SINGAPORE – Singapore’s alternative protein landscape may see laboratory-grown pork-based products landing on dinner plates in the second quarter of 2024.
Meatable, the Dutch start-up focusing on developing lab-grown, or cultivated, meat is looking to scale up the process in Singapore, working on producing hybrid pork that is one-third cultivated meat and two-thirds plant-based protein.
This composition – chosen after the company taste-tested products comprising 10 per cent to 50 per cent cultivated meat “and everything in between” – “is enough to have this wonderful taste along with the texture”, said Meatable chief commercial officer Caroline Wilschut.
Meatable is in the process of refining its products while seeking regulatory approval from the Singapore Food Agency for selling them.
The media had a taste of its latest lab-grown pork products last Wednesday, following the company’s first tasting with the Economic Development Board and a group of retail partners in May.
Apart from sausages and pulled pork at some restaurants, Meatable’s products may also be available at some supermarkets, with prices comparable to those of organic meat in the “high-end range”, said Ms Wilschut.
To grow the cultivated meat in bioreactors of large metal tanks replicating the natural growth process of cells, Meatable uses its patented opti-ox technology to manipulate the fast-growing cells found in a piglet’s umbilical cord, called pluripotent stem cells, into fat and muscle cells.
The composition of the fat or muscle cells determines the type of meat product that is made, such as pulled pork or sausage.
With the plant-based components, the process from cell to sausage can be completed in eight days, compared with the eight months it takes to rear a pig.
Such efficiency enables Meatable to scale cultivated meat production affordably for the mass market, said Ms Wilschut.
But for now, the company has yet to set a target on the amount to be produced for launch in 2024, said Meatable co-founder and chief executive Krijn de Nood. “The amount produced will be relatively small, (for) a few restaurants at the most,” he said.
Meatable is now developing cruelty-free cultivated products with plant-based butchery Love Handle, which set up a headquarters for research and development at The Arts House in September.
In 2025, it will put out more products on the market.
Said Mr de Nood: “What comes from our process is that you have fat, you have muscle.
“With these two, you can combine into a final product, you can make multiple final products from that one.
“So that’s where you can make a sausage, make dumplings, make pulled pork, make pork bellies, you can make multiple meat products from that process.”
With total funding now at US$95 million (S$130 million), Meatable is developing its manufacturing capabilities in the United States and Singapore, with a target for its products to reach the mass market in both countries by 2026.
The US approved the sale of cultivated meat in June 2023, becoming the second country to do so after Singapore gave its approval for cultivated chicken nuggets in December 2020.
