Science Talk: China’s big bet on ‘new proteins’ is a win for Singapore

On the edge of an unassuming industrial park near Yichang in Hubei province lies a monumental symbol of China’s future food ambitions.

Operating round the clock, a small crew of control-room employees oversees legions of robotic arms as they harvest nutrient-dense proteins from giant bioreactors, which are then packaged for global export.

The facility, which opened in November 2025, is the first of its kind for Angel Yeast – a multinational company that produces over half of the yeast used in traditional Chinese buns and breads.

Here, the publicly listed company produces eco-friendly “new protein” AngeoPro, which aims to advance China’s protein diversification efforts.

Created through the biomass fermentation of baker’s yeast in mere hours, rather than the weeks, months or years required for animal protein, this protein costs half the price of whey and boasts a 95 per cent lower carbon footprint than its animal-derived counterparts.

The protein also has versatile applications, ranging from sports nutrition drinks and protein-fortified snacks to plant-based meat alternatives. 

Spanning an area the size of 50 football fields, Angel’s new factory can produce upwards of 11,000 tonnes of yeast-based protein a year.

Despite this output, surging demand means the company is racing to keep pace.

At the time of my visit in the first week of February, Angel was about to break ground on a second factory behind the first, aimed at boosting total production capacity to more than 30,000 tonnes.

Put simply, this Chinese factory represents an early manifestation of

Singapore’s vision for a more sustainable, resilient and nutritious food system in Asia.

From Singapore to China to the world

Over the past decade, the Lion City has been at the forefront of advancing novel food production, establishing itself as a living laboratory for food security solutions.

Singapore is where many innovative protein developments are initiated, refined and introduced to consumers, but the country requires international partners to accelerate commercialisation and manufacturing at a global scale.

Building stronger scientific and industry ties with China and other Asian innovation hubs holds the potential to forge a strategic alliance greater than the sum of its parts.

The groundwork for this transcontinental alliance has been taking shape over the past few years.

In 2024, leading Chinese researchers joined forces with their Singaporean peers and scientists from the Good Food Institute APAC to co-host a landmark summit.

Their mission was to identify the most pressing challenges in achieving taste and cost parity between conventional and alternative proteins.

Just a few months later, Beijing opened its first government-funded innovation centre focused exclusively on alternative proteins.

The walls of that new centre are emblazoned with quotes from President Xi Jinping, who has directed his countrymen to “give rise to new industries, new models and new drivers of growth” through technological innovation.

Alongside those quotes is a timeline of industry milestones, which includes December 2020 – a defining moment when Singapore became the first country to approve the sale of cultivated meat.

In 2025, Singapore also established a new UN working group with South Korea and Saudi Arabia, aimed at streamlining international safety review processes for cultivated meat.

Industry leaders in China suggest that the country could introduce its own regulatory framework as early as late 2026, potentially unlocking an enormous market opportunity.

A thriving world, fed sustainably

Economics is one driving force behind China’s growing interest in “new proteins”.

Researchers in Singapore have warned that unless Asia diversifies its protein supply, the region cannot meet its carbon emissions goals.

Recognising this, China has responded by investing hundreds of millions of dollars in “biomanufacturing” through its State Development & Investment Corp to become a sustainable protein supplier to the world.

Geopolitical incentives are also at play.

As incomes and meat consumption have increased, the country has had to import hundreds of millions of tonnes of soya beans and corn for animal feed.

This is due in large part to the extreme inefficiency of cycling food through farmed animals.

As noted in Bruce Friedrich’s new book Meat: How The Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity’s Favorite Food – And Our Future, even chicken – regarded as the most efficient animal protein to produce – requires nine calories of feed to yield just one calorie of meat.

That is like serving nine bowls of rice and discarding eight. 

China’s leaders are understandably eager to reduce this import dependence and free up vast quantities of raw materials for human food production.

By mastering the art of making protein from plants, micro-organisms and cultivated animal cells, China can make far more of it and bolster self-sufficiency.

That vision will take centre stage later this week during China’s annual Two Sessions summit in Beijing, where the country will approve its latest five-year plan.

In the weeks leading up to the conference, provincial leaders have been rolling out their own ambitious plans in support of the national strategy.

Shanghai, for instance, announced a new 20-point action plan to accelerate novel food development over the next five years through synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and science-driven communication strategies.

This sudden surge of domestic and international collaboration by Asia’s largest economy is great news for Singapore – and it comes just in time.

Singapore has invested up to 24 times as much public funding in protein innovation as other global innovation hubs like the US (measured as a percentage of its gross domestic product), but has faced a sector-wide slowdown in this sector over the past year,

prompting several start-ups to wind up their local operations

.

China’s major investments could renew widespread interest in this field.

As an epicentre in climate financing, Singapore is also well-positioned to help this emerging industry thrive by bringing together key public-sector stakeholders, private investors, and philanthropic players.

“In something like the alternative protein sector… the solutions are there,” Singapore’s National Climate Change Secretariat director Joel Tee told audiences at the COP30 Singapore Pavilion in Brazil in November 2025.

“Unlocking that financing stack, that capital stack, is the big innovation that we should be looking at.”

Singapore’s long-term initiatives to build local expertise in protein innovation also appear to be paying off.

The number of university and polytechnic modules dedicated to alternative proteins has risen from just two in 2022 to six today, which would help build a world-class foodtech workforce in Asia. 

“China and Singapore are different in almost every way, and yet we share a common mission when it comes to food: make more with less,” said Professor William Chen, director of the Singapore Agri-Food Innovation Lab.

“As our planet warms, every country will need more efficient ways to make meat, and Asian innovation hubs are once again positioning themselves to sell the world what it needs.”