Breakthrough: Singapore first to allow sale of lab-grown meat

Lab-grown chicken will soon be available in restaurants in Singapore after the country became the first to green-light cultured meat created without slaughtering any animals. US start-up Eat Just said on Wednesday that its meat had been approved for sale in the city-state as an ingredient in chicken nuggets.

The news marks a “breakthrough for the global food industry”, said the company, as firms increasingly try to find less environmentally harmful ways of producing meat.

“I’m sure that our regulatory approval for cultured meat will be the first of many in Singapore and in countries around the globe,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just.

Demand for alternatives to regular meat is surging due to concerns about health, animal welfare and the environment. Plant-based substitutes, popularised by the likes of Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Quorn, increasingly feature on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus. But so-called clean or cultured meat, which is grown from animal muscle cells in a lab, is still at a nascent stage given high production costs.

Consumption of regular meat is an environmental threat as cattle produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

There were concerns that labgrown varieties would be too expensive, but a spokesperson for Eat Just said the company had made “considerable progress” in lowering the cost. The company conducted more than 20 production runs in 1,200l bioreactors to make the chicken alternative, and checks on safety & quality showed that its “cultured” product met food standards.