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Food Safety News’ Oct. 2026 Sunday Edition looks at the sharp contrast between earlier investment in cultivated meat and a wave of company closures, including Believer Meats in 2025. The report describes financing, manufacturing costs and uncertain commercialization timelines as major constraints; it does not establish that the sector has ended or that all companies face the same prospects.
The Good Food Institute reported that cultivated meat and seafood companies attracted more than $2.5 billion from 2021 through 2023. Food Safety News says the total may be an underestimate because investment was moving quickly and was difficult to track. The report names Upside Foods, Believer Meats, Wildtype, Aleph Farms and Mosa Meat among the five companies that received about half of venture-capital funding by 2023. It also notes investment from sovereign wealth funds and established meat companies Tyson Foods and JBS.
The report describes several businesses that ceased operations in late 2025. Netherlands-based Meatable shut down after acquiring Uncommon Bio’s cultivated-meat platform, while UK company CellRev said it could not meet commercial milestones in time to secure investment. Upstream Foods, a Dutch startup developing cultivated fish fat, also closed after failing to raise the capital it needed.
Believer Meats had completed a $125 million manufacturing plant near Raleigh, North Carolina, in a 200,000-square-foot facility equipped with bioreactors and centrifuges. Food Safety News reports that the company had U.S. government approval, but lost a major financial backer and could not secure a last-minute loan. It stopped operating before producing any cultivated meat at the facility, leaving the factory unused, according to the report.
The piece describes cultivated meat as food made by growing animal cells in a controlled environment. In the approach it outlines, cells taken from an animal are placed in a nutrient-containing culture medium and grown in bioreactors, with the aim of producing meat resembling conventional products. That description explains the production concept; it does not establish that every company uses the same process or that the products have reached large-scale commercial production.
Why Cultivated Meat Funding Has Slowed
The closures matter because they show the gap between building production capacity and operating a business that can keep financing development. Believer Meats’ completed plant did not translate into production after its funding failed, according to the report. That example underlines the financial risk of investing heavily in facilities before a company has stable backing and a viable route to market.
Food Safety News attributes the wider pullback partly to a mismatch between venture-capital expectations and the sector’s timeline. Venture funds often seek substantial returns within five to seven years, while the report says cultivated meat may not be commercially viable for at least another decade, or possibly longer. Those are the article’s assessment of investor incentives and market timing, not a confirmed timetable applying to every company.
For readers, the immediate implication is that forecasts of cultivated meat becoming a near-term alternative to conventional meat deserve caution. Company closures do not by themselves settle the technology’s long-term prospects, but they make clear that investment, manufacturing costs and the ability to reach customers remain significant challenges.
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From Investment Boom to Closures
The Sunday Edition contrasts the industry’s earlier funding momentum with its more recent setbacks. By 2021, startups were attracting substantial venture-capital interest, and by 2023 cultured meat and seafood businesses had drawn more than $2.5 billion in investment, according to the Good Food Institute figure cited by Food Safety News. The report also describes backing from government-linked funds and established meat companies.
The concept predates that investment cycle. Food Safety News cites a 1931 essay by Winston Churchill, who imagined producing chicken parts without growing an entire bird. Modern cultivated-meat companies seek to grow animal cells in culture rather than raise an animal through conventional livestock production. The report recounts that promise alongside the more recent commercial setbacks; it does not provide a new regulatory decision or product launch as the reason for publication.
The report links the current difficulties to the demands of biomanufacturing. It says large bioreactors require substantial energy and specialized nutrient solutions, while facilities and equipment require major upfront spending. These are presented as broad sector pressures rather than company-by-company cost figures, which the article does not supply.
“We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.”
— Winston Churchill, quoted in the Food Safety News report from his 1931 essay “Fifty Years Hence”
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What the Shutdowns Do Not Show
The report describes specific company closures, but it does not establish that all cultivated-meat businesses have stopped operating or that the technology cannot succeed. It gives no current company-by-company funding totals, production output figures or updated commercialization schedules. Its statement that market viability may remain at least a decade away is an outlook, not a fixed deadline.
It is also unclear from the source material what has happened to the Believer Meats facility since the company ceased operations, whether its equipment or assets have been acquired, or whether another operator may use the site. The report does not provide detailed financial accounts for the named shutdowns beyond the circumstances it summarizes. It also does not assess the safety or environmental performance of specific cultivated-meat products.
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Funding and Production Milestones
The report identifies no scheduled announcement, regulatory review or production milestone for the sector as a whole. The next developments to watch are whether surviving companies can secure new financing, demonstrate production at commercial scale and bring operating costs down. Those steps would offer evidence about whether the industry can move beyond research and purpose-built facilities.
For the companies and facilities named in the report, further information would be needed to establish whether operations resume, assets change hands or new investors step in. Until those details emerge, the documented closures are a snapshot of the sector’s setbacks in 2025, not a definitive account of its future.
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Key Questions
What is cultivated meat?
Cultivated meat is produced by growing animal cells in a controlled environment. The Food Safety News report describes cells placed in a nutrient-containing medium and grown in bioreactors, with the goal of producing meat without raising a whole animal for the product.
How much investment did cultivated meat companies receive?
The Good Food Institute reported more than $2.5 billion in investment for cultured meat and seafood companies from 2021 through 2023. Food Safety News says the figure may be an underestimate and does not give a newer total.
Why did some cultivated-meat companies close?
The report cites difficulty raising capital and meeting commercial milestones, as well as the high cost of biomanufacturing. It describes different circumstances for individual companies, so there is no single stated reason for every closure.
Did Believer Meats produce cultivated chicken at its North Carolina plant?
No. According to Food Safety News, the company ceased operations before producing anything at its completed 200,000-square-foot facility near Raleigh.
Does the report say cultivated meat will never reach the market?
No. It describes a difficult funding and manufacturing environment and says commercial viability may be at least a decade away or longer. That is an outlook cited in the report, not proof that cultivated meat will never be sold commercially.
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