Cultivated meat producer UPSIDE Foods, in partnership with meat distributor Pat LaFrieda, advances its mission to integrate cultivated chicken formats — like UPSIDE’s shredded chicken and chicken sausage — into familiar recipes and cultural traditions, leveraging LaFrieda’s restaurant network to integrate UPSIDE’s products into consumer’s existing habits.
Earlier this month, UPSIDE hosted an event in New York City to preview its cultivated shredded chicken, the company’s first commercial scale product. UPSIDE plans to host more pop-up events this year to showcase its versatility in diverse cuisines.
The company’s New York City event featured its shredded chicken and chicken sausage in a breakfast sandwich, garlic noodles with a panko-crusted chicken, a chicken shawarma taco and chicken empanadas.
Leveraging restaurants’ role as the bridge between innovation and consumers’ taste palettes, UPSIDE intends familiarize audiences with its products by working with chefs and foodservice.
“The hope is really to start being able to show people that this product can fit into their lives and into recipes that they already know and love, and not have to change and develop new habits,” explained Amy Chen, UPSIDE’s chief operating officer.
UPSIDE’s partnership with Pat LaFrieda serves as an entry point for cultivated meat into US restaurants, Chen said.
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Pat LaFrieda’s relationships with “many of the most prominent restaurants” across the country will help UPSIDE “distribute cultivated meat to the first early consumers and customers of the product,” Chen explained.
While in the short-term UPSIDE aims to sell its cultivated meat to restaurants and foodservice “where consumers are more open to innovation and trying new things,” the company is in talks with retailers for its commercialized breakthrough, Chen said.
“We believe it is important for consumers to have an amazing first experience with cultivated meat and to fall in love with it. Longer-term, as we think about these partnerships, consumers will experience UPSIDE chicken at their favorite restaurant or with their favorite recipes in their favorite food service establishments and ultimately retail,” she added.
Can cultivated meat replace factory farmed meat?
While production costs for cultivated meat are still high, the sector shows promise for price parity as it aims to address protein access around the world, explained Nick Solares, brand ambassador, Pat LaFrieda.
UPSIDE’s cultivated chicken “succeeds” as an alternative protein “because it is not replacing chicken. It is chicken,” Solares said.
Traditional farming that raises and slaughters animals humanely will still have its place, and cultivated meat production has the potential to “eradicate” factory farming which “does not produce food that is really as nutritionally sound as it could be,” he added.
Although factory farmed meat is “still food, it is still going to feed people, at the same time it lacks and ethos,” compared to cultivated meat’s value proposition of delivering nutrient-dense meat without killing the animal, Solares added.
