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Demand for meat substitutes is booming, as consumer concerns
about health, animal welfare and the environment grow.
Plant-based meat alternatives, popularized by Beyond Meat Inc
and Impossible Foods, increasingly feature on supermarket
shelves and restaurant menus.
But so-called clean meat, which is genuine meat grown from cells
outside the animal, is still at a nascent stage.
More than two dozen firms are testing lab-grown fish, beef and
chicken, hoping to break into an unproven segment of the
alternative meat market, which Barclays estimates could be worth
$140 billion by 2029.
Shiok grows minced meat by extracting a sample of cells from
shrimp. The cells are fed with nutrients in a solution and kept
at a temperature of 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit),
which helps them multiply.
The stem cells become meat in four to six weeks.
One kg (2.2 lb) of lab-grown shrimp meat now costs $5,000, says
Chief Executive Sandhya Sriram. That means a single 'siu mai'
(pork and shrimp) dumpling typically eaten in a dim sum meal
would cost as much as $300, using Shiok's shrimp.
Sriram, a vegetarian, hopes to cut the cost to $50 per kg by the
end of this year by signing a new low-cost deal for nutrients to
grow the meat cells and expects it will fall further as the
company achieves scale.
Shiok is backed by Henry Soesanto, chief executive of
Philippines' Monde Nissin Corp, which owns British meat
substitute firm Quorn. It wants to raise $5 million to fund a
pilot plant in Singapore to sell to restaurants and food
suppliers.
"We are looking at next year, so we might be the first ever
company to launch a cell-based meat product in the world,"
Sriram said. Shiok still needs approval from the city-state's
food regulator.
Cell-based meat companies also face the challenge of consumer
perception of their product.
Any alternative means of making animal protein without harming
the environment are positive, but more studies are needed to
understand any negative consequences of producing cellular
protein, said Paul Teng, a specialist in agritechnology
innovations at Nanyang Technological University.
In Singapore, some consumers said they would give lab-grown meat
a shot.
"I am willing to try," said 60-year-old Pet Loh, while she
shopped for shrimp in a Singapore market. "I may not exactly
dare to eat it frequently, but I don't mind buying and trying it
because the animals in the oceans are declining."
(Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan and Travis Teo in Singapore;
Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
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