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Eat Just rolls out new cultivated products in Singapore

Once again, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has made history by approving multiple new products for sale from Eat Just’s Good Meat division. While there will be several products available, the only confirmed product is a whole chicken breast, which appeared on menus in select Singapore restaurants in December.

Cultivated meat remains new territory for most companies, consumers and governments, and Eat Just holds the title of the world’s first company that sells cultivated meat products commercially. Adding these additional products to the list of commercially-available cultivated meat offerings comes just over a year after the California company received the world’s first approval to sell cultivated chicken bites in the Asian island nation.

In addition to adding cultivated chicken breasts to menus, the cultivated meat startup is expanding the number of locations where its meat is available. Beginning in 2022, Good Meat is looking to capitalize on opportunities to partner with purveyors in Singapore’s famed hawker centers. Its first collaboration partner is Loo’s Hainanese Curry Rice.

It is clear that Good Meat is reciprocating the investment that Singapore made in the startup when it approved the sale of cultivated meat a year ago. As part of this expansion of its cultivated meat portfolio, Good Meat has doubled down on making Singapore its center of operations. In September last year, the company secured an additional $97 million to build on the $170 it was given in May, making its total fundraise for 2021 $267 million — the largest fundraise within the cultivated meat sector.

Last year's investment was earmarked in part to help build the first-ever cultivated meat facility in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region through a partnership with Doha Venture Capital and Qatar Free Zones Authority. The money is also supporting a more recent announcement that Eat Just, Good Meat's parent company, will create manufacturing vessels and systems that will enable “significant increases” in cultivated meat production capacity. The company expects to have the equipment installed and operational within the next two years, according to a press release.

Beyond growing the technical requirements and infrastructure to increase the amount of cultivated meat that is commercially available, Good Meat also announced that it is bringing the celebrity chef and humanitarian José Andrés onto its Board of Directors. The chef — who has a two-star Michelin restaurant as well as four Bib Gourmand-ranked establishments — is a logical addition to the advisory committee seeing that his interests in cuisine and the environment intersect with those of Good Meat.

As to whether Good Meat’s expansion efforts are successful outside of Singapore, that will depend on the positioning of its products and the continuing education of its target audiences. Currently, there is widespread interest in the concept with nearly seven in 10 consumers saying they would be willing to substitute cell-based chicken for the animal-derived equivalent, according to research done on behalf of Eat Just. However, outside of Singapore, Eat Just is continuing to work on gaining governmental regulatory approval in order to sell its products commercially in more countries.