Live updates: Baltimore bridge collapseRFK Jr. running mateBird flu‘Diddy’ investigationIsrael-Hamas warAP FACT CHECKConfusion about brand name leads to false claims about Aldi’s bacon
CLAIM: Bacon sold by Aldi grocery stores under its brand Appleton Meats does not come from pigs and is instead grown from cells in a lab.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Aldi told The Associated Press that products sold through its store brand — Appleton Farms — “are not produced through cultivated lab practices.” A Canadian company named Appleton Meats, which is not affiliated with Appleton Farms, was founded in 2017 with the goal of producing lab-grown meat, according to local news reports.
Social media users are circulating false claims about Aldi’s store brand bacon, confusing it with a cellular agriculture company that has a similar name. Many shared identical text, along with a picture of the chain’s Appleton Farms premium sliced bacon sitting in a grocery cart.
But Aldi’s store brand is called Appleton Farms, not Appleton Meats, and its bacon is not grown in a lab. “Our Appleton Farms products are not produced through cultivated lab practices,” Aldi told the AP.
Appleton Meats is a Canadian company founded in 2017, according to local news reports. Aldi confirmed to the AP that it has no affiliation with Appleton Meats.
It is unclear whether Appleton Meats is still in operation, but its founder Sid Deen told The Canadian Press news agency in 2019 that the company was conducting initial research on how to best grow meat from cells. He anticipated that Appleton Meats would have a product to sell within three to five years.
Deen’s LinkedIn profile describes Appleton Meats as “a cultivated meat company currently in research and development” that hopes “to produce meat which can be obtained without the need for animal husbandry, through the use of cells and cellular agriculture.”
