The world’s most followed influencer just tasted chicken made from cells on camera, giving cultivated meat the kind of “MrBeast moment” that could reshape how millions of young consumers think about the future of protein.
In a LinkedIn post on Sunday morning, Upside Foods founder and CEO Uma Valeti shared that Jimmy Donaldson (better known as MrBeast) and his friends stopped by the company’s EPIC facility in California to see how cultivated meat is made and to try Upside’s cultivated chicken for themselves. During the visit, Donaldson, who expressed interest in selling burgers made from cell-based meat back in 2022, got a behind-the-scenes look at how real chicken can be grown directly from animal cells without raising or slaughtering birds.
Valeti’s caption, “What if we can have the best of both worlds… LOVE chicken and LOVE chickens!”, neatly sums up what cultivated meat has been promising for over a decade: meat without the moral and planetary baggage of industrial animal agriculture. For a sector that has faced significant challenges, having a social media creator of MrBeast’s scale walk through the process, ask questions, and taste the product is a powerful form of cultural validation.
A breakthrough moment in culture for cultivated meat
MrBeast is not just another influencer; his multi-platform empire reaches hundreds of millions (460 million on YouTube alone) of mostly Gen Z and Gen Alpha fans who engage obsessively with his content and copy his food choices in real life. This is the same audience that grew up on viral mukbangs, Hot Ones, and TikTok recipes, and they are already used to food as entertainment, identity and social currency.
When they see cultivated chicken treated as something fun, delicious and worth flying across the country to try, it chips away at the “lab-grown frankenfood” narrative that has dogged the industry. It also connects cultivated meat to a creator known for high-stakes stunts and big philanthropic gestures, rather than to abstract climate graphs or regulatory jargon.
In a single video shoot, Upside got what most food-tech startups can’t buy: an endorsement from the ultimate influencer to an audience of devoted fans who trust him implicitly.
Upside Foods: an industry bellwether
As the first cultivated meat company in the world and the most well-funded, Upside Foods has functioned as the de facto bellwether for cultivated meat, from its early high-profile backers like Bill Gates and Richard Branson to its groundbreaking 2023 US regulatory approval for cultivated chicken. The company opened its EPIC facility in 2021, touted at the time as one of the world’s most advanced cultivated meat production and innovation plants.
At the same time, Upside has publicly acknowledged the messy reality of scaling: pivoting product formats, tackling the cost and complexity of animal-free cell feed, and navigating a regulatory and political landscape that has become more hostile to alt protein in markets like the US.
Still, getting MrBeast to taste its chicken on camera is an undeniable coup for the Valeti and his team.
The power of the “MrBeast Moment”
Early-stage foodtech investor Steve Simitzis described this as cultivated meat’s “MrBeast moment”, the point at which the category crosses over from niche climate-tech story into mainstream pop culture conversation.
This matters because alt protein’s core bottlenecks are no longer just technological; they are political, cultural and distributional. Governments are under pressure from livestock lobbies, regulators are cautious, and consumers are confused by conflicting headlines about safety, cost and “realness.”
While a MrBeast video can’t fix policy, it can normalise the idea that cultivated meat is simply another way of making meat: familiar, tasty, and compatible with mainstream food culture rather than opposed to it.
More than a celebrity lab tour, MrBeast’s visit to Upside Foods is a rare mainstream spotlight on cultivated meat at a time when the alt protein sector badly needs a fresh narrative and new champions.
Cultivated meat sector faces highs and lows
Less than a month into 2026, the cultivated meat sector has celebrated some decent wins, including an $11 million funding round for US cultivated tuna maker BlueNalu and a $7M funding round for German cultivated protein platform startup Innocent Meat.
But the bankruptcy of Israeli player Believer Meats earlier this month spooked investors. The company was widely believed to be one of the stars of the cultivated meat world, having raised close to $400 million in funding since its founding and receiving both FDA and USDA regulatory approval for its cultivated chicken.
And Upside Foods made headlines last week with its spin-off, Lucius Labs, a new division targeting life sciences with cell culture media, buffers, and stem cell formulations to accelerate R&D and cut costs for biotech firms. This diversification reflects the sector’s push for revenue streams beyond meat amid funding squeezes and regulatory delays, with Upside leveraging its EPIC facility expertise in suspension-grown chicken while battling bans in states like Florida and Texas. As GFI’s Elliot Swartz noted, it’s an “emerging trend” for cultivated players to monetise cell tech early, helping sustain innovation when consumer sales lag.
Narrative matters
If even a fraction of MrBeast’s audience walks away wanting to try cultivated meat, it strengthens the hand of every startup negotiating with restaurant partners, regulators, and retail buyers who worry there is no demand. Further, it sends a signal to big protein companies and fast-food chains that cultivated meat has storytelling power far beyond the sustainability page of an ESG report.
For the broader alt protein ecosystem, already experimenting with blended products and more pragmatic go-to-market models, this moment is a reminder that narrative matters. The future of meat will be shaped not just in stainless-steel tanks and policy briefs, but in the feeds of the next generation, who will decide what “normal” meat looks like.
The post Is MrBeast’s Cultivated Chicken Tasting Alt Protein’s Cultural Breakout Moment? appeared first on Green Queen.
This post was originally published on Green Queen.