she hopes Texans can embrace cultured meat in the same way.
“We are still a part of Texas culture,” she said. “Texas is about technology, and then we’re also about our heritage, and that heritage includes this history of cattle ranching.”
Since cultured meat products require taking cattle cells and using technology to grow the cells, Kam believes that her company is “taking two industries that feel like they are a part of Texas’ identity and bringing them together.”
BioBQ is taking two industries – cattle ranching and technology – “that feel like they are a part of Texas’ identity and bringing them together,” Kam says.
JESSICA SHURAN YU / NEXTGENRADIO
Despite her concerns that the law will scare off investors, she is thankful that she can still continue to make advancements on the research side of her business and hopeful that the ban on sales of cultured meat eventually will be overturned.
“My heart is set on this. I am determined to make this happen,” Kam said. “Hopefully, I’ll have my barbecue food trailer with smoked brisket out for sale in Austin, Texas, in a few years.”
Editor’s note: This story includes previous reporting for The Texas Tribune.