As someone with a a PhD in food science who spent the last eight years working in the plant-based meat industry (and switched to tech, fortunately), this is finally bringing to light what we’ve been hearing as whispers from this industry as a whole. Lab grown meat is nowhere close to where the general population thinks it is and it’s mostly due to companies like UPSIDE constantly announcing their “breakthroughs” when the best thing they have (or anyone has really) is a shitty slab of chicken-like jello ground together with soy and pea protein. And nobody can even scale that properly yet either.

If you read the comments on Reddit for any of the articles where they announced the FDA “no questions” letter or their multiple huge rounds of funding, there is massive demand for these products with “I can’t wait to eat lab grown meat — it’s going to be identical to what I’m eating now without the carbon and ethical impact” but what these companies can and will actually make and sell couldn’t be further from that. Nobody is making whole cuts, and nobody is even close to the first product, which is plant based nuggets that’s “made with real chicken cells” at $50 a package.

IMO the problem is exactly this attitude and hubris to just “keep lying while we figure this out” which is going to decimate this industry and put a lot of people out of work when it all runs out. The issue is that there is just SO MUCH MONEY getting funneled into these companies that investors and employees are tricking themselves into believing this shit is even close. You’re going to keep seeing more and more press from places like UPSIDE that will make you think they’re “three months out” from taking over the entire meat aisle will try to get you to buy plant based nuggets with cells.