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Last month, Believer Meats was basking in acclaim. The startup had just secured final U.S. government approval for what it billed as Earths largest cultivated-meat facility, a $125 million complex near Raleigh, North Carolina. Boosters hailed the plants role in strengthening U.S. competitiveness in the race to grow meat from cellsa sector long dominated by Israel. (Senator Thom Tillis called it a major economic win for the state and region.) Believer Meats CEO Gustavo Burger said he was thrilled about the facilitys opening, calling it a major milestone that would redefine the future of food. Boom, he wrote on LinkedIn, announcing that the company was set to begin commercial production of its flagship lab-grown chicken. Heres to the next chapter! That chapter lasted roughly two weeks. Today, the 200,000-square-foot facilitys fancy bioreactors and centrifuges sit quiet. In an all-hands meeting over Microsoft Teams on December 1, a tearful Burger informed staff that Believer was ceasing operations and laying everybody off. The worst day of my career, he told employees, according to people on the call who spoke with me under anonymity so as not to harm their future work prospects. A major financial backer had pulled out, leaving management scurrying to secure a last-ditch loan, which was also denied. The startup, valued at $600 million in 2021, would be closing shop before putting a single lab-grown chicken strip into a consumers hand. It had just posted an ad for a new plant manager. [Image: Believer Meats] It is a stunning collapse for one of the sectors most promising players. Founded by Hebrew University biomedical engineer Yaakov Nahmias, Believer rose on the promise of being the first company to turn cell-based meat into a low-cost commodity. By 2021, it had raised $347 million from giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson Foods. After opening what it called the worlds first commercial cultured-meat factory in Rehovot, close to Tel Aviv, the company began scouting U.S. sites for a far larger facility. Additional money came from the prominent food investment firm S2G Ventures; Neto Group, one of Israels largest food conglomerates; and Bits x Bites, a Chinese foodtech accelerator. In 2024, Jeff Bezos donated $30 million to help Believer create the North Carolina State University Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein. This past summer, Believer became the fifth cultured-meat startup to secure a no questions safety letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, putting it alongside Upside Foods, cell-based salmon maker Wildtype, Mission Barns (whose pork meatballs just became the first cultured meat sold in U.S. grocery stores), and Eat Just (which five years ago sold the worlds first cultured chicken, in Singapore). In September, Believer announced that it had completed the plants construction. The facility boasted a bioreactor that it said would revolutionize animal biomass in the same way Fords assembly line revolutionized automobiles. For phase one of operations, the plant would be able to produce 21 million pounds of chicken per year, at a cost of $8.50 to $10 a pound. Hundreds of thousands of people could potentially try it, Believers chief product and growth officer Heather Hudson said, making it more accessible not just for a certain demographic, but for most people. Capacity was designed to double, eventually, to 42 million pounds, and Believer claimed that a price point of under $7 per pound was in view. [Photo: Believer Meats] Believer Meats comes to an end The alternative meat protein industry has long operated in a Silicon Valleystyle reality distortion field, one that ignores the stubborn physics of the real world. Eat Just founder Josh Tetrick, who built the eggless mayonnaise brand Just Mayo, told Better Meat Co. founder Paul Shapiro, for his 2018 bestselling book Clean Meat, that Eat JustJust Mayos parent companywould be the worlds largest meat company by the year 2030. A think tank predicted that demand for cow products would fall by 70% by that same year. Believer had made bold statements of its own, particularly about its own success with reducing costs, the biggest hurdle standing in lab-made meats way. In 2021, Nahmias noted that Believer was cultivating chicken breast for $7.70 per pound, down from $18 six months earliera price decrease that seemed to validate the sectors meteoric hype. It was a massive improvement from 2013, when a team of scientists led by Mark Post, founder of Leonardo DiCaprio-backed Mosa Meat, served the first cultured burger through the help of an eye-popping $330,000 investment from Googles Sergey Brin. At the time, Nahmias called Brins $330,000 hamburger probably the silliest idea Ive ever heard. Last month, Nahmiass lab published astudy in Nature Food outlining a new method for dividing cow cells that doesnt require gene-editing. Estimating that beef produced this way would cost in the range of $7 to $10 per pound, Nahmias declared it a true eureka moment, overturning decades of assumptions about bovine cell biology. Believer ran out of cash two weeks later. According to insiders, the company is currently seeking a buyer or some alternative structure that would allow the business to continue in some form. Its unclear if any top level executives remain. But some people in senior management, like chief product and growth officer Heather Hudson, reportedly left Believer just weeks before the layoffs. Believer employees were not offered severance. Worse, the final pay period passed without them receiving paychecks. By law, employers laying off their workforce with a headcount of at least 100 must either warn employees 60 days in advance, or pay them for 60 additional days. Interview requests I sent in early December to the Believer communications department and to CEO Gustavo Burger have gone unreturned, including queries about the companys actual headcount at the time of its collapse. Believer had said that the North Carolina facility would employ 100 people, and additional team members worked from its Chicago headquarters. The companys LinkedIn page listed the workforce as being between 50 and 200. [Photo: Believer Meats] Big tours and taste tests Built by Gray Constructiona firm that has handled warehouses for Mercedes-Benz, Caterpillar, and WalmartBelievers North Carolina facility had been in its windup phase, called commissioning in industry-speak. Former employees tell me that the target date for shipping the first finished chicken products to Believers co-packer had been tentatively set for early spring. The initial customers were going to be wholesale restaurant partners. But the plant reportedly ran into operational issues. Former employees describe glycol leaks, improperly welded pipes, and cooling problems that delayed the timeline by weeks at a time. Believer reportedly hired an outside contractor to fix issues more quickly. Two sources told me that construction delays were a significant obstacle to progress. In November, Believer held a town hall meeting during which attendees say executives hinted at financial trouble. A funding round deemed mission-critical was underway, they explained; much suddenly seemed to hinge on its success. Former workers say that in recent months, big tours and taste tests had been organized for well-dressed groups of prospective financial suitors. On December 1, Burger told the staff via Teams that the company was kaput. The evening, an outsider whod been rooting for the companys success reached out to me to share that Believer had closed the plant. A few days later, Gray filed a legal complaint demanding $34 million for the outstanding debt that Believer owes for the facility. [Image: Believer Meats] The brutal efficiency of the bird In the meantime, the faucet that practically gushed money has slowed to a drip. According to the alt-protein trade group Good Food Institute, funding to cultivated-meat companies has shrunk from $1.38 billion in 2021 to just $139 million in 2024. Upside Foods suffered two rounds of layoffs in 2024, and a third major restructuring in March. A decade after also encountering labeling disputes, regulatory setbacks, and other problems with Just Mayo, Eat Just switched the chicken its selling in Singapore to a 3% cultivated chicken, 97% plant-based protein hybrid product, and meanwhile got sued for more than $100 million by bioreactor partner ABEC for unpaid bills. ABEC alleges that Eat Just was woefully undercapitalized from the beginning. Even cultured meats most vocal cheerleader, Paul Shapiro, has staked his company Better Meat Co.s future not on lab-grown cells, but on a complete protein made from mycelium. Then there is Meati, which by 2025 had secured $400 million in funding and was selling its alt-steaks in 7,000 stores nationwide. It was reportedly headed toward bankruptcy by last spring (after a protracted IP dispute, incidentally, with Better Meat Co.). Yasir Abdulan infomercial entrepreneur who made his fortune selling belts, car dash cams, shoe insoles, and Drain Buddy hair catchers on late-night TVtook control of the company in a fire sale. In a press release, he asserted that when startups and founders bild a brand, they have tunnel vision, but Meati would tap into new growth by harnessing the power of direct-to-consumer sales: As Seen On TV products are available in all major retailers across the world. And yet cultured-animal players are hardly the only names struggling in alt-meat. Beyond Meat once traded at $230 a share after its 2019 IPO, with a market cap of $14 billion. This summer, CEO Ethan Brown told me that the company was reorienting the brand to highlight vegetables as pure, clean ingredients instead of existing as a sort of not-meatto the point of dropping Meat from the name. But after reporting a $100 million loss for the third quarter of 2025, Beyonds stock price slid to less than $1 a share. In June, Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness warned his company was mulling a burger that was half real beef. For the past decade, the percentage of Americans identifying as vegetarian and vegan largely hasnt changed. Yet during this same period, spending on plant-based foods doubled, from less than $4 billion in the mid-2010s to more than $8 billion today. The gap is explained by meat eaters behaving like vegans part-time. But this group is less ethically bound to the diet. Externalities like taste, price, and cultural trends can push these consumers back to more conventional meat options. In fact, amid continued inflation, sales of plant-based foods fell in 2024. Cultured meat, in particular, is crashing into the brutal efficiency of the bird. Chicken is the most common meat to try to cultivate, and the modern broiler chicken is the cheapest form of animal muscle meat. Disruptors like Believer are asking consumers to pay $8 per pound for a product that tastes and looks different, while a rotisserie chicken at Costco costs $4.99. Meanwhile, mainstream consumers are pursuing natural products more than ever. Food has landed in the crosshairs of a growing cultural pushback against artificial slop. Products that veer into an Uncanny Valley of food are therefore at a special risk. Impossible Foods CEO McGuinness captured this well at the recent World Economy Summit in October. He acknowledged that the industrys high-concept pitch was becoming a losing proposition and recast the sectors origins as a tactical error. People dont want to eat tech food or climate foodthey just want to eat delicious, nutritious food, he said. Thats what were trying to get back to.
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Welcome to exhausted America 2025: Most adults are more than a little fine with doling out cash as gifts, and many plan to be asleep before midnight on New Year’s Eve, according to a new AP-NORC poll. About 6 in 10 Americans say cash or gift cards are very acceptable as holiday presents, but theyre much less likely to say that about a gift that was purchased secondhand or re-gifted, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Cash is OK for the grandkids I guess, said Nancy Wyant, 73, in rural central Iowa. But Im a gift giver. Come New Year’s Eve, she’ll be fast asleep before 2026 rolls around. At our age, we don’t do anything, the retired bus driver said with a laugh of herself and her live-in partner. Hes set in his ways. They’ll be joined by the 44% of Americans who say they wont stay up to greet 2026, according to the poll. About half of U.S. adults age 45 or older wont make it to midnight, compared with around one-third of adults under age 45. Consider 23-year-old Otis Phillips in Seattle, an outlier for his age. He, too, will turn in early. Its one of the holidays that doesnt really feel special to me, said the master’s student. Most say cash makes an acceptable holiday gift Cash is a safer gift for younger adults. The poll found about two-thirds of Americans under 45 say cash is a very acceptable holiday gift, compared with 55% of adults age 45 or older. Everythings too expensive nowadays. And I dont want to go buy a gift for somebody and then it turns out they dont like it. So cash, said Gabriel Antonucci, 26, a ski resort cook in Alaska, about an hour outside of Anchorage. Most people at least grudgingly accept various gift types, with about 9 in 10 saying cash or gift cards are at least somewhat acceptable and about 6 in 10 saying the same for secondhand gifts and re-gifted items. Teresa Pedroza, a 55-year-old mom of two adult sons in central Florida, is mostly not on board. I don’t like it when kids say they want cash, or I should get teenagers gift cards, she said. It kind of takes some of the charm away from gift giving. But she acknowledged reaching for cards a time or two out of convenience. About three-quarters of adults under age 45 say secondhand gifts are at least somewhat acceptable, compared with about 6 in 10 adults age 45 or older. About 4 in 10 adults age 45 or older say secondhand gifts are somewhat or very unacceptable. Many keep holiday decor up beyond the new year It’s not just your pesky neighbors who leave their holiday decorations up into January. About one-third of U.S. adults say theyll leave them up after New Years Day. Its more common for people to leave their decorations up after the holiday season than to put them up early, according to the poll. About 2 in 10 Americans say they put up holiday decorations before Thanksgiving. I just had my husband bring down the bins. If we werent expecting company, I wouldnt even bother to decorate, honestly. Im tired of doing that, said Pedroza, the Florida mom of two. Many will celebrate Christmas Day with sports About one-quarter of U.S. adults say theyre planning to watch sports on Christmas Day, while only 5% will head for a movie theater. Men are much likelier than women to say theyll watch sports on Christmas, and older Americans are much more likely than younger Americans to tune in. About 2 in 10 adults under age 45 say they plan to watch sports on Christmas, compared with about 3 in 10 adults age 45 or older. Phillips does plan to break out his red sweater with the green Christmas tree that one of his grandmothers knitted for him a couple of years ago. She made all kinds of things for me growing up, he said. This is by far my favorite. Phillips has it in rotation for his part-time job as a grocery checkout clerk. He’s the outlier once again. Women are much likelier than men to say theyll wear a holiday sweater or accessories. Gifts for pets and Elf on the Shelf About 3 in 10 U.S. adults say they will give a gift to their pet this year. In Iowa, Wyant’s nearly 3-year-old boxer-Great Dane mix named Indy is among them. She’s a very spoiled dog, Wyant said. Shes got too many toys, so she’s getting treats this year. She loves her treats. And the red felt elf that parents move around the house every night as a Santa spy to see which kids have been naughty or nice? Only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults say theyll do Elf on the Shelf. Noooo, Pedroza said when asked if she’d ever done the elf for her kids. My younger son was very well-behaved. I didn’t have to use any kind of tactics. ___ The AP-NORC poll of 1,146 adults was conducted Dec. 4-8 using a sample drawn from NORCs probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4 percentage points. By Leanne Italie and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Warner Bros. is telling shareholders of the company that it believes a $72 billion buyout offer from Netflix is superior, and to reject a hostile takeover bid from Paramount Skydance. Paramount went hostile with its bid last week, asking shareholders to reject the deal with Netflix favored by the board of Warner Bros. Paramount is offering $30 per Warner share, or $77.9 billion, to Netflixs $27.75 per share. A Warner Bros. merger with either company would alter the landscape in Hollywood and will face intense scrutiny from U.S. regulators as it would impact movie making, consumer streaming platforms, and, in Paramounts case, a major source of news for millions of people. The competing offers set the stage for combining some of the most beloved entertainment properties. Netflixs vast library includes Stranger Things and Squid Game,” while the much smaller Paramount owns its Hollywood studio and major TV networks like CBS and MTV. Both covet Warner, which owns Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, and the Harry Potter franchise. “Whichever media company, if any, ultimately secures (Warner), controls the calculus of the streaming wars and so much more, said Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at research firm Forrester. Both offers will face regulatory scrutiny, an issue President Donald Trump has already weighed in on. Here’s what to know about the three players and what the bids mean for the entertainment industry. A look at the offers CEO David Zaslav has been seeking offers for Warner Bros. Discovery since at least October, when he said the company might be open to selling all or parts of its business. Paramount said Monday it had submitted six proposals to Warner over a 12 week period before its offer was rejected in favor of Netflix. So Paramount decided to go straight to Warner shareholders with a bid it says is worth about $79.9 billion, or $30 per share in cash. Paramount, unlike Netflix, is also offering to buy the cable assets of Warner, and asking shareholders of the company to reject the Netflix bid. Paramount CEO Larry Ellison said the offer is worth about $18 billion more in cash than the competing cash-and-stock bid from Netflix. The Paramount deal includes help from investors such as Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner and funds controlled by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to a regulatory filing. Netflix is offering a combination of cash and stock valued at $27.75 per Warner share. Its offer values Warner at $72 billion, excluding debt, but it is not bidding on Warner-owned networks such as CNN and Discovery. Before Paramount’s bid, the Netflix deal was expected to close in the next 12 to 18 months, after Warner completes its previously announced separation of its cable operations. Competing bids make an eventual deal more likely Matthew Dolgin, senior equity analyst at research firm Morningstar, said there are still many unknowns, including whether Netflix will now sweeten its bid. But, he said, a competing offer makes it more likely that Warner will eventually be acquired. With Paramount now also being involved formally with an offer to shareholders, its even more likely to us that Warner gets acquired, because its no longer a single decision that may or may not hinge on regulatory approval, he said. Shareholders have until Jan. 8, 2026, to vote on Paramounts tender offer. Donald Trump weighed in earlier Another wild card could be President Trump. He already weighed in on the deal, saying that the Netflix offer to buy Warner could be a problem because of the size of the potential size of the audience. The Republican president said he will be involved in the decision about whether the federal government should approve the deal. Paramount’s CEO is the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, an ally of Trump. Federal regulators under Trump approved Paramounts $8 billion merger with Skydance in July. Regulatory scrutiny awaits either deal On the Netflix offer, state or federal regulators could be most concerned about the massive size of a combined Netflix and Warner subscription service, said Morningstar’s Dolgin. Netflix is already the worlds largest streaming service. That’s less of a concern with the Paramount deal, because its streaming service is smaller and has as smaller international footprint than Netflix. But regulators may raise red flags over the combination of the Paramount and Warner film and television studios, because relatively few of those remain, Dolgin said. A pattern of media acquisitions As streaming platforms have matured, more media companies are seeking growth through acquisitions. Warner Bros. Discovery itself was created in 2022 when U.S. telecom giant AT&T Inc. spun off and then combined its WarnerMedia operations with Discovery Inc. In 2021, Amazon said it would buy MGM, the movie and TV studio behind James Bond, Legally Blonde and Shark Tank.” Disney bought Fox’s entertainment service in 2019. Technology always faces this pattern of startups, lots of different players, legacy companies getting in on the action, and then ultimately lots of consolidation, said Forrester’s Proulx. And this is the state that were in right now in the streamng wars saga, and in 2026 well see continued consolidation. Mae Anderson, AP business writer
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