Singapore lab-grown seafood firm Avant Proteins winding up in another blow to novel food sector

SINGAPORE – Cultivated meat company Avant Proteins is giving up its slice of the Singapore market, The Straits Times has learnt.

In a notice on Singapore’s Government Gazette, the seafood cell research company declared on Jan 26 that it was voluntarily winding up its business here due to its liabilities.

A LinkedIn post by the company the next day on Jan 27 said it plans to transition operations out of Singapore.

Avant Proteins is the research firm of Hong Kong-founded Avant, which is branded as Asia’s first cultivated fish company.

It was founded in 2018 with the dream of producing fish meat without killing them.

The firm’s Hong Kong entity – Avant Meats Company – remains a private company limited by shares as at Feb 10, according to its government’s companies registry.

Avant Proteins’ exit from Singapore marks the latest of

at least three firms in the

lab-grown meat sector

that have struggled to scale up operations in Singapore, years after the Republic hit global headlines as the first country to approve the commercial sale of cultured meat in 2020.

Previously, California-based Eat Just had

paused cultivated meat production in Singapore

, while home-grown firm Shiok Meats was merged with Singapore-based Umami Bioworks, which specialises in marine cell cultivation.

Cultivated meat is produced by growing animal cells in bioreactors, much like brewing beer.

This method is thought to be kinder and more sustainable than traditional farming, requiring significantly less land and labour.

But the sector has struggled to take off since 2023 due to challenges in commercialising the technology, cost pressures and the lack of clear consumer demand.

A slowdown in investments also prompted such firms to scale down their operations, while others have consolidated and pivoted.

In a 2024 reply to ST on the state of the cultivated meat sector in Singapore, Ms Carrie Chan, Avant’s co-founder and chief executive, said that investors had become “more conservative” due to economic conditions.

“Some are thinking (this sector) is more challenging, and they should not be investing in anything at the pre-revenue stage as the tech involved can be difficult to scale up quickly,” she said then.

ST’s checks on the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority’s database found that Avant Biotechnology, which held shares in Avant Proteins, was still live as at Feb 6.

Ms Chan is listed as the director of both Avant Biotechnology and Avant Proteins.

Attempts to contact her at her last known phone number and e-mail address since Feb 2 have been unsuccessful.

Singapore’s investment arm SGInnovate, a shareholder of Avant, said on Feb 6 that it was not in a position to provide a response as it “did not have the full set of information to comment meaningfully”.

The government-owned organisation that builds the Republic’s deep-tech innovation space added that it did not hold a seat on the company’s board, and was therefore not involved in its strategic direction or operational decision.

Following its set-up in Hong Kong in 2018, Avant announced

plans to expand to Singapore

in 2021 through a research lab, established with A*STAR’s Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI).

At the time, the lab was opened in hopes of scaling up the production of food-grade cultivated fish fillets and fish maw.

Responding to queries, A*STAR said the collaboration concluded as planned two years later, and the firm had set up its own pilot facility in Woodlands.

“Through this work, A*STAR BTI and Avant Meats gained valuable insights into upstream bioprocessing, production challenges and scale-up considerations,” it said.

Avant then scaled up in its Woodlands pilot facility, according to its latest LinkedIn post, which said it had contributed to public education about the future of animal proteins.

The post added that it has commercialised skincare technology using cultivated fish cells, and continues to advance cultivated fish towards approval by the Singapore Food Agency.

Some time after the start of 2026, however, Avant Meats’ website, which promoted its skincare line and lab-grown meat, went offline. The website for its skincare technology remains live.

Eat Just, which was the first company in the world to receive approval to sell its cultivated chicken in Singapore, said in 2024 that it had paused cultivated meat production in the city-state.

At that time, Eat Just chief executive Josh Tetrick said its cultivated meat production here has never been continuous, but is done on a “campaign” approach in which it “produced and paused and produced and paused”.  

He also said then that Eat Just’s cultivated meat subsidiary Good Meat plans to produce “at least twice as much” of its cell-based chicken here in 2024 than before.

The firm has not responded to multiple requests for an update since June 2025.

But not all foreign players are throwing in the towel.

Some like Australia-based cultured meat firm Vow are aiming for a larger slice of the pie.

A Vow spokesman told ST that its sales have grown by 30 times since

its launch under the brand Forged

in the middle of 2024.

He said: “Critical to Vow’s success has been its ability to scale production of commercially viable food-service products at prices and in formats that work for its restaurant partners.

“Offering a delicious range of ethical and sustainable cultured Japanese quail foie gras products also allowed the brand to bring chefs’ genuine innovation rather than imitation products that would always struggle to make sense economically for an operator.”

As at January, Vow sold products to over 25 restaurants and hotel partners, including Two Men Bagel House, Tiong Bahru Bakery, Pullman Hotels and Shangri-La Hotel.

Its spokesman said: “The company has an exciting year ahead, setting its sights not only on the expansion of its Forged range but also on introducing an exciting line of nutritionally focused poultry products as well as breaking into new sectors such as cosmetics.”