Lab-grown chicken nuggets and chocolate? How Calif.'s Yolo County is shaping the future of food
Fengru Lin, CEO and co-founder of Singapore biotechnology start-up TurtleTree, stands in July inside a plant that will open this fall in West Sacramento. - Renée C. Byer/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. Melted chocolate whirred around a melanger in California Cultured’s workshop, destined to be poured, hardened and broken into little squares. A tasty dessert, not yet legal to sell in the U.S. This chocolate didn’t come from cacao pods in South America or Africa. It was grown in laboratory flasks and metal tanks inside a West Sacramento industrial park, part of a growing regional trend. Yolo County has long been an agricultural hub. Now, its food tech companies are shaping what we eat in a different way. From Davis to Woodland and West Sacramento, California, the county has ...