The company was founded under the name Future Meat Technologies in 2018, but rebranded to Believer Meats last month. In 2021 they opened a facility to produce lab-grown meat at scale in Israel, and were aiming to secure FDA approval and start offering their products in US restaurants by the end of this year. That doesn’t seem to have happened, as the first FDA approval went to competitor Upside Foods.

But true to its name, Believer Meats hasn’t been deterred by this slower-than-anticipated series of events. Last week the company started construction of a 200,000-square-foot factory in Wilson, North Carolina, about 45 miles due east of Raleigh. In a press release the company stated, somewhat perplexingly, that it chose this location partly because of its “success in integrating technology-driven solutions to improve the lives of residents.”

With a production capacity of 10,000 metric tons, Believer says the facility will be the biggest of its type in the world. They’re putting $123 million into the plant, and say it will create more than 100 new jobs over the next three years. This huge investment seems like a bit of a leap of faith considering the company doesn’t have regulatory approval to produce and sell cultivated meat anywhere, including in the US; but co-founder Yaakov Nahmias says they’ve been working with the FDA towards gaining approval for years.