Singapore approves sale of lab-grown meat in world first

[snoop1130]

Singapore approves sale of lab-grown meat in world first

By Aradhana Aravindan and John Geddie

 

A dish made with lab-grown cultured chicken developed by Eat Just is pictured in this handout photo. Eat Just, Inc./Handout via REUTERS

 

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore has given U.S. start-up Eat Just the greenlight to sell its lab-grown chicken meat, in what the firm says is the world's first regulatory approval for so-called clean meat that does not come from slaughtered animals.

 

The meat, to be sold as nuggets, will be priced at premium chicken prices when it first launches in a restaurant in Singapore "in the very near term", co-founder and CEO Josh Tetrick said.

 

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.

 

Singapore, a city state of 5.7 million, currently only produces about 10% of its food but has set out ambitious plans https://reut.rs/3obXpm4 to raise that over the next decade by supporting high-tech farming and new means of food production.

 

Josh Tetrick said the San Francisco-based firm was also talking to U.S. regulators but that Singapore was a "good bit" ahead of the United States.

 

"I would imagine what will happen is the U.S., Western Europe and others will see what Singapore has been able to do, the rigours of the framework that they put together. And I would imagine that they will try to use it as a template to put their own framework together," he said in an interview.

 

The Singapore Food Agency said it had reviewed data relating to process, manufacturing control and safety testing before granting approval.

 

Eat Just said it will manufacture the product in Singapore, where it also plans to start making a mung bean-based egg substitute it has been selling commercially in the United States.

 

Founded in 2011, Eat Just counts Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing and Singapore state investor Temasek among its backers. It has raised more than $300 million since its inception, Tetrick said, and is valued at roughly $1.2 billion.

 

It is targeting profitability at an operating income level before the end of 2021 and hopes to go public soon after, he added.

 

Globally more than two dozen firms are testing lab-grown fish, beef and chicken, hoping to break into an unproven segment of the alternative meat market, which Barclays estimates could be worth $140 billion by 2029.

 

Competitors have also attracted some eye-catching investors.

 

U.S.-based Memphis Meats raised funds this year in a deal led by Japan's SoftBank Group and Temasek, and also counts Bill Gates and Richard Branson among its backers.

 

Singapore's Shiok Meats, which aims to become the first company to sell lab-grown shrimp, is backed by Henry Soesanto of Philippines' Monde Nissin Corp, which also owns Quorn.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-12-02

 

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[VincentRJ]

No mention of the nutritional value of the artificial meat. Pure vegetarianism, or veganism, can result in serious deficiencies of certain vitamins and minerals. It's not recommended for children and pregnant women.

[RichardColeman]

I guess the test for whether it sell well in Thailand will be how many times it can be deep fried !

[douglasspade]

They can invent <deleted> like this but not a cure for Covid!

[nobodysfriend]

That might become the solution to many problems .

I would buy shares of this company , if it is a stock market listed company ...

 

[Proboscis]

15 hours ago, douglasspade said:

They can invent <deleted> like this but not a cure for Covid!

I am not sure which rock you have been hiding underneath but the UK government has just approved a vaccine for Covid-19, soon to be followed by other Western countries. Two other reputable vaccines are on their way to approval too.

 

To go from sequencing the virus in January to an approved vaccine in the December of the same year is just short of a miracle. Lets celebrate that for what it is.

 

There are seldom cures for viruses as such. Take HIV/AIDS for instance - after decades we now have meds whose side-effects are not life-changing and can reduce the viral load to invisibe but they have to be taken for life - not a cure. In the case of viruses, the best you can sometimes hope for are vaccines that work some of the time - like the flu vaccine. The fact that the approved covid-19 vaccine in question works over 90% of the time is again nothing short of a miracle.

 

Meanwhile, by inventing $h1t (as you call it) like the artificially grown chicken we get to become less reliant on chicken farming. Less chance of development and transferrance of bird flu. Had we had artificial turkey meat back in 2018, we would not have had the Spanish Flu that killed more people than WW1 - that pandemic is believed to have started in a turkey farm in Pennsylvania in the USA and was transferred to Europe by American soldiers being shipped to the front.

 

 

[MaiDong]

1 hour ago, nobodysfriend said:

That might become the solution to many problems .

I would buy shares of this company , if it is a stock market listed company ...

 

I believe there are other companies involved in this who are stock market listed, I'm looking into it. 

[Burma Bill]

18 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

clean or cultured meat, which is grown from animal muscle cells in a lab

YUCK!!

[digger70]

23 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Singapore approves sale of lab-grown meat in world first

Frankenstein meat /Claytons meat, ????  If it ain't coming from a Living animal it ain't Meat.Nutrition  value? 

Expensive  Why do they bother .Meat is meat  leave it like that .

[Thingamabob]

Good news. Killing and eating animals is disgusting.