Green Plate Special: The hype is growing around lab-grown meat
Singapore is using it as part of an effort to source more of its food on the island.
By Christine Burns Rudalevige
Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
Test tube meat is everywhere. Well, maybe not everywhere in the actual flesh just yet, but certainly, it’s everywhere in the news.
In December, San-Francisco based start-up Eat Just made headlines from Beijing to Berlin when it won regulatory approval from the Singapore government to sell lab-grown chicken there. The approval comes as part of the Southeast Asian city-state’s efforts to have at least 30 percent of its food produced on the island by 2030. Lab-grown meat and vertical farming are two ways they plan to get there.
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The announcement earlier this month that Eat Just's cultured chicken had received regulatory approval in Singapore took a huge step to legitimize the cell-based meat industry. What was once seemingly science fiction is now something that consumers will be able to eat.
"It opens up the door for all of us to stop talking about things, and actually scale this damn technology and make the world's future meat," Eat Just CEO Josh Tetrick said at a panel at the virtual Future Food-Tech conference days after the approval was announced. Eat Just's cultured chicken bites will be sold under the Good Meat brand at a restaurant on the island nation in the near future.