We’re so glad you asked, but watch your language please, our boss goes to this site. Yes, UPSIDE Chicken is real chicken, made without killing countless animals or factory farming.

How?

Our process starts with cell samples from one, single heritage-breed chicken egg. That sample is stored and can be used for years. (In fact, all the chicken we’ve ever manufactured came from one single egg. Pretty cool, huh?)

We select the best cells from that sample and place them in a cultivator–a tank similar to what you’d find in a brewery. The cells are fed a nutrient-rich blend of water, sugars, amino acids, vitamins and minerals–the same kind of nutrients free-range chickens get from their feed.

After a few weeks, the cultivated chicken is supercharged with plants and ready to star in all your favorite chicken dishes!

Great question! It’s our mission to make meat right, and a huge part of that is safety. We undergo double the regulatory scrutiny of conventional meat (both the FDA and USDA have to give us the green light to sell our cultivated meat). Additionally, UPSIDE Chicken is made in a pristine environment–a far cry from factory farms–which keeps our chicken safe from foodborne illnesses like salmonella and bird flu.

For more on how cultivated meat is regulated, check out this FDA explainer.

Several independent researchers have published life cycle analyses projecting the impact of cultivated meat will be significantly less than conventional animal agriculture as its production scales. One study from The Good Food Institute, for instance, finds that cultivated meat may require up to 90% less land and water and emit up to 90% fewer greenhouse gasses. As we scale up our manufacturing, we’re working hard to make this future a reality.

Here are the main stars of the show:

Water: You’re probably familiar with this one.

Cell Cultivated Chicken: The star of the show, grown in a pristine, controlled environment.

Soy Protein Isolate: A concentrated, complete (contains all nine essential amino acids) protein.

Pea Fiber: A source of essential dietary fiber.

Avocado Oil: A wholesome oil extracted from avocados, rich in monounsaturated fatty acids.

Here’s the full ingredient list:
Water, Cell Cultivated Chicken, Soy Protein Isolate, Pea Fiber, Avocado Oil, Contains less than 2% of: Soy Lecithin, Glutamic Acid, Onion Powder, Salt, Garlic Powder, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavors, Sugar, Pea Protein, Dried Citrus Pulp, Citric Acid, Tartaric Acid. *Ingredients subject to change.

We love talking about cultivated meat. And to “cultivate” more conversation (ba dum tss), we made Stan, our educational agent that we trained on all things UPSIDE! Ask a question here anytime.

UPSIDE Chicken is not vegetarian or vegan—it’s actual meat, made from real chicken cells. However, there’s a big difference between UPSIDE and conventional chicken: since UPSIDE Chicken is made from cells, there’s no need to raise and kill animals to enjoy it.

Tl;dr: if you love the taste of chicken but avoid meat for ethical reasons, UPSIDE gives you a new option. Our chicken lets you enjoy the delicious taste of real meat, without all the icks of factory farming.

Yes! The innovative process we’ve created to cultivate chicken can work with all types of meats – we’re talking meat, poultry, and even seafood! We are always working on new products so in the future we’ll be able to satisfy all different kinds of meaty cravings.

UPSIDE Chicken is currently exclusively available to the public through our amazing restaurant partners. While they set the ultimate prices for their menu, we’re working hard to scale up production so we can offer UPSIDE Chicken at everyday prices. It’s our goal to expand cultivated meat beyond fine dining and make it accessible to everyone.

We believe in a future with more options for consumers, including the option to choose how the protein on your plate is made – whether conventional meat, cultivated meat or plant-based meat.

This will be especially important in the near future, as demand for meat is expected to double by 2050, and there just aren’t enough resources for the conventional meat industry to meet that kind of demand. We see cultivated meat as a way to close that supply gap and give people the meat they want.

We can’t wait for you to try what we’ve been cooking up! Stay tuned for announcements about new products and locations soon.