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Josh Tetrick, CEO of Eat Just, had at least one thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: Singapore regulators had issued the company the world’s first approval for its cultured meats.
The move paves the way for Eat Just, which is best known for its plant-based egg substitute, to sell its lab-grown chicken as an ingredient in Singapore. And that will likely attract more competitors to the Southeast Asian country and may cause other countries to follow Singapore’s lead.
“A new space race for the future of food is underway,” Bruce Friedrich, executive director of the Good Food Institute, said in a statement.
Over the past decade, dozens of start-ups have sought to make cell-grown meat both tasty and affordable with the ultimate goal of persuading consumers to turn their backs on conventional meat. Like the makers of plant-based meat substitutes, startups like Eat Just, Future Meat Technologies and Memphis Meats, backed by Bill Gates, say their products are healthier for consumers and better for them. ‘environment.
“We think that [the way] to really solve the meat problem – which is a health problem, a deforestation problem, a moral problem – is to make animal protein, “Tetrick said in an interview.
Eat Just landed 21st on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list this year for his efforts to change the food and agriculture industries. The company raised $ 300 million and was last valued at $ 1.2 billion.
Cultured meat is made by placing stem cells from the fat or muscle of an animal into a culture medium that nourishes the cells, allowing them to grow. The medium is then placed in a bioreactor to support cell growth. Tetrick likened the process to brewing beer, with a very different end product.
Eat Just has been working for about two years to get approval from the Singapore Food Agency. To do this, he had to meet food safety requirements for novel foods and demonstrate a consistent manufacturing process for cell culture chicken. Safety and quality inspections determined that it also met the standards for poultry meat.
The product has a high protein content and diverse amino acid composition, no antibiotics and very low microbiological content, such as salmonella and E. coli.
Eat Just goes through other regulatory processes to get its cultured meat approved elsewhere in the world, including the United States. What sets Singapore apart from the rest, according to Tetrick, is its “forward-thinking and rigorous” approach. The Good Food Institute, which advocates for alternative proteins, said it has been meeting with Singaporean government officials to discuss cultured meat for more than three years.
But in the United States, regulatory approval for cultured meat seems much further away. The Food and Drug Administration and the United States Department of Agriculture have formally overseen the regulation of cell-based seafood, poultry, and beef since 2019. But, like plant-based meat, the products will face significant challenges. opposition from traditional meat producers, such as the United States. Association of breeders.
Besides regulatory approval, the high cost of production is one of the main obstacles to the success of the industry. In 2013, a burger from Dutch start-up Mosa Meat cost $ 280,000 per patty to prepare. But the costs have come down over the years as the scale has increased. Eat Just, for example, uses 1,000-liter bioreactors for its cell-cultured chicken, and Tetrick said the company plans to price it similarly to premium chicken.
Yet the company is far from bringing its chicken to every household in Singapore. Tetrick said the product, which will be sold under its new Good Meat brand, will soon be launched at a single restaurant nationwide.
“We’re going to start with one restaurant, then move on to five, 10, 15 and finally into retail,” Tetrick said. “The infrastructure required to do this is mainly bioreactors, so we will eventually go to 5,000, 10,000 and 20,000 liters.”
Eat Just has already partnered with local manufacturers in Singapore for regulatory approval and eventual sale of its farm chicken.
The company is also planning to campaign for consumer confidence in the product. Tetrick said that would include being transparent about how Eat Just makes cell-culture meat and reminding consumers of the process of producing conventional meat.
As Eat Just grows, the company aims to continue lowering the price, which should also encourage consumers and restaurants to try the product.
“In the end, it only becomes something when it becomes the cost of something that really matters, until we’re below the cost of conventional chicken,” Tetrick said.
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