UPSIDE Foods responds to the recent Bloomberg article (https://lnkd.in/gtszKEFy)... "The most glaring omission from the article is the tremendous progress we have made towards commercial scale, including the critical role of large-scale “suspension” products in our strategy. "The article concludes that the industry, and UPSIDE specifically, does not have a path to scale its product and has “little to show for itself.” This is inaccurate and is a dated snapshot of our progress from several years ago. Bloomberg ignored our repeated requests stating that our tissue product is not slated for scaling near-term and that we are instead focused on first commercializing our suspension product, which produces delicious blended cultivated meat products. "This suspension product was the basis for our Series C fundraise, has been proven out through dozens of successful runs in our 2kL cultivators at EPIC, and is the design basis for our commercial scale processes. "We told Bloomberg we produced enough cells in a single cultivator in the last month to produce the equivalent of over 2,000 pounds of delicious finished chicken products. They did not print that and instead focused on the small quantities of the chicken we currently have on the market (our “tissue” product)." #foodtech #cultivatedmeat #cellularagriculture
Paul Wood AO
9mo
i was one of the people quoted in the Bloomberg article and I questioned how significant the advances made by Upside have been. There is nothing new about growing cells at the 2,000L volume in suspension, we have been doing this for many years in the biotech industry. This technology is expensive due to the capital costs, media costs and QC etc. The challenge is to produce products that are high value nutritionally , taste good and can compete in the market against chicken, the cheapest of all the meats. You claim to be transparent but never talk about COGs, scrap rate , blending ratios etc. I wish you luck because, I cant get the numbers to add up to make this a viable business.
I wish Upside have crafted a response that is not just for Bloomberg and the scientific communities that may understand (to some extent) some of the technical terms that are used to describe their product. Unfortunately, some of these terms were even difficult for me to wrap my head around and I imagine the struggle of an average consumer who has never been to a cell culture lab to understand these key phrases. Without trying to court any controversy, I would love to have experts in the field help explain/define these terms from the article: suspension product, delicious blended cultivated meat products, suspension chicken, cultivated chicken (made from our small scale tissue process), and delicious suspension products. In a world, where we all go to the store to buy "chicken", would there be a time when we start saying "hey, get me some suspension chicken from Walmart". This category needs a better messaging strategy.
John Foraker
9mo
When you are explaining like this in a press release, to challenge a deeply reported story, written by credible journalists, you are basically losing. You may not know it, but you are. I do understand the anger and the very human feeling that you need to do something to fight back. PR people probably think that’s right. I’m not the expert there go ahead and educate me. However, I think it’s a much better response to just shut up and prove the critics wrong in the marketplace with real products, real commercial success, and real data on that with consumers. Business by press release has been way too prevalent these past few years IMO. Its mostly, 95% of the time, bullshit and I’m so tired of it. I know it’s unpopular to call out but it’s real.
Jimmy Lee
9mo
This is like the lamest thing I've ever read from a company. If their product and process is so good then they'll show it in the market place and with sales, profitability, and their business model. Simple as that. Seems like the CEO of the company is a bit butt hurt (for a lack of a better term).
This is such a joke. Gee a news outlet is focused on the one product they have on the market that's been government approved. Their response: "Hey we're not scaling that product why would you ever think we are?? But look we promise to have another product that's not government approved or on the market. And how do we know we can scale that? Because we said so that's why." This from a company that's done nothing but lie lie lie. The investors should sue for fraud.
Edward Albe, MBA
9mo
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." ~Mahatma Gandhi Just a little something to boost everyones morale ...if need be, that is: I had this same problem with a startup in spectroscopy that had a novel (aka different) way of doing things... they were just acquired by one of the behemoth former nayasayers.
Elysabeth Alfano
9mo
I was surprised by this. Even though I think they like having the debate play out on line for more traction, they do allow UPSIDE Foods to rightfully throw them under the bus. Perhaps it is their stab at balanced journalism, but...they have a long way to go there. Meanwhile, I do think the debate brings cultivated meat and other protein diversifications to the fore of the general public, and that is a good thing. Albeit, it is too early really to be discussing cultivated meat, in my opinion, as it has 5-8 years to market if not more.
Justin Kamine
9mo
2000lbs is ~400 chickens worth of meat… meanwhile we slaughter in the US ~175m chicken a week. It’s irrelevant
Simon Leich
9mo
I know the horse has bolted, but this is a great example of why you need some expertise on the team who are steeped with crisis management strategies. A pretty weak response all round
R&D Consultant | Technical Due Diligence | Food, Fermentation, Agriculture, and Water-Tech Innovation Analyst | Microbiologist
9moEven though I'm working here in a bomb shelter, I’m still reminded of my privilege. Outside, agriculturalist friends and family risk their lives daily to harvest produce and care for their farm animals with missiles whistling above. Much of the ag land in Israel is located along the borders of conflict areas; a lot of the non-arable land has also been dedicated to cow grazing due to the landmines in these areas (causing an occasional exploding cow). I'd rather be eating from an indoor vertical farm or bioreactor vs. sharing this space with a cow and chickens. In the Netherlands, gov restrictions have currently halted all housing and agricultural expansion due to severe nitrogen pollution. 2 years ago, I had friends begging me to ship baby formula to them in the US, as the leading formula factories were shut down due to contamination. Even in the 1st world, we need more resilient, decentralized solutions to buffer against increasing geopolitical, climatic, and contamination food challenges: CM production can be one of the ways to get there. Let's not kill this new industry with bad PR before it's given the same subsidies, R&D, supply chain ecosystem, marketing, and corporate support as the current food paradigms have been given.