Lab-grown chicken on the menu in Singapore

Meet Singapore’s new chicken meat - 11th January 2021

The city state of Singapore has given regulatory approval for the world’s first ‘clean meat’, which does not derive from slaughtered animals, to go on sale.

This announcement paves the way for San Francisco-based start-up Eat Just to sell lab-grown chicken meat. Despite not disclosing precisely when their clean creation will be brought to market, they have announced that the meat will initially take the form of chicken nuggets.

Consumer concerns about health, animal welfare and the environment have led to a massive surge of interest in meat substitutes. Although finding plant-based meat options like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus is easy these days, Eat Just’s product stands out because it is not plant based but is instead cultured from animal muscle cells in a lab.

An additional selling point of the meat is its health benefits as the process does not involve the use of antibiotics and the chicken also has lower microbiological content than conventional chicken.

Hoping to win over conventional meat eaters with the promise of a more ethical product, dozens of start-ups have endeavoured to popularise cultured meat. Not surprisingly, therefore, Eat Just called Singapore’s decision "one of the most significant milestones’ in the food industry. Despite this, there are still some hurdles to overcome.

Producing lab-grown meat brings with it a considerably higher price tag than plant-based products. Eat Just previously declared their lab-grown chicken nuggets would be selling for around $50 each. The price has admittedly fallen since then, but it will nevertheless be on a par price-wise with premium chicken. Another element likely to pose challenges is consumer attitudes.

In spite of this, Barclays has stated that the market for meat alternatives is estimated to be $140bn (£104bn) within the next decade, making up approximately 10 per cent of the $1.4tn global meat industry, and Singapore’s approval of Eat Just's product could very well prompt other countries to give it the green light too.