Food tech company Eat Just has broken ground in JTC Bedok Food City in Singapore, where it will build the largest cell-based meat plant in Asia for its cultivated meat division, Good Meat.
Set to open in the first quarter of next year, the company said the complex will house the single-largest bioreactor in the cultivated meat industry to date, with the capacity to manufacture thousands of kilograms of meat from cells without the need for animal slaughter.
The facility will also be home to approximately 50 researchers, scientists, and engineers.
Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, said constructing the company’s first alt-meat plant in the region is a major milestone for the industry. The company is also considering future operations for large-scale manufacturing, additional research and development activities, and exporting cultured meat products across Asia, subject to regulatory approval.
“We view Singapore as vital in our plans to build this new approach to making meat,” said Tetrick. “We’ll launch new products here, distribute to other countries in Asia from here, and learn from consumers here who have proven themselves to be at the cutting edge of what’s next.”
Chan Hian Lim, the deputy CEO of the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), said alternative proteins such as plant-based, microbial, and cell-based meat could help contribute to the country’s “30 by 30” goal – to locally produce 30 per cent of its nutritional needs by 2030.
“SFA will continue to work closely with the industry and research entitles to grow its capacity to produce a wide variety of food, including our protein needs, locally,” said Lim.
The groundbreaking comes from the startup’s recent partnership with bioprocess solutions company ABEC to design, manufacture, install, and authorise the largest known bioreactors for avian and mammalian cell culture.
