Upside Foods to build “commercial-scale” plant for cell-based meat

The California-based business is selling its cultivated meat in restaurants after receiving regulatory approval in June.

Dean Best October 2, 2023

Upside Foods’ cultivated meat. Credit: Upside Foods

US cell-based meat business Upside Foods is to set up its first “large-scale” factory.

The California-based business is selling its cultivated meat in restaurants after receiving regulatory approval in June.

Yesterday (14 September), the company announced its plans for a new facility, a sign of its belief in the prospects for the nascent industry.

The 187,000-square-foot plant will be located in Glenview in Illinois. Upside Foods said the first product to be made at the site will be cell-cultivated chicken, “with plans to expand to other species and whole-textured formats in the future”.

In a statement, Upside Foods said the facility will have an “initial capacity to produce millions of pounds of cultivated meat products per year and the potential to expand to over 30m pounds”.

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In June, the US Department of Agriculture cleared cell-based chicken from Upside Foods – and from a second company, Good Meat – for sale.

At the time, Upside Foods said its first product to hit the market would be a “whole-textured chicken product that is over 99% cultivated chicken cells”.

The company is selling its cell-based chicken at Bar Crenn in San Francisco “for monthly dinner services”.

The company has attracted investment from US meat giants Tyson Foods and Cargill. It has raised more than $600m to date.

Interview, March 2013: “We are here because we want to change the world” – Upside Foods’ Amy Chen on the US cultivated-meat firm’s plans post-FDA approval