UPSIDE FOODS

Uma Valeti was a cardiologist at the University of Minnesota who spent years growing heart tissue from cells to repair damaged hearts. One day, he realized: if you can grow heart tissue in a lab, why not chicken?

In 2015, he founded Memphis Meats (later Upside Foods) with the thesis that cell cultivation — already proven in medicine — could produce food. The first cell-cultivated meatball was produced in 2016.

By 2023, Upside had built a 53,000 square foot production facility (EPIC) in Emeryville, California, and received the historic dual USDA/FDA approval.

Cell-cultivated meat company. Upside Foods grows real animal meat from cells — no animal slaughter required.

The process: take a small cell sample from an animal, place it in a bioreactor (essentially a brewery for cells), feed it nutrients, and harvest real meat. Revenue will come from food service partnerships and eventually retail sales.

The company received USDA and FDA approval in 2023, making it one of the first cell-cultivated meat companies cleared for US sale.

Upside Chicken (cell-cultivated chicken — the first cell-cultivated meat product approved for US sale), and the EPIC production facility (53,000 sq ft cell-cultivation plant in Emeryville, CA). The chicken is molecularly identical to conventional chicken — same taste, same texture, same nutrition.

Food service first, retail later. Upside's strategy is to launch in high-end restaurants where price sensitivity is lower and the novelty factor drives demand.

Chef partnerships (Dominique Crenn's Atelier Crenn was the first US restaurant to serve cell-cultivated meat) create buzz and normalization. Gradually scale production, reduce costs, and expand to casual restaurants, food service, and eventually grocery stores.

Cost. Cell-cultivated meat currently costs roughly $20-50 per pound to produce — far more than conventional chicken ($3-4/lb).

The bioreactors required are expensive, the nutrient media (the "food" for cells) is expensive, and scaling from lab to commercial production requires enormous capital. Environmental groups and the conventional meat industry have pushed back — with "lab-grown meat" bans passed in several US states.

Consumer acceptance is uncertain — will people eat meat grown in a bioreactor?

SoftBank Vision Fund, Temasek, Cargill, Tyson Foods, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, John Mackey, and Kimbal Musk have backed Upside Foods.