Singapore becomes first country to approve lab-grown meat: All you need to know

Team Udayavani, Dec 5, 2020, 2:09 PM IST

Singapore has granted San Francisco start-up Eat Just Inc. regulatory approval to sell its laboratory-grown chicken in the city-state, the world’s first government to allow the sale of cultured meat.

The company has announced the product will be manufactured with local partners under its new brand GOOD Meat.

According to NYpost, The company says it will bring its chicken nuggets to market in Singapore after winning the landmark regulatory clearance from the Singapore Food Agency.

Eat Just plans to grow the man-made poultry in the Southeast Asian city-state and sell it to restaurants before making it available to consumers.

The lab grown meat is made from plant sources such as soy or pea protein, while cultured meat is grown directly from cells in a laboratory

Also, in terms of cellular structure, cultured or cultivated meat is the same as conventional meat, except that cultured meat does not come directly from animals.

Plant-based products from companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have become popular in recent years, and major fast food chains such as Burger King and McDonald’s have jumped on the bandwagon by selling meatless burgers

The company — which is valued at about $1.2 billion and counts Singapore’s state-owned investment firm, Temasek, among its supporters — said it had to go through an “extensive” safety review to win approval from the Singapore Food Agency.