The unexpected wave of layoffs at a food company comes after the company faced numerous obstacles in the industry, including a lack of funding.
A spokesperson for Upside Foods told Food Dive that the company has begun laying off employees again.
According to a representative from the firm, the emphasis is on the “next chapter” of expansion and commercialization.
“Staying agile in the face of an uncertain macroenvironment” meant cutting some staff and adjusting some programs.
The spokesman expressed their gratitude for the hard work and dedication of the leaving team members and emphasized their continued emphasis on delivering produced meat to a global scale.
A first round of layoffs occurred earlier this year when the firm chose to temporarily halt operations at its new Chicago production facility.
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Many obstacles have recently arisen for the farmed meat sector, which was permitted to legally join the U.S. market in June 2023 but has encountered resistance from state legislators and capital constraints.
Reportedly, Upside CEO Uma Valeti informed staff via email that 26 workers would be laid off and that the company’s leadership and executive teams would be reorganized to “reduce top-heavy structures,” as reported by Wired.
“Our attention should be directed towards a more limited range of objectives that lay the groundwork for the product launches scheduled for the next two years,” Valeti stated in the email.
“We must complete the remaining tasks, with a focus on the important milestones that have either been postponed or are still pending.”
In an interview with Food Dive, the corporation revealed that their “Epic” facility in California is undergoing expansion plans.
Our capacity to transfer our process to successively larger and more efficient scales while maintaining the taste, quality, and safety that we have consistently achieved at the 2KL scale will be demonstrated by adding larger cultivators as part of this expansion,” the spokesperson wrote.
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