Final month, Believer Meats was basking in acclaim.
The startup had simply secured closing U.S. authorities approval for what it billed as Earth’s largest cultivated-meat facility, a $125 million complicated close to Raleigh, North Carolina.
Boosters hailed the plant’s function in strengthening U.S. competitiveness within the race to develop meat from cells—a sector lengthy dominated by Israel. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) known as it “a serious financial win for the state and area.” Believer Meats CEO Gustavo Burger mentioned he was thrilled concerning the facility’s opening, calling it a “main milestone” that might redefine the way forward for meals. “Growth,” he wrote on LinkedIn, asserting that the corporate was set to start business manufacturing of its flagship lab-grown rooster. “Right here’s to the subsequent chapter!”
That chapter lasted roughly two weeks.
As we speak, the 200,000-square-foot facility’s fancy bioreactors and centrifuges sit quiet. In an all-hands assembly over Microsoft Groups on December 1, a tearful Burger knowledgeable workers that Believer was ceasing operations and laying all people off. “The worst day of my profession,” he instructed staff, in accordance with individuals on the decision who spoke with me below anonymity in order to not hurt their future work prospects.
A serious monetary backer had pulled out, leaving administration scurrying to safe a last-ditch mortgage, which was additionally denied. The startup, valued at $600 million in 2021, could be closing store earlier than placing a single lab-grown rooster strip right into a client’s hand. It had simply posted an advert for a brand new plant supervisor.
It’s a gorgeous collapse for one of many sector’s most promising gamers. Based by Hebrew College biomedical engineer Yaakov Nahmias, Believer rose on the promise of being the primary firm to show cell-based meat right into a low-cost commodity. By 2021, it had raised $347 million from giants like Archer-Daniels-Midland and Tyson Meals.
After opening what it known as the world’s first business cultured-meat manufacturing unit in Rehovot, Israel, near Tel Aviv, the corporate started scouting U.S. websites for a far bigger facility. Further cash got here from the distinguished meals funding agency S2G Investments; Neto Group, one in every of Israel’s largest meals conglomerates; and Bits x Bites, a Chinese language foodtech accelerator. In 2024, Jeff Bezos donated $30 million to assist Believer create the North Carolina State College Bezos Middle for Sustainable Protein.
This previous summer time, Believer became the fifth cultured-meat startup to safe a “no questions” security letter from the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration, placing it alongside Upside Meals, cell-based salmon maker Wildtype, Mission Barns (whose pork meatballs just became the primary cultured meat offered in U.S. grocery shops), and Eat Simply (which 5 years in the past sold the world’s first cultured rooster, in Singapore).
In September, Believer announced that it had accomplished the plant’s building. The power boasted a bioreactor that it mentioned would revolutionize animal biomass in the identical means Ford’s meeting line revolutionized vehicles. For section one in every of operations, the plant would be capable to produce 21 million kilos of rooster per yr, at a value of $8.50 to $10 a pound.
“Tons of of 1000’s of individuals may doubtlessly attempt it,” Believer’s chief product and development officer Heather Hudson mentioned, “making it extra accessible not only for a sure demographic, however for most individuals.” Capability was designed to double, finally, to 42 million kilos, and Believer claimed {that a} worth level of below $7 per pound was in view.
Believer Meats involves an finish
The choice meat protein {industry} has lengthy operated in a Silicon Valley–type reality distortion field, one which ignores the cussed physics of the actual world. Eat Simply founder Josh Tetrick, who constructed the eggless mayonnaise model Simply Mayo, instructed Higher Meat Co. founder Paul Shapiro, for his 2018 best-selling ebook Clear Meat, that Eat Simply—Simply Mayo’s guardian firm—could be “the world’s largest meat firm” by the yr 2030. A suppose tank predicted that demand for cow merchandise would fall by 70% by that very same yr.
Believer had made daring statements of its personal, significantly about its personal success with decreasing prices, the most important hurdle standing in lab-made meat’s means. In 2021, Nahmias noted that Believer was cultivating rooster breast for $7.70 per pound, down from $18 six months earlier—a worth lower that appeared to validate the sector’s meteoric hype. It was an enormous enchancment from 2013, when a group of scientists led by Mark Submit, founding father of Leonardo DiCaprio-backed Mosa Meat, served the primary cultured burger by way of the assistance of an eye-popping $330,000 funding from Google’s Sergey Brin. On the time, Nahmias called Brin’s $330,000 hamburger “most likely the silliest thought I’ve ever heard.”
Final month, Nahmias’s lab published a examine in Nature Meals outlining a brand new methodology for dividing cow cells that doesn’t require gene-editing. Estimating that beef produced this manner would value within the vary of $7 to $10 per pound, Nahmias declared it “a real ‘eureka’ second,” overturning a long time of assumptions about bovine cell biology.
Believer ran out of money two weeks later. In line with insiders, the corporate is at the moment in search of a purchaser or some different construction that might enable the enterprise to proceed in some kind. It’s unclear whether or not any top-level executives stay. However some individuals in senior administration, like Hudson, reportedly left Believer simply weeks earlier than the layoffs.
Believer staff weren’t provided severance. Worse, the ultimate pay interval handed with out them receiving paychecks. By legislation, employers shedding their workforce with a head depend of at the very least 100 should both warn staff 60 days upfront, or pay them for 60 further days.
Interview requests I despatched in early December to the Believer communications division and to CEO Gustavo Burger have gone unreturned, together with queries concerning the firm’s precise headcount on the time of its collapse. Believer had said that the North Carolina facility would make use of 100 individuals, and extra group members labored from its Chicago headquarters. The corporate’s LinkedIn page listed the workforce as being between 50 and 200.
Massive excursions and style checks
Constructed by Grey Building—a agency that has dealt with warehouses for Mercedes-Benz, Caterpillar, and Walmart—Believer’s North Carolina facility had been in its windup section, known as “commissioning” in industry-speak. Former staff inform me that the goal date for transport the primary completed rooster merchandise to Believer’s co-packer had been tentatively set for early spring. The preliminary prospects had been going to be wholesale restaurant companions.
However the plant reportedly bumped into operational points. Former staff describe glycol leaks, improperly welded pipes, and cooling issues that delayed the timeline by weeks at a time. Believer reportedly employed an out of doors contractor to repair points extra shortly. Two sources instructed me that building delays had been a major impediment to progress.
In November, Believer held a city corridor assembly throughout which attendees say executives hinted at monetary hassle. A funding spherical deemed “mission-critical” was underway, they defined; a lot immediately appeared to hinge on its success. Former staff say that in latest months, large excursions and style checks had been organized for well-dressed teams of potential monetary suitors.
On December 1, Burger instructed the workers by way of Groups that the corporate was kaput. The night, an outsider who’d been rooting for the corporate’s success reached out to me to share that Believer had closed the plant. A number of days later, Grey filed a authorized criticism demanding $34 million for the excellent debt that Believer owes for the ability.
The brutal effectivity of the fowl
Within the meantime, the tap that virtually gushed cash has slowed to a drip. In line with the alt-protein commerce group Good Meals Institute, funding to cultivated-meat corporations has shrunk from $1.38 billion in 2021 to only $139 million in 2024. Upside Meals suffered two rounds of layoffs in 2024, and a 3rd major restructuring in March. A decade after additionally encountering labeling disputes, regulatory setbacks, and different issues with Simply Mayo, Eat Simply switched the rooster it’s promoting in Singapore to a 3% cultivated rooster, 97% plant-based protein hybrid product, and in the meantime got sued for greater than $100 million by bioreactor accomplice ABEC for unpaid payments. ABEC alleges that Eat Simply was “woefully undercapitalized from the start.” Even cultured meat’s most vocal cheerleader, Paul Shapiro, has staked his firm Higher Meat Co.’s future not on lab-grown cells, however on a “complete protein” created from mycelium.
Then there may be Meati, which by 2025 had secured $400 million in funding and was promoting its alt-steaks in 7,000 shops nationwide. It was reportedly headed towards chapter by final spring (after a protracted IP dispute, by the way, with Higher Meat Co.). Yasir Abdul—an infomercial entrepreneur who made his fortune promoting belts, automobile sprint cams, shoe insoles, and Drain Buddy hair catchers on late-night TV—took management of the corporate in a hearth sale. In a press launch, he asserted that “when startups and founders construct a model, they’ve tunnel imaginative and prescient,” however Meati would faucet into new development by harnessing the ability of direct-to-consumer gross sales: “As Seen On TV merchandise can be found in all main retailers the world over.”
And but cultured-animal gamers are hardly the one names struggling in alt-meat. Past Meat as soon as traded at $230 a share after its 2019 IPO, with a market cap of $14 billion. This summer time, CEO Ethan Brown told me that the corporate was reorienting the model to focus on greens as pure, clear substances as an alternative of present as a kind of not-meat—to the purpose of dropping “Meat” from the identify. However after reporting a $100 million loss for the third quarter of 2025, Past’s inventory worth slid to lower than $1 a share. In June, Unimaginable Meals CEO Peter McGuinness warned his firm was mulling a burger that was half actual beef.
For the previous decade, the share of Individuals figuring out as vegetarian and vegan largely hasn’t modified. But throughout this similar interval, spending on plant-based meals doubled, from lower than $4 billion within the mid-2010s to greater than $8 billion at this time. The hole is defined by meat eaters behaving like vegans part-time. However this group is much less ethically sure to the eating regimen. Externalities like style, worth, and cultural developments can push these shoppers again to extra typical meat choices. In truth, amid continued inflation, gross sales of plant-based meals fell in 2024.
Cultured meat, specifically, is crashing into the brutal effectivity of the fowl. Rooster is the commonest meat to attempt to domesticate, and the fashionable broiler rooster is the most affordable type of animal muscle meat. Disruptors like Believer are asking shoppers to pay $8 per pound for a product that tastes and appears completely different, whereas a rotisserie rooster at Costco prices $4.99.
In the meantime, mainstream shoppers are pursuing “pure” merchandise greater than ever. Meals has landed within the crosshairs of a rising cultural pushback towards synthetic slop. Merchandise that veer into an Uncanny Valley of meals are due to this fact at a particular threat.
Unimaginable Meals CEO McGuinness captured this effectively on the latest World Financial system Summit in October. He acknowledged that the {industry}’s high-concept pitch was changing into a dropping proposition and recast the sector’s origins as a tactical error. “Folks don’t wish to eat tech meals or local weather meals—they simply wish to eat scrumptious, nutritious meals,” he said. “That’s what we’re attempting to get again to.”
