Singapore Is First Country To Approve Lab-Grown Meat

Dec. 3, 2020
Chicken nuggets from U.S. firm Eat Just will be allowed whenever they become available.

Singapore this week became the first country to approve lab-grown meat, in this case chicken nuggets from U.S. firm Eat Just.

The chicken nuggets will carry an unspecified premium price when it first launches in a restaurant in Singapore “in the very near term,” Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, said in a Reuters news service story.

No other company appears ready to launch cultured meat commercially – nor has Eat Just just yet. Israeli biotech firm Aleph Farms Ltd. was to unveil a prototype of its commercial product, thin-cut beef steaks, at the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit Nov. 20, also in Singapore. One report said a company called Shiok Meats recently unveiled cell-based lobster meat that it aims to commercialize by 2022, again in Singapore.

There's been a fair amount of investing in the technology, including from traditional meat companies like Tyson and Cargill. USDA and FDA in late 2018 held a joint public hearing on the subject and said they will jointly oversee the technology … whenever it and they are ready.

Eat Just Inc., formerly known as Hampton Creek Foods, apparently has quite a relationship with Singapore. In October, the company announced a partnership with an Asian consortium that will invest $100 million to help Eat Just build what they claim will be the largest plant protein production facility in Singapore.

Reuters noted Singapore, a city state of 5.7 million, produces only about 10% of its food but has ambitious plans to raise that over the next decade by supporting high-tech farming and new means of food production.

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