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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Singapore

Eat Just’s GOOD Meat Granted Regulatory Approval to Sell New Cultivated Chicken Products in Singapore

Today Eat Just announced its GOOD Meat division has received the regulatory go-ahead to sell new types of cultivated chicken products in Singapore. The company will debut one of the new formats, a chicken breast, at the JW Marriott Singapore South Beach next week.

The green light comes just over a year after the company received the world’s first approval to sell cultivated meat from the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), Singapore’s regulatory authority for food safety. Soon after, GOOD Meat set a milestone by making the first commercial sale of cultivated chicken at 1880, a private restaurant/club and social impact organization in Singapore.

As part of the announcement, GOOD Meat also committed to increased investment in its cultivated meat production capacity in Singapore over the next two years. The company said the design and manufacturing of vessels and systems that will increase its cultivated meat production capacity are already underway, and they hope to have the new infrastructure operational within the next two years. Eat Just’s cultivated meat division also committed to growing its team in Singapore across manufacturing, science, and engineering as the company moves towards scaling up its production.

The latest regulatory approval is another example of Singapore’s aggressive push into alternative proteins and cultivated meat. The effort is part of the island nation’s “30 By 30” food sovereignty initiative to scale up its capability and capacity to produce 30 percent of its food supply by 2030. And it’s not just Eat Just; other future food companies such as Perfect Day and Avant Meats are investing in building out innovation centers in the country.

Compared to Singapore, the US government has been comparatively slow to foster the next generation of alternative proteins, but that looks to be changing. In October, the USDA announced a $10 million grant award to Tufts to create an Institute for Cellular Agriculture, a flagship American cultivated protein research center of excellence, which followed a $3.5 million grant to UC Davis to establish a training and research program by the National Science Foundation. At the same time, in September, the USDA began to solicit input about what it should call cultivated meat products, a signal that it is progressing towards regulatory approval of the products.

Singapore-based Shandi Raises $700,000 Seed Round

Shandi, an alternative protein company based in Singapore, announced this week in a press release sent to The Spoon that it has raised $700,000 USD in a second seed round. The round was led by Tolaram, and also saw participation from SparkLabs Cultiv8 and other private investors.

This new influx of capital will allow Shandi to build out a production facility in Singapore, as well as scale and commercialize its alternative protein products. Additionally, the company will focus on innovating new products and developing partnerships in the food sector.

Shandi’s offerings include various chicken analogs, including shreds, pieces, strips, and drumsticks. All of the products are made with a combination of non-GMO chickpeas, pea protein, quinoa, flax seeds, brown rice, and coconut oil. The company has not disclosed much about its production process, but it does have a pending patent for its technology involving the extraction of amino acids from various plants. This process is used to replicate the amino acid profile found in chicken to provide a similar nutritional composition and flavor.

Alternative chicken has popped up nonstop in the news during the past few months. Chicken is one of the most consumed meats in the world, and recently, there have been global supply chain shortages of it. Plant-based chicken could offer a solution for filling in these shortages. Shandi is another example of an alternative protein company opening a production facility in Singapore. Avant Meats, Perfect Day, and Next Gen are just a few other alternative protein start-ups that have built out production facilities in the city-state.

Shandi aims to launch a range of products during the first quarter of 2022 in foodservice channels. After this, it plans on releasing a B2C product.

Food Tech News: Consumer Acceptance Study on Precision Fermentation Dairy, Seaweed Cattle Feed, and Airdropped Beer

Welcome to the weekly Food Tech News round-up, where we gather recent stories you might have missed. This week a few pieces caught our eye, including a recently published consumer acceptance study on precision fermentation, a new facility for seaweed-based cattle feed, a university in Singapore offering an alternative protein course, and Busch Light dropping beer from a helicopter.

Consumer acceptance study on precision-fermentation-derived dairy products

Formo (formally LegenDairy), a Berlin-based alternative dairy start-up, announced this week that it co-published what it is calling the first-ever consumer acceptance study on precision fermentation-derived dairy products. The study was published in the peer-review journal “Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.” A little over 5,000 people from the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, Germany, and India were surveyed on their attitudes towards animal-free dairy products, specifically cheese, that are molecularly identical to real dairy. The study found that strong enthusiasm from all five countries, with 71 percent of the participants saying they were willing to buy animal-free dairy cheeses and 79 percent willing to try these alternative cheese products.

Photo by Celia Sun on Unsplash

A new $90 million facility for methane-reducing seaweed cattle feed

Pirie Meats and CH4 Global are partnering to build a $90 million dollar facility in Southern Australia at the end of this year to produce cattle feed made from seaweed. Cattle are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and their feed might be to blame for this. Research by CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) found that by feeding cattle a mixture of regular cattle feed and a red seaweed called Asparagopsis, greenhouse gas emissions from cattle could be reduced by 90 percent. CH4 Global will initially supply Pirie Meats with enough red seaweed to feed up to 10,000 head of cattle.

Photo by Hu Chen on Unsplash

A university in Singapore will now offer a course on alternative protein

Singapore has recently been gaining recognition as a hub for alternative protein, with it being the first country to offer regulatory approval of the sale of cultured meat and major players in the space opening up new facilities in this Asian city-state. Nanyang Technological University (based in Singapore) will be offering a new course that explores alternative proteins. The course, the first of its kind throughout Asia, will be available starting this upcoming school year for undergraduate students. Called “Future Foods – Introduction to Advanced Meat Alternatives,” the course was developed in partnership with the Good Food Institute and will be coordinated by Professor William Chen. Science and engineering students in their third or fourth year have access to the course that will touch on the three pillars of alternative protein: plant-based, cultured, and fermentation.

Airdropped apple-flavored beer

Busch Light is bringing back its apple-flavored beer, the Busch Light Apple, for the summer season. To celebrate the relaunch, the first batch of the flavored beer will be delivered to fans via helicopter. A small number of fans will be able to receive the airdrop at select locations in the Northwest and Midwest. To enter the free beer giveaway, fans must comment on Busch’s social media posts with the hashtags #BuschLightAppleDrop and #Sweepstakes before June 30th. Those who do not receive Busch Light Apple from the sky can buy the beer for a limited time from select retailers throughout the country.

Europe? The U.S.? Israel? Which Country Might Be Next to Approve Cultured Meat

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Ever since Eat Just nabbed the world’s first regulatory approval to sell cultured meat in Singapore (and followed that milestone up by actually selling it), myself and many others have wondered which market will be next. 

The question was asked again this week when an article from Food Navigator zeroed in on Europe, noting, “Europeans want to know when it will be their turn: when will cultivated meat be served on EU plates?” It seems the most probable answer is three to five years. 

With Singapore already selling cultured meat at restaurants, five years seems a long time. But David Brandes, the Managing Director for Belgium-based company Piece of Meat, noted to Food Navigator that “bureaucracy and political interest” hold back the regulatory process, and that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)’s risk assessment process alone takes nine months.

Still, the European Commission has a clearly defined process for bringing cultured meat to market that is known as the Novel Food authorization, which makes it a logical market to try and bring a product into. For example, Mosa Meat, based in the Netherlands, has said it is focusing on Singapore and Europe for its first launches, specifically citing Europe’s Novel Food authorizations as a reason. Europe is also home to many other cultured meat companies, including Blue Biosciences, Mirai, and CellulaREvolution.

On the other hand, many have their sights set on the U.S. as the next destination for the sale of cultured meat. In 2019, the FDA and the USDA issued a formal agreement to jointly oversee regulation of cultured meat using existing frameworks. (The framework does not apply to cultured seafood, which is regulated exclusively by the FDA.)

U.S.-based companies are still leading the cultured meat industry, too, and have attracted huge amounts of investment in the recent past, including Memphis Meats’ $161 million round in 2020, BlueNalu’s $60 million fundraise, and, of course, Eat Just’s recent $200 million fundraise. The latter — still the only cultured meat company in the world cleared to sell a product — hasn’t explicitly said it will next launch commercially in the U.S. In a recent conversation, Eat Just founder and CEO Josh Tetrick only hinted, saying “I think it’s more likely than not that we’ll see clearance sometime in the next two years. I hope it’s this year — we’re going to be ready if it is. But it’s hard to tell.”

Additionally, California-based BlueNalu has said its products will launch in the second half of 2021, though it hasn’t yet said where. And an organization known as the Alliance for Meat, Poultry, and Seafood Innovation, which includes Memphis Meats, New Age Meats, Eat Just, and others, is dedicated to advancing the reach of cultured meat in the U.S.

Let’s also keep one eye on Israel. While its a smaller market than the U.S. or Europe, the country is like Singapore in that its government is very keen on advancing cultured meat. That includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah, who in December of last year became the first head of state to taste cultured meat. He noted at the time that Israel will “become a powerhouse for alternative meat and alternative protein.”

Israel is also home to the world’s first restaurant dedicated to cultured meat, SuperMeat’s The Chicken. No products are sold their. Rather, consumers apply to gain entry then give detailed feedback in exchange for tasting the company’s cultured meat product. (Spoiler alert: it’s chicken.) 

There are also a growing number of companies coming from Israel, including Aleph Farms, Future Meat, and MeaTech 3D, which already publicly trades on the Tel Aviv stock exchange. 

Worth noting is that MeaTech 3D has also filed to go public in the U.S., which may suggest where its sights are set in terms of initial commercialization. Future Meat, too, has also said it plans to launch in the U.S. by 2022 via restaurants and direct-to-consumer sales. So while Israel may not necessarily be host the world’s second commercial sale of cultured meat, it may well provide the companies doing so elsewhere. Say, in the U.S.

Other Headlines

Tyson’s Raised & Rooted Expands into Plant-Based Burgers, Brats and Italian Sausage. Tyson Foods’ plant-based protein brand, announced today that it is expanding its lineup with three new offerings: burgers, Bratwurst and Italian sausages. 

Sweden: Stockeld Dreamery Launching First Plant-Based Cheese This Week. Plant-based cheese startup Stockeld Dreamerly, will launch its first product, Stockeld Chunk, at select stores in Stockholm, Sweden on May 6. 

OmniFoods Plans to Launch Its Plant-Based OmniPork Products in the U.S. This Year. OmniPork, the plant-based meat line from Green Monday subsidiary OmniFoods, will launch in the U.S. later this year.

Food Tech Show Live: Beyond Launches 3.0

It’s another weekly news round up with the Spoon team and this week’s special guest, Ron Shigeta.

The stories/topics we discuss this week include:

As always, you can find to the Food Tech Show at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also just click play below or download the episode direct to your device.

Givaudan and Bühler Open “Protein Innovation Centre” in Singapore

Flavor/fragrance company Givaudan and food processing company Bühler, announced this week they have opened the doors on their APAC Protein Innovation Centre at the existing Givaudan Woodlands site in Singapore. The facility will serve as a place to develop plant-based protein tailored to Asian consumers tastes and preferences. 

The goal is to bring together food processing companies, startups and researchers to develop more and better ways to produce alternative proteins. The Centre includes Bühle’s extrusion and processing equipment and a kitchen and flavor laboratory by Givaudan. The two Switzerland-based companies said that initially the facility will be able to produce 40 kilograms of plant proteins per hour.

The space includes a wet and dry extruder, a product development kitchen, storage facilities, and a viewing area where visitors to the Centre can watch live demonstrations. 

Givaudan and food processing company Bühler first announced the Centre back in February of 2020. Much has happened since then, and I’m not just talking about the pandemic. Over the last year or so, alternative protein companies from around world have flocked to Singapore to establish various innovation and R&D centers. That list now includes Perfect Day, Oatly, ADM, Avant Meats, and Eat Just. 

Singapore is currently trying to make more of its food production local. Currently, about 90 percent of the city-state’s food is imported. The government has set up the 30×30 initiative, which aims to produce 30 percent of Singapore’s food locally by 2030. These factors make Singapore an especially innovation-friendly environment when it comes to the development and regulation of alternative proteins.  

Givaudan and Bühler’s new facility will specifically focus on helping companies from the APAC region develop and scale their alternative protein solutions.

So I Guess I Should Move to Singapore

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I’m not sure how to break this to my wife, but the family needs to pack up and move to Singapore. Because let’s face it, if you want to experience the future of food today, Singapore is the place to be.

This isn’t a new idea, and it’s something we’ve touched on before at The Spoon. In fact, we held an entire panel on Singapore as a food tech superpower at the 2020 Smart Kitchen Summit back in October. Since that time, however, Singapore seems to have stepped on the gas.

The world really took note in December when Singapore granted an alt-protein company, Eat Just, the world’s first regulatory approval to sell cultured meat. A couple of weeks following that announcement, that cultured meat went on sale in a Singapore restaurant. More recently, Eat Just teamed up with delivery service foodpanda to offer home delivery of cultured meat, marking another first for the industry.

In addition to having its own bustling startup scene featuring companies like Shiok Meats and Next Gen, Singapore is also quickly becoming a go-to place for outside startups to build out R&D facilities. Perfect Day, which uses fermentation to create animal-less dairy proteins, announced in December that it was building an R&D facility in Singapore. And just this month, Liberty Produce, Avant Meats, and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) each announced they were building their own innovation centers in Singapore.

What’s worth noting about all the new facilities announced this April was that they all address different areas of food tech. Liberty Produce is developing controlled-environment agriculture systems. Avant Meats is working on cell-based fish. And ADM’s facility will further develop plant-based protein. Not only that, but all three of those companies are building facilities that will also produce food, not just research it.

So what’s behind Singapore’s sprint towards the food of tomorrow? As my colleague, Jenn Marston wrote back in October:

Arguably the biggest driver is that, at the moment, Singapore imports 90 percent of its food. That’s a precarious position to be in during the best of times, never mind during a pandemic that’s disrupted the global food supply chain. In response, the Singapore government launched a $21 million grant fund this year as part of its 30×30 initiative, which aims to have 30 percent of Singapore’s food produced locally by 2030. 

Because of that initiative, Singapore’s regulators are a lot more open to innovation without lobbying from entrenched, protectionist legacy players. This means Singapore really has the power and flexbility to push the food tech envelope.

There’s an old saw in business that dominance perpetuates itself. Singapore has quickly established itself as a dominant force in the food tech space, which means that it will be shaping the global future of food for some time to come.

Guess I should start packing my bags.

More Headlines

Beyond Meat to Launch Newest Version of its Burgers in U.S. Stores Next Week – New version no longer uses mung bean protein and promises to be “meatier” and “juicier.”

Finally! Prime Roots’ New Koji Bacon is a Really Good Vegan Bacon – Our resident vegan tried (and liked!) this plant-based breakfast meat.

Clara Foods Teams Up With AB InBev to Make Animal Protein at Scale – The partnership will combine AB InBev’s “centuries of expertise in scaled, food-grade fermentation and downstream processing gained from large-scale brewing processes” with Clara’s technology to develop more sustainable protein at scale.

ADM Launches Plant-Based Innovation Lab in Singapore

Global food processing company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) announced at the tail-end of last week it had opened an innovation lab in Singapore dedicated to plant-based protein. The lab will help the company increase production of alternative proteins “to meet growing food and beverage demand in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The new facility is located ADM’s Biopolis research hub, which contains a number of different labs, including one for flavor analytics, a sensory evaluation center, labs for sweet, savory, and dairy foods, and a customer innovation center. The plant-based innovation lab will house experts working with texture, flavor, and other key areas of alt-protein development.

“The lab will help us capture key insight and learnings to help drive exciting new solutions for the Asian market, but also help us better serve customers around the world looking to incorporate Asian flavors and preferences into their latest plant-based food and beverage innovations,” Marie Wright, chief global flavorist and president, Creation, Design & Development for ADM, said in a statement. 

Singapore continues to be a key location in Asia for the development of alternative proteins. Just today, cultivated meat company Avant Meats announced its own R&D and pilot manufacturing facility in the city-state. Perfect Day announced its Singapore facility in December of 2020, and the city-state made history in December 2020 by granting the world’s first regulatory approval to a company, Eat Just, to sell cultured meat. There is also a growing number of local players, including plant-based meat maker Next Gen and cell-based seafood maker Shiok Meats.

Singapore is a natural spot for food innovation. Currently, it relies on exports for about 90 percent of its food. The government’s 30×30 initiative is attempting to change this by aiming to make 30 percent of food production local by 2030. 

At the same time, Asia is one of the key regions for the growth of alternative proteins. A recent report from DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences found that demand for plant-based protein in the Asia-Pacific markets is expected to grow 200 percent over the next five years.

Avant Meats Announces New R&D and Pilot Manufacturing Facilities in Singapore

Avant Meats, which makes cell-based fish, announced today that it is establishing new R&D and pilot production facilities in Singapore, created with the support of the Singapore Economic Board.

The Hong Kong-based Avant cultivates fish cells to make cultured fish products, starting with sea cucumber and fish maw. The company says it is the first cultivated meat startup in China and the first cultivated fish startup in Asia.

This new facility is just the latest move from Avant to scale up production of its cultivated fish and bring it to the mainstream. Last month, Avant announced that it had achieved a 90 percent cost reduction in the production of its cultivated fish, and that it had partnered with Chinese biopharmaceutical company QuaCell to bring those costs down another 75 percent.

In the press announcement emailed to The Spoon, Carrie Chan, Co-founder and CEO, Avant said “Singapore provides Avant with regulatory clarity, international talents, and sufficient space for the next step of scaling up.”

Indeed, Singapore has been a leader in the cultured protein space. Singapore became the first country in the world to authorize the sale of cultured meat back in December of 2020. Singapore residents can now even order cultured meat for home delivery, thanks to a partnership between Eat Just and foodpanda.

But Avant is also the latest cultivated meat company to build a pilot production facility. BlueNalu, a U.S.-based cultivated fish startup, raised $60 million this year to open its pilot facility in San Diego this year. And Israeli startup Aleph Farms announced its plans to have its BioFarm pilot plant operational by 2022.

Getting these pilot production facilities up and running is a key step in cultivated meat achieving mainstream adoption. When the BlueNalu facility goes live, it will produce 200 – 500 pounds of commercial grade cultivated fish a week for restaurants and other foodservice operators. As the production of cultivated fish and other proteins ramp up, the cost will come down, bringing much-needed price parity with traditional, animal-based meat.

Perfect Day Is the Latest Alt-Protein Company to Head to Singapore

Alternative-protein company Perfect Day has signed an agreement with Singapore’s Agency of Science, Technology, and Research (A*Star) to build out a research and development lab in the city-state, according to an article today from The Straits Times. 

The facility, slated to open in April 2021, will be used to further develop Perfect Day’s processes for its flora-based dairy products that are made via yeast-fermentation and include items like ice cream, cheese, and milk. According to a statement from Perfect Day, the joint lab with A*Star will focus on “developing analytical systems that will be critical for ensuring the accuracy, specificity, and consistency of Perfect Day’s fermentation processes and protein ingredients.”

The added R&D efforts will aid San Francisco Bay Area-based Perfect Day’s global production. But Perfect Day also said it would hire and train researchers, scientists, and engineers in Singapore to further the local development of the company’s microflora protein. Perfect Day cofounder Perumal Gandhi told The Straights Times that its Singapore workforce “will be about 10 per cent of its headcount in the near term.”

Singapore makes for an obvious choice when it comes to further developing the possibilities of alternative protein. Until now, the city-state has historically imported 90 percent of its food supplies. That changed when the pandemic threw a big glaring light on the inherent precariousness of the global food supply chain. Over the last year Singapore’s government has been pumping millions into food tech innovation as part of its 30×30 initiative, which aims to get 30 percent of all Singapore’s food produced locally by 2030.

Those factors mean the city-state is a welcoming environment when it comes to new ideas about where to get our protein sources outside of the animal. And since so much of Singapore’s food supplies have to date been imported, there is less pushback from established Big Meat and Big Dairy companies and, theoretically at least, fewer constraints to pass through before a company is able to get regulatory approval.

Another alt-protein company, Eat Just, echoed those points over the weekend when it made the world’s first-ever sale of a cultured meat product at a restaurant in Singapore this past weekend (after getting the world’s first regulatory approval for cultured meat). The company has also, with Proterra, said it would invest $100 million into a plant-based protein factory in Singapore. Earlier in 2020, Swiss companies Buhler and Givaudan announced a joint “innovation center” for plant-based foods. Meanwhile, local player Shiok Meats is building a commercial pilot plant.  

As the above company names suggest, the bulk of the activity around alt-protein so far in Singapore has been on meat products. Perfect Day’s forthcoming facility should pave the way for other alt-dairy focused companies to also establish a presence in Singapore, furthering global innovation in the process.

Singaporean Alternative Meat Co. Growthwell Group Raises $8M, Will Develop Chickpea Protein Products

The Growthwell Group, a plant-based protein company based in Singapore, announced today that it had raised $8 million (h/t Deal Street Asia). The investment was led by Singaporean sovereign fund Temasek with participation from DSG Consumer Partners, Insignia Ventures, Genesis Ventures, and others. Growthwell also announced it had made its own investment in ChickP, an Israel-based startup developing chickpea protein.

Founded in 1989, The Growthwell Group owns a portfolio of alternative protein companies aimed at Southeast Asian consumers, including OKK (plant-based meat), Su Xian Zi (vegan mutton), and gomama (ready to eat dishes made from plants). As of today, that lineup will also include ChickP, maker of super high protein chickpea powder for use in meat and dairy alternatives. It sells products to roughly 1500 retailers and 3000 foodservice establishments.

Growthwell plans to use ChickP’s proprietary protein isolate to develop new products for the Asia-Pacific market. According to AgFunder, the new chickpea-powered foods will include plant-based shrimp and squid meat, as well as a vegan crab burger. Next up, it’ll develop chickpea milk and ice cream.

In addition to bringing ChickP’s protein to Asia, Growthwell will also use its new funding to open a new R&D center in Singapore with fully automated production lines. The facility is slated to open in 2021. The company is also working to bring its suite of plant-based foods to new markets, specifically China and Australia.

For its part, Temasek is all over the alternative protein space. This year alone they’ve already made investments in cultured meat startup Memphis Meats, Impossible Foods, and Califia Farms. In 2019 they put some major capital into Perfect Day’s flora-based dairy technology.

Asia is a burgeoning market for alternative protein, especially as the African Swine Fever decimated pork production and COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into meat manufacturing. Singapore in particular, with its goal to produce 30 percent of its food within its borders by 2030, has invested quite heavily in the plant-based food space.

At the same time, U.S. players are making their own play for the alternative protein market in Asia. Beyond Meat began selling at Starbucks in China last week and Cargill has a limited-time launch of plant-based chicken at KFC China. Impossible Foods isn’t far behind.

These three are peddling vegan beef, chicken, and pork, so Growthwell is focusing on less crowded markets like seafood and dairy. We’ll have to see if their new funding can help the company push through the challenges of COVID-19 and become a plant-based powerhouse on the other wise.

TurtleTree Labs is Creating All Kinds of Milk (Even Human Milk) in a Lab

When I first heard about TurtleTree Labs, a new self-described “clean milk” company based in Singapore, I assumed that the startup was creating milk proteins from genetically modified microbes, similar to alternative dairy companies like Perfect Day or New Culture.

Boy, was I wrong. “That’s very much not what we’re doing,” TurtleTree’s CTO Max Rye explained to me over the phone. Instead, their scientists are using cellular agriculture to grow mammary gland cells in a lab which actually lactate milk.

And by milk, we mean any kind of milk — not just cow milk. In fact, according to TurtleTree’s CEO Fengru Lin their first product will likely be human milk.

Yep, human. She said that they’ll focus on human breastmilk initially for a few reasons. One, it could sell at a much higher cost, so they could reach price parity more quickly than with, say, cow’s milk. For context, their cultured milk — any type — currently costs about $138 per liter to produce.

However, TurtleTree won’t be selling its cell-based milk directly to consumers. Instead, the company plans to license out its milk-producing technology, for which it has a provisional patent, to large dairy companies as a SaaS model.

Rye told me that since the milk is cell-based, there’s a huge amount of versatility to their product. Their scientists can play with the settings to create milk that’s lactose-free and has different cholesterol and fat levels. So, for example, they could make a healthier milk for those following strict diets, or an ultra-creamy options for gourmet chefs. 

The startup plans to have a media day in Q1 of next year to debut their first glass of milk, which will likely be human. It’ll be a while yet before they enter the market — two years, according to Lin. The startup has raised an undisclosed amount of funding and is in the midst of raising their seed round. 

TurtleTree’s decision to operate out of Singapore is a very conscious one. Not only were two of the four co-founders already based there, but the local government is very supportive of food tech initiatives. The country has a goal to produce 30 percent of its own food by 2030 (they currently import over 90 percent). As a result, the Singaporean government gives more support to startups to get new products to market more quickly. 

That could give TurtleTree an advantage against other dairy disruptors. As I mentioned at the beginning of the piece, TurtleTree isn’t the only company trying to make milk without the animal. Perfect Day or New Culture are both using microbes to create the protein building blocks of dairy — casein and whey — to create milk that’s genetically similar to the real thing. However, Rye said that TurtleTree has an advantage over these competitors because they can make milk “without having to break it down piece by piece.” Their technology is also species agnostic, meaning they can create milk of any animal without having to rebuild an entirely new process.

I understand why heading to market with cell-based human milk makes sense from a cost perspective, but I’m not sure how well it’ll be received — at least at first. People are pretty skeptical about eating lab-grown food to begin with. Developing a product that normally only comes from humans has a distinctly Soylent Green-y vibe that could be very off-putting to consumers. Especially as something to feed to their babies.

However, as cultured meat and other products hit the market and become more commonplace, maybe that perception will change.