sia's largest cell-cultured chicken facility to be up & running in Bedok from 2023

The_King · June 10, 2022

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/asias-largest-cell-cultured-chicken-facility-to-be-up-and-running-in-bedok-from-2023

Meat lovers here will have more options in the diet when Asia's largest cultivated chicken facility is built in Bedok early next year.

California foodtech firm Eat Just's Good Meat division broke ground on its upcoming 30,000 sq ft facility - about half the size of a football field - in food industry hub Bedok Food City on Friday (June 10).

Singapore is the first country to approve the sale of cell-based meat in December 2020, with the product coming from Good Meat.

Cell-cultured chicken is meat from chicken cells grown in a bioreactor - similar to the vats used in brewing beer - thus doing away with having to slaughter actual chickens.

Once operational in the first quarter of next year, the $61 million Bedok plant will house a 6,000-litre bioreactor - the largest one in the cultivated meat industry to date - which will produce tens of thousands of kilograms of the novel chicken each year.

About 50 researchers, scientists and engineers will work in the facility, which will be the largest Good Meat plant until its second US facility is built later.

Research and development in such novel foods and alternative proteins have been gaining traction in Singapore in recent years as the Republic boosts its food security and produces food sustainably.

With Singapore currently importing more than 90 per cent of its food, the country is looking to shore up against global food supply shocks by producing 30 per cent of its food locally by 2030.

Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu, who was at the ground-breaking event, said: "With technological advancements and growing consumer demand for sustainable foods, alternative proteins have the potential to supplement Singapore's agricultural productivity and contribute meaningfully to our 30 by 30 goal."

The announcement of the new facility comes more than a week into Malaysia's chicken export ban, which has left suppliers and sellers here with lower stocks of fresh meat. They have turned to chilled, frozen and processed poultry.