Upside Foods hopes consumers will buy cultivated meat in 2022

Near the end of last year, Upside Foods Inc. opened a meat processing plant like no other. Inside the $50 million facility, just outside Berkeley, Calif., workers cultivate small clumps of animal cells in large vats over two weeks, slowly growing them into chicken breasts and steaks. No animal is slaughtered at any point in the process—the flesh is manufactured. At 53,000 square feet, the factory is thelargest ever dedicated to so-called cultivated meat; the company hopes consumers will be able to buy the meat it makes sometime in 2022.

Unlike plant-based meat alternatives that have been on the market for years, cultivated meat is real meat. The techniques used to grow it are well developed; the problem for startups such as Upside is producing the meat in large quantities while achieving the smell, texture, and mouthfeel diners expect.

After seven years of work, Upside says it’s ready to pump out as much as 50,000 pounds of food from the California plant. “We want to be able to ship product from here nationally and then internationally,” says Uma Valeti, the chief executive officer and co-founder. He says Upside can make just about any meat product but it will focus first on things like chicken nuggets and chicken breasts and has already started production at the facility. When I tried an Upside chicken breast last year, it smelled and looked exactly like grilled chicken. It tasted like it, too, though the texture was a bit softer and less juicy.

My taste test required me to sign a waiver. Before the public gets the same chance to try it, Upside needs a green light from U.S. regulators. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture have spent three years figuring out how they’ll monitor the cultivated meat industry, visiting laboratories and examining every process companies use to make their products.

Although cultivated meat itself is considered safe, there are plenty of unanswered questions about how often the vats should be cleaned and how the meat should be transported and stored.

There’s also the question of what to name it. The agencies issued a publicrequest for comment in November, asking interested parties to chime in on exactly what meat that’s been raised in a vat should be called. Upside and others have pushed for “cultivated meat” instead of “synthetic meat,” “vat meat,” or other less appetizing alternatives.

Such deliberations are an encouraging sign for those hoping U.S. agencies will soon approve the products. Another potentially favorable development: The USDA recently spent $10 million to create the National Institute for Cellular agriculture, which is meant to back research in the field and turn the U.S. into a leader in manufactured meat. “There’s been this haggling over the regulatory framework, but these are signs that the agencies are really close,” says Chase Purdy, the author ofBillion Dollar Burger: Inside Big Tech’s Race for the Future of Food.

It’s already possible to purchase some types of man-made meat. In December 2020,Singapore became the first nation to approve the sale of cultivated meat. Israel’sAleph Farms says it will be ready with some vat-grown thin-cut steaks by yearend. California companies such as Blue Nalu Inc.andWildtype hope to follow with seafood products, including sushi-grade fish. Meanwhile, San Francisco-based Eat Just Inc.is already selling Chickenin Singapore.

According to Purdy, there’s been pushback from beef ranchers and their lobbyists about the arrival of cultured meat, though industrial processors have largely welcomedthe technology. Given the regulatory activity and the hundreds of millions of dollars already invested in American startups, the U.S. has a strong interest in becoming an early leader in the industry. “My view is that it might be a perfect storm that makes the U.S. the next country to greenlight cultured meat,” Purdy says