O’Neill points out a similar process has been used for decades to generate products such as non-animal rennet for cheese. “Also, insulin is produced in this way, and some vitamins such as B12,” she says.
A Solar Foods specialist prepares a schnitzel made of water, air and electricity in Helsinki, Finland.Cultivated meat, which has been touted as an environmentally sustainable alternative to conventional animal meat, has yet to hit the mainstream. O’Neill estimates there are 11 cellular agriculture companies working in Singapore, including, which is developing cultivated shrimp, crab and lobster, and Good Meat, of chicken nugget fame.
“An estimated 1,000 customers have been able to purchase [cultivated chicken] through a series of restaurant pop-ups and small-scale runs, but large-scale sales are still a way off,” Gosker says. Despite substantial price reductions – the first lab-grown burger cost $300,000 to produce in 2013 –suggests cultivated meat may never be able to compete with conventional meat on price.
Chen, who was part of the regulatory board that approved the lab-grown chicken nuggets, says there is less resistance to new food sources in Singapore than in countries with large livestock industries, where the job of farmers and others in the meat supply chain might be at risk. “If you develop plant-based or cultivated meat [in places like the US or Brazil], you’re bound to face resistance,” he says. “In Singapore, we don’t have this problem.”“In the transition from biomedical technology to food technology development – you don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Chen says. “Cultivated meat is very much another form of tissue engineering. Precision fermentation is another biological industry.