Chicken meat developed in the laboratory by Eat JustEAT JUST, INC / Reuters
Named the country of the future for something, Singapore will be the first in the world to sell the meat of the future.
The Asian city-state has approved the sale of chicken bites - in English, the so-called
nuggets
- made through cell culture in a laboratory, a milestone for the meat industry and one more step in favor of environmental protection.
Specifically, it has authorized its production and sale to the American company Eat Just, which has complied with the health requirements imposed by the Food Agency of the prosperous island.
Its elaboration does not require the sacrifice of animals, since the cells of origin can be extracted through biopsies carried out on live chickens, to which nutrients from plants are supplied for their transformation.
A complex manufacture that had not received a green light from any country in the world until now.
And that Singapore has granted after submitting the process to an examination to ensure that it met the sanitary requirements.
The support of the Singaporean authorities, with a reputation for having high quality standards, can serve as a benchmark for other countries, with an optimistic Eat Just speaking of a future in which all meat will be produced without the need to slaughter livestock.
“I think [Singapore's] approval is one of the most significant achievements of the food industry in the past decades.
My hope is that this leads to a world in which, in the years to come, most of the meat consumed will not require the sacrifice of a single animal or the felling of a single tree, ”said Josh Tetrick, CEO of Eat Just.
This is how laboratory meat and fish are made
The company, founded in 2011, counts Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek among its investors, and has experience selling non-animal food products such as vegan mayonnaise.
The availability of the
chicken nuggets
will be limited at the moment and restricted to a restaurant in Singapore, whose name has not yet been revealed, nor the date on which it will go on sale.
Due to the high production costs, the starting price will be high, that of a
gourmet
product
,
although it is expected that it will gradually decrease as the offer increases.
Eat Just has ensured that the manufacturing will take place in a plant in Singapore.
Tan Lee Kim, CEO of the Singapore Food Agency, said that the institution has evaluated both the manufacturing process and the possible toxicity of the ingredients before concluding that the final product meets safety standards.
According to its producers, this type of laboratory meat prevents bacterial contamination from animal waste and excess antibiotics and hormones injected into animals.
The approval of the innovative product comes at a very particular time for Singapore.
The island, of 5.7 million inhabitants and with no resources other than humans, produces only about 10% of the food it consumes.
Its dependence on imports has been especially exposed this year, due to the closure of borders due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has led the country to redouble its efforts to increase production over the next decade by investing in high-tech agriculture and other innovative methods.
The very circumstances of the island coincide with a time when, little by little, more and more companies are betting on this type of food production method.
Around the globe, there are currently only a dozen firms investigating laboratory processing of fish, meat and chicken, a sector that Barclays estimates could grow rapidly and be valued at about $ 140 billion by 2029.
The demand for alternatives to regular meat for health reasons or for animal and environmental protection is also increasing.
Different scientific studies have indicated that rich nations consume more meat than is healthy for their population and for the planet, while some research emphasizes that its reduction is key to combating climate change.
Hsin Huang, director general of the International Meat Secretariat, which represents the global meat industry, stressed that the current moment is interesting.
“It seems certain that more similar products from other companies will emerge later.
Of course, our position is that real animal products better meet nutritional needs and offer more guarantee of taste, but healthy competition is welcome, ”he added.
For its part, Tetrick, from Eat Just, based in San Francisco, said that it is already in talks with US regulators.
"I imagine that what will happen in the US, Europe and other places is that, seeing what Singapore has done, they will try to use it as a benchmark to establish a common criterion [to approve this type of meat]," he predicted.
