Singapore approves lab-grown meat sales

Mock chicken bites available in restaurant

Lab-grown chicken will soon be on the menu in Singapore. In a world's first, the city-state has approved the sale of cultured meat by allowing Eat Just Inc. to offer its breaded chicken bites at a restaurant. According to Eat Just's co-founder and CEO Josh Tetrick, the cultured version tastes the same as — you guessed it — conventional chicken.

The product of bioreactors rather than slaughterhouses, Eat Just's chicken bites will be sold under the company's GOOD Meat brand. Initially available at a single Singapore restaurant, the San Francisco- based company has plans for an extensive rollout including more restaurants and retail. GOOD meat is launching with nuggets, but Eat Just says it has developed other cultured chicken products as well.

“I think the approval is one of the most significant milestones in the food industry in the last handful of decades,” Tetrick told The Guardian. “It's an open door and it's up to us and other companies to take that opportunity. My hope is this leads to a world in the next handful of years where the majority of meat doesn't require killing a single animal or tearing down a single tree.”

Competitors in the cultured meat space include the Netherlands' Mosa Meat, California's Memphis Meats, and Israel's Aleph Farms.

Supermeat, also based in Israel, recently opened The Chicken in Tel Aviv: In the absence of regulatory approval to sell lab-grown meat, the “restaurant” is offering cultured chicken sandwiches in exchange for feedback.

One of the challenges of Eat Just's cultured meat expansion in Singapore and beyond is its ability to increase production. “If we want to serve the entire country of Singapore, and eventually bring it to elsewhere in the world, we need to move to 10,000-litre or 50,000-litre-plus bioreactors,” Tetrick told The Guardian. The company is currently using 1,200-litre bioreactors and has completed 20 production runs, according to a statement announcing the regulatory approval.

Once known primarily for its plant-based egg alternatives — such as vegan mayonnaise and a mung bean-based folded scramble, which Eat Just is planning to launch in Canadian stores this fall, and across western Europe next year — the company has branched out with its cultured meat products.

In addition to its labgrown chicken line, it's also developing cultured Wagyu beef with Japanese producer Toriyama.