Meati breakfast patties alongside waffles and berries (Courtesy Meati)
The local maker of a mushroom-based meat alternative that’s raised roughly $450 million from investors will cease operations in early May if it can’t secure more cash.
Phil Graves, CEO of Boulder-based Meati, told his staff last week that the company is at risk of laying off all 150 of its employees and shuttering its 120,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Thornton.
“Right now … we have enough capital to operate through May 6th, 2025,” Graves wrote in a March 7 email obtained by BusinessDen. “While we are doing everything we can to avoid this outcome, should we not find a workable solution, we must share notice that your employment is expected to end on May 6th, 2025.”
Meati CEO Phil Graves
Meati’s facility at 4831 Washington St., which the company leases, opened in 2023. At the time, the company projected $1 billion in revenue for 2025.
But Graves said an unspecified bank repossessed two-thirds of Meati’s cash at the end of February after the company missed 2024 revenue and gross margin covenants.
The move came as a surprise.
“On January 31, the bank assured Meati’s management and board that it would not sweep cash or accelerate payments,” he told his employees. “However, without notice, the bank swept approximately two-thirds of Meati’s available cash on February 28, putting the company in a precarious financial position.”
Meati then sent a letter to the state to comply with the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires major employers to give advance notice of mass layoffs.
“Let us be clear: we are not sitting idle,” Graves continued. “We are actively pursuing multiple funding opportunities with our board and both existing and potential new investors.”
Meati’s alternatives to breakfast patties, cutlets and steaks are made from mycelium, the root structure of fungi. The products can be found in 7,000 grocers nationwide, including Whole Foods and King Soopers, and in local restaurants.
The company previously said the Thornton facility enabled it to “grow a teaspoon of spores into hundreds of cows’ equivalent of whole-food protein in just a few days.”
Graves, who took over as CEO about a year ago from co-founder Tyler Huggins, previously said Meati doubled its revenue from 2023 to 2024 without giving specific figures. The business raised $100 million last May, bringing its total institutional funding to nearly $450 million, according to SEC Form D filings.
The plant-based meat industry has been on a decline the past few years. Sales dropped from $1.42 billion to $1.24 billion from 2021 to 2023, according to the Good Food Institute, a think-tank that researches the industry. Publicly traded Beyond Meat, which makes products from pea, rice and mung bean protein, has also seen its stock tumble, from a high of $197 a share in June 2019 to just over $3 this week.
Meati breakfast patties alongside waffles and berries (Courtesy Meati)
The local maker of a mushroom-based meat alternative that’s raised roughly $450 million from investors will cease operations in early May if it can’t secure more cash.
Phil Graves, CEO of Boulder-based Meati, told his staff last week that the company is at risk of laying off all 150 of its employees and shuttering its 120,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Thornton.
“Right now … we have enough capital to operate through May 6th, 2025,” Graves wrote in a March 7 email obtained by BusinessDen. “While we are doing everything we can to avoid this outcome, should we not find a workable solution, we must share notice that your employment is expected to end on May 6th, 2025.”
Meati CEO Phil Graves
Meati’s facility at 4831 Washington St., which the company leases, opened in 2023. At the time, the company projected $1 billion in revenue for 2025.
But Graves said an unspecified bank repossessed two-thirds of Meati’s cash at the end of February after the company missed 2024 revenue and gross margin covenants.
The move came as a surprise.
“On January 31, the bank assured Meati’s management and board that it would not sweep cash or accelerate payments,” he told his employees. “However, without notice, the bank swept approximately two-thirds of Meati’s available cash on February 28, putting the company in a precarious financial position.”
Meati then sent a letter to the state to comply with the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires major employers to give advance notice of mass layoffs.
“Let us be clear: we are not sitting idle,” Graves continued. “We are actively pursuing multiple funding opportunities with our board and both existing and potential new investors.”
Meati’s alternatives to breakfast patties, cutlets and steaks are made from mycelium, the root structure of fungi. The products can be found in 7,000 grocers nationwide, including Whole Foods and King Soopers, and in local restaurants.
The company previously said the Thornton facility enabled it to “grow a teaspoon of spores into hundreds of cows’ equivalent of whole-food protein in just a few days.”
Graves, who took over as CEO about a year ago from co-founder Tyler Huggins, previously said Meati doubled its revenue from 2023 to 2024 without giving specific figures. The business raised $100 million last May, bringing its total institutional funding to nearly $450 million, according to SEC Form D filings.
The plant-based meat industry has been on a decline the past few years. Sales dropped from $1.42 billion to $1.24 billion from 2021 to 2023, according to the Good Food Institute, a think-tank that researches the industry. Publicly traded Beyond Meat, which makes products from pea, rice and mung bean protein, has also seen its stock tumble, from a high of $197 a share in June 2019 to just over $3 this week.
