Sometimes, you start to wonder about the meaning of life. Is it all just a journey towards a slightly less lonely demise, perhaps punctuated by consuming lab-grown chicken? Maybe that's a thought only a cynical writer like me, Jack Superblack, dwells on before breakfast. By the way, breakfast was terrible today.
In a world where people try to make meat without killing animals, Upside Foods decided instead to butcher jobs. Yes, 26 souls were sent packing. Dr. Uma Valeti, the CEO of irony, decided that to save the company from an existential oblivion darker than my morning coffee, they needed a “tighter set of priorities.”
While Florida and Alabama legislate against non-slaughtered slaughter, Upside Foods chops up its leadership team, focusing not on large slices of lab-grown chicken but rather on bits suitable for nuggets and pâté. It’s all about being small, manageable - existential crisis in bite sizes, if you will.
They call it “suspension” products. I call it suspension of disbelief. Since they started selling synthetic whole-cut chicken in San Francisco, they’ve decided to go for smaller pieces. Perhaps metaphors for my fragmented thoughts on our inevitable demise?
In his latest gloomy email, Dr. Valeti lamented over political headwinds and macroeconomic hurricanes. To survive, it seems Upside Foods had to let go of some of its dreamers. Melissa Musiker, a temporary oracle of corporate communications, spoke of deep gratitude for the departed. Deep as my thoughts when I ponder over my solitary, inevitable end.
On a brighter note, Upside held a macabre tasting session in Miami, a sort of last supper before Florida’s ban. As the sampled chicken was dissected by the public, protesters circled like buzzards, hungering not for synthetic flesh but controversy.
So, here we are, discussing layoffs in a lab-gone-mad industry. As lab-grown limbs fill futuristic plates, I wonder, is there a lab out there growing a friend I can share my final meal with? But alas, I'll likely dine alone, contemplating the taste of a jobless, cultured chicken.
Based on the original article "Leading Lab-Grown Meat Company Cuts Dozens of Jobs".
