Biotechnology

Upside Foods

Medium42% confidenceProfile verified Jul 27, 2026

Pioneer in cultivated (lab-grown) meat and one of only two US companies, alongside Good Meat, to have gained USDA regulatory approval for cell-based meat products (June 2023), backed by $611 million in total funding. Facing a challenging funding environment, Upside paused construction of its Rubicon cell-based production facility in Glenview, Illinois in 2024 to refocus resources on doubling investment in its existing EPIC production site in California, and has more recently cut jobs amid the same funding pressure. The company gained wide public exposure when creator MrBeast toured its production site and could not distinguish its cultivated chicken from conventional chicken in a taste test.

Sources

Every claim traced to a primary source — evidence, recent activity, and insider filing behavior, all in one place.

Evidence

1 source · 42% avg. source confidence

  • Yahoo FinanceLab-grown meat business Upside Foods to cut jobs42% source confidence

Dependency Map

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The Story So Far

Jun 2023: Gains USDA approval for cultivated chickenJan 2024: Pauses Rubicon facility constructionFeb 2026: Lab-grown meat business Upside Foods to cut jobs

Auto-generated from this entity's dated milestones, relationship updates, and sourced evidence — not AI-written, just sorted.

Upside Foods's Timeline

A sourced, dated history of Upside Foods's key moments — founding to present.

  1. Jun 2023 · Gains USDA approval for cultivated chicken

    Upside Foods became one of the first two US companies (alongside Good Meat) to gain USDA regulatory approval for cultivated meat.

  2. Jan 2024 · Pauses Rubicon facility construction

    Upside Foods paused construction of its Rubicon cell-based meat production facility in Glenview, Illinois, citing a challenging funding environment, and refocused investment on its existing EPIC site in California.