As first reported in tech publication Wired, cultivated meat company Upside Foods has halted its plan to construct and open a 187,000-sq.-ft. processing plant in Glenview, Ill., instead shifting its focus to expanding operations at its established facility in Emeryville, Calif.
In an email from CEO Uma Valeti that was leaked to Wired, the company said the shift would cost “substantially less” than building the first phase of the Illinois facility — which was announced in September 2023 — and that it had also begun streamlining operations and stopping non-critical work.
Workers who were involved in the Illinois plant’s development have been released and offered severance, according to the report, and the company was also planning other layoffs and “changes” that expected to affect 16 employees.
Upside Foods still plans to build a full-scale facility, the email also said, but the company needed to deliver “key proof points” through the California facility before that plan could continue. An Upside Foods spokesperson confirmed that point to Wired as well.
All this news deals a significant blow to Upside and the cultivated-meat industry. The proposed Illinois facility was expected to cost more than $140 million to build, leading to a facility with a potential capacity of more than 30 million pounds of product per year.
