Global funding in the cultured meat industry dropped by 75% in the last year. Singapore sees its chance to become a world leader, backing local and international firms.
By SANDY ONG
19 JUNE 2024 •
19 JUNE 2024 •
SINGAPORE
Singapore is the only country where cultivated meat can be purchased in a shop.
Quick approvals and government support have lured several U.S., European cultivated meat firms.
Singapore is the only country where cultivated meat can be purchased in a shop.
Quick approvals and government support have lured several U.S., European cultivated meat firms.
High cost of production, scaling up, and consumer skepticism remain challenges.
Huber’s Butchery, in Singapore’s upscale Dempsey Hill neighborhood, has long drawn shoppers looking for more than just cold cuts. Starting last month, the deli’s freezer section has stocked shredded chicken grown from cells in a lab, the first time anywhere in the world that cultivated meat can be bought in a store, its manufacturer said.
Cultivated meat has been available at a handful of restaurants in Singapore and the U.S. for a couple of years. But the launch of Good Meat 3 — from California-based food technology firm Eat Just — at Huber’s is a high point for the industry that has been in the doldrums lately. Investor interest is flagging, and cultivated meat has been banned in Italy, and in the U.S. states of Alabama and Florida.
The retail launch “is more than a milestone for the company, it is also a milestone for the cultivated meat industry,” Josh Tetrick, Eat Just’s co-founder and chief executive, told Rest of World. The formulation of its new product uses just 3% cultivated chicken in order to sell at a lower price point so more people can try it, he said. “Singapore’s population has always demonstrated a remarkable openness to new technologies in food and elsewhere, making it the perfect marketplace for novel foods like cultivated meats.”
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Unlike plant-based meats that have become commonplace with brands such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, cultivated meat has struggled to get off the ground after an initial wave of enthusiasm.
The tissue-engineering techniques behind cultivated meat have long been used in making vaccines and drugs: Animal fat and tissue are grown in a lab from cells, then processed into a variety of proteins. The obvious advantages are that it needs less land and water to produce, and can lower greenhouse gas emissions. But cultivated meat is expensive to produce and hard to scale, and has struggled to hold investor interest.
The more than $3 billion put into cultivated meat worldwide over the last decade is a fraction of the investments in other technologies, such as renewable energy, which are also aimed at reducing emissions. “The biggest obstacle to cultivated meat reaching the masses … is the broad underinvestment in R&D and manufacturing infrastructure, especially from governments,” Mirte Gosker, managing director of the nonprofit Good Food Institute Asia Pacific, told Rest of World.
Singapore’s foray into alternative proteins began in earnest in March 2019, with its “30 by 30” vision to sustainably produce 30% of its nutritional needs locally by 2030 — up from 10%. Alternative protein is a key part of this plan. But its strategy “goes beyond simply meeting its own domestic needs,” said Gosker.
“The biggest obstacle to cultivated meat reaching the masses … is the broad underinvestment in R&D and manufacturing infrastructure.”
“As a small country with limited natural resources, Singapore cannot single-handedly feed the world,” she said. “But it can serve as the place where companies from all around the world come to work with top-tier research agencies and food-tech partners to refine their formulations, eliminate inefficiencies in their manufacturing process, and explore new techniques and ingredients that could help them drive down costs.”
Singapore was the first country to approve cultivated meat, with the nod for Eat Just’s chicken nuggets in December 2020. The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) recently greenlit Australia-based Vow’s cultivated quail for restaurants — the second company to receive a local license, and just the fourth globally. Later this year, SFA is expected to approve cultivated chicken and pork from French firm Vital Meat and Dutch company Meatable, respectively.
There are about a dozen local alternative-protein startups in the country, and some 15 from Europe, the U.S., South Korea, Israel, and Hong Kong. While investments in other countries may be larger, “one of Singapore’s greatest strengths is the tight-knit innovation community which facilitates seamless collaboration between startups, researchers, and government agencies,” Gosker said.
The government has so far committed some $230 million towards alternative proteins — from grants to training researchers to building capabilities in bioprocessing and other complementary technologies. Singapore “invested very heavily in getting technological expertise into its government regulatory departments,” Simon Eassom, chief executive of Food Frontier, an Australia-based think tank, told Rest of World. “That means it’s able to fast-track a lot of these applications safely.” Applications only take half, or a third, of the time to process, compared to Australia or the U.S., he said.
Singapore is the “perfect spot” for testing, George Peppou, co-founder and chief executive of Vow, told Rest of World. The speed of approvals is the “driving reason” why Vow launched its cultivated quail in Singapore, he said. “We have an application with the FDA, but we’re not intending to launch in the U.S. anytime soon … It’s a very expensive market to launch in, and now it’s so politically sensitive, it wouldn’t be worth the investment.”
A selection of cultivated seafood products from Singapore’s Umami Bioworks, prepared for a tasting event in October 2022. Umami Bioworks
The United States and Israel approved the sale of cultivated chicken and beef in June 2023 and January 2024, respectively. Australia and New Zealand are jointly assessing Vow’s cultivated quail for approval. China added cultivated meat to its five-year plan for food in 2022, while South Korea set up a regulatory framework for cultivated meat this year. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also investing heavily.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s Islamic Religious Council declared cultivated meat halal earlier this year, expanding the potential consumer base in the multiethnic country. In April, state-backed sustainable food firm Nurasa opened a food innovation center that offers food-tech startups facilities such as 100-liter bioreactors to help produce at scale. Some of Eat Just’s Good Meat 3 was produced there.
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“Shared developmental resources like this can help solve specific problems in the value chain and bottlenecks that many companies share,” Mihir Pershad, who moved from the U.S. state of Maryland to Singapore, told Rest of World. Pershad’s Umami Bioworks, which makes cultivated seafood, has secured R&D grants and meetings with potential overseas customers through the Singapore government, he said.
Worldwide, there are nearly 200 cultivated meat companies. Although prices in the nascent industry have declined since the first lab-grown beef burger debuted in 2013 at a staggering $330,000, they still need to fall to under $10 per kilo — roughly a tenth of current costs — to be competitive in the mass market, estimates the Good Food Institute.
Cultivated meat may reach cost parity with conventional meat by 2030, with the market worth about $25 billion by then, according to McKinsey & Company. But investor interest has flagged: The industry raised just $226 million last year, a steep fall from $922 million in 2022, according to the Good Food Institute. Several Silicon Valley startups have collapsed or shelved expansion plans. Eat Just is also under pressure in the U.S.
Startups are also still finding investors: Cellivate Technologies, a Singapore company focused on cell-based solutions for the cultivated meat industry, recently beat out nearly two dozen startups in Southeast Asia to win a business reality TV show, with commitments of about $3 million from venture capital firms.
“There is much more work to be done to prove that cultivated meat can be made at large scale,” said Eat Just’s Tetrick. “[But] this year, we will sell more servings of cultivated chicken than have been sold in any year prior.” As for its newest product, Huber’s Butchery is “pretty much selling most of what is supplied to us,” Andre Huber, the executive director, told Rest of World. “Response has been great.”
The United States and Israel approved the sale of cultivated chicken and beef in June 2023 and January 2024, respectively. Australia and New Zealand are jointly assessing Vow’s cultivated quail for approval. China added cultivated meat to its five-year plan for food in 2022, while South Korea set up a regulatory framework for cultivated meat this year. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also investing heavily.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s Islamic Religious Council declared cultivated meat halal earlier this year, expanding the potential consumer base in the multiethnic country. In April, state-backed sustainable food firm Nurasa opened a food innovation center that offers food-tech startups facilities such as 100-liter bioreactors to help produce at scale. Some of Eat Just’s Good Meat 3 was produced there.
EXPORTERSubscribe to our new weekly newsletter for the latest on U.S. tech giants and their impact outside the West. Be the first to get incisive analysis from Rest of World’s Russell Brandom, right to your inbox.
“Shared developmental resources like this can help solve specific problems in the value chain and bottlenecks that many companies share,” Mihir Pershad, who moved from the U.S. state of Maryland to Singapore, told Rest of World. Pershad’s Umami Bioworks, which makes cultivated seafood, has secured R&D grants and meetings with potential overseas customers through the Singapore government, he said.
Worldwide, there are nearly 200 cultivated meat companies. Although prices in the nascent industry have declined since the first lab-grown beef burger debuted in 2013 at a staggering $330,000, they still need to fall to under $10 per kilo — roughly a tenth of current costs — to be competitive in the mass market, estimates the Good Food Institute.
Cultivated meat may reach cost parity with conventional meat by 2030, with the market worth about $25 billion by then, according to McKinsey & Company. But investor interest has flagged: The industry raised just $226 million last year, a steep fall from $922 million in 2022, according to the Good Food Institute. Several Silicon Valley startups have collapsed or shelved expansion plans. Eat Just is also under pressure in the U.S.
Startups are also still finding investors: Cellivate Technologies, a Singapore company focused on cell-based solutions for the cultivated meat industry, recently beat out nearly two dozen startups in Southeast Asia to win a business reality TV show, with commitments of about $3 million from venture capital firms.
“There is much more work to be done to prove that cultivated meat can be made at large scale,” said Eat Just’s Tetrick. “[But] this year, we will sell more servings of cultivated chicken than have been sold in any year prior.” As for its newest product, Huber’s Butchery is “pretty much selling most of what is supplied to us,” Andre Huber, the executive director, told Rest of World. “Response has been great.”
Sandy Ong is an independent science and tech journalist based in Singapore.
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