Upside Foods announces another round of layoffs in a restructuring

Upside Foods

Upside Foods laid off staff in a restructuring, its third round after cuts in February and July 2024, without disclosing the number. The company paused its large Glenview, Illinois plant to scale up its smaller Emeryville, California facility, citing lower costs and scarcity of funding in the cultivated meat sector.

• Third restructuring in less than a year signals persistent challenges in capital raising and commercialization timelines.
• Shift away from Glenview to Emeryville reflects capital constraints; scaling up a smaller facility costs "substantially less" than building larger plants.
• Broader context: cultivated meat funding declined sharply from its 2021 peak as investor sentiment shifted.