Upside Foods facts for kids

Upside Foods is a company based in Berkeley, California. They are known for making "cultured meat." This means they grow real meat in a lab, without needing to raise and butcher animals. Their goal is to create food that is good for the planet.

The company was started in 2015 by three people: Uma Valeti, Nicholas Genovese, and Will Clem. Before this, Uma Valeti was a heart doctor and a professor.

Upside Foods uses special science called biotechnology. They take tiny cells, called stem cells, and help them grow into real meat. This growing process happens inside large containers called bioreactors. They aim to make different kinds of meat products this way.

How Upside Foods Started

In February 2016, Upside Foods, then called Memphis Meats, showed a video of a meatball they grew in their lab. A year later, in March 2017, they showed videos of cultured chicken and duck dishes.

The company hoped to make their meat for about 60 euros per kilogram. They also planned to start selling their products by 2020.

Getting Support and Funding

In August 2017, Memphis Meats announced they had raised $17 million to help their company grow. Many important people and companies invested in them. These included Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and large food companies like Cargill.

At first, making cultured beef was very expensive. It cost about $18,000 for one pound. Cultured chicken was also costly, around $9,000 per pound. By June 2017, the company had worked hard to lower these costs. They got the price down to less than $2,400 per pound. They believed they could make it even cheaper and sell their products by 2021.

In January 2020, Memphis Meats raised a lot more money, $161 million. This new funding came from big investment groups like SoftBank Group and Temasek. Many of their earlier investors, like Richard Branson and Bill Gates, also joined in again.

Changing the Name and Growing

In May 2021, the company changed its name from Memphis Meats to Upside Foods. Later that year, in September 2021, one of the founders, Nicholas Genovese, left the company.

On November 4, 2021, Upside Foods opened its first big production factory. They called it the "Engineering, Production, and Innovation Center," or EPIC. This large building is in Emeryville, California. It uses clean energy to power its vats and tubes. The factory was designed to make about 22,680 kilograms (50,000 pounds) of cultured meat each year for sale.

Getting Approval to Sell Meat

On November 17, 2022, the FDA in the United States looked at Upside Foods' cultured chicken. The FDA said they had no questions about the safety of the chicken. This was a big step, making Upside Foods the first company to complete this review for cultured meat. However, the FDA made it clear this was not a full approval yet.

In April 2023, Upside Foods announced new products. These were made from chicken cells mixed with plant protein and seasonings. The company also found a way to grow cells more cheaply.

In May 2023, the company's Chief Operating Officer said their first commercial plants would likely open later that year. In June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the label for Upside Foods' lab-grown chicken. This was another important step for selling their products in the United States.

In September 2023, Upside Foods shared plans to build a new facility in Glenview, Illinois. This large building was meant to make chicken nugget-like products. However, these products still needed more approval from regulators.

Challenges and Changes

On September 15, 2023, a magazine called Wired reported some problems with Upside Foods' technology. The report said the company was mostly using smaller, less efficient ways to grow meat. These methods produced less meat and were not good for making large cuts of meat.

In February 2024, Upside Foods announced they would not build the Glenview facility after all. Instead, they decided to focus on making their current California factory bigger. This decision also led to some job cuts at the company. More job cuts happened in July 2024 and again in March 2025.