Lab-grown chicken on the menu in Singapore after world-first approval
Lab-grown chicken on the menu in Singapore after world-first approval
(Web Desk) - With our consumption of meat continuing to place a huge strain on the environment, the emergence of lab-grown alternatives is beginning to pick up steam. A world-first regulatory approval today should help things along, with food tech startup Eat Just’s cultured chicken receiving the green light for sale in Singapore.
While there are a number of startups developing fake meat products that use plants as their starting point, such as the beef and pork offered by Impossible Foods, others, including KFC and Aleph Farms, are working on solutions made from real animal cells.
These are currently expensive but may be a more palatable option for meat enthusiasts, as scientists, environmentalists and food technology companies work to offer more sustainable ways to feed the population. Conventional meat production calls for massive amounts of land and energy, and generates huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, so the race is on to find a greener way forward.
Eat Just’s solution is to harvest a small amount of cells from living animals, and then feed those cells the same nutrients the living animals would receive so that they grow and multiply. This takes place inside a bioreactor and, eventually, these cells develop into edible portions of cultured meat.
Cultured chicken is the company’s first product, and it says the meat’s composition is similar to that of real chicken and therefore offers the same nutritional value – it’s also antibiotic-free. Eat Just says the cultured meat generates 78 to 96 percent less greenhouse gas emissions, requires 99 percent less land and uses as much as 96 percent less water than conventional chicken to produce.
Eat Just says it plans to follow this world-first approval with a commercial launch of its meat products in Singapore. While its cultured chicken is its first product, it is also working to develop cultured beef from Californian cattle and Japanese Wagyu.
