Upside Foods, a Berkeley, California-based cell-cultivated meat company racing to the public market, is boosting its product portfolio with the acquisition of a Wisconsin startup that makes cell-cultivated lobster, scallops and other crustaceans.
Cultured Decadence, based in Madison, launched in 2020 and has nine employees, all of whom will join Upside and assume the parent company’s branding as its facilities become Upside’s Midwest hub. Upside, formerly known as Memphis Meats, declined to share financial details of the acquisition.
Upside’s recently unveiled $50 million Emeryville, California, production plant, which it claims to be the most advanced in the world, will be able to produce Cultured Decadence’s products, the company said, in addition to its existing meat, poultry and seafood products. The Berkeley startup is quickly scaling production infrastructure along with other local cell-cultivated competitors such as Eat Just and Wildtype in anticipation of federal regulatory approval to begin selling to consumers, perhaps as early as this year.
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