Butchery Becomes “World’s First” To Sell Cultivated Meat

EAT

Jan 8

The historic moment is a step towards a world without slaughterhouses, as Huber’s Butchery in Singapore offers slaughter-free meat cultivated from animal cells, rather than from a farmed animal.

One of Singapore’s premier producers and suppliers of meat products has become the first butchery in the world to sell and serve cultivated meat.

Huber’s Butcher has teamed up with GOOD Meat, the cultivated meat division of food technology company Eat Just. The butcher’s customers can now opt for GOOD Meat’s cultivated chicken, which has been produced without slaughtering an animal.

“Offering this new approach to making meat at a butchery is another historic moment in the long road to making our food system more delicious and sustainable”, said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just.

Cultivated meat is projected to become a key solution in creating a more sustainable and ethical global food system. The process creates ‘real’ meat, but it is cultivated and grown directly from animal cells, rather than a farmed animal. This means that the food industry could theoretically eliminate the need to breed, raise, and slaughter millions of farmed animals around the world each year.

Currently, Singapore is the only country in the world where cultivated meat products can be sold to consumers after Eat Just won regulatory approval for its cell-based chicken in the country two years ago.

This has led Singapore to become a global leader in reimagining the world’s meat supply, with innovative Singaporean starts-ups working to create everything from cultivated chicken nuggets to cell-based lobster meat.

“When we founded our butcher shop, we made it our mission to provide top quality and exceptional tasting meat products with the highest food safety standards at an affordable price. Partnering with GOOD Meat is in keeping with that vision and the realities of our ever-changing food system,” said Ryan Huber, Huber’s Butchery Managing Director. “Cultivated meat could be one of the solutions to over-farming due to increased population size and density and an increase in animal protein consumption in many parts of the world.”

Meeting the world’s demand for meat - without slaughterhouses

The exciting potential of cultivated meat has led to a new “space race” for creating the future of food. There are currently more than 150 companies working on cultivated food tech solutions across six continents, with more than $2.6 billion invested in the sector, according to Good Food Institute (GFI), a non-profit think tank working to accelerate alternative protein innovation.

Late last year, California-based startup Upside Foods became the first company in the United States to receive approval for its cultivated meat from the FDA. The company’s founder described it as a “watershed moment in the history of food”, with the approval signalling a new era where US consumers could soon be able to eat meat that’s grown directly from animal cells.

Upside Foods will now work with the USDA to complete the remaining regulatory steps that will allow cultivated meat to be sold on the US market.

“We anticipate that this news will usher in a new wave of investment, talent, and B2B technological innovations, and we’re excited to propagate this milestone in many other countries around the world,” the Good Food Institute said on the announcement that the FDA had approved cultivated meat for the first time. “The US is a pivotal market and this sets a strong precedent for other nations to follow suit and be leaders in reimagining the global meat supply.

In 2023 and beyond, Species Unite will continue to champion the solutions including cultivated meat that can help transition the world away from animal products. Join our community by becoming a member today and check out our Future of Food podcast episodes to learn more about cellular agriculture.

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