Singapore Becomes World’s First Country To Approve Lab-Grown Meat
With 130 million chickens slaughtered every day for meat, Singapore’s landmark move is being hailed as a major milestone towards a more sustainable and ethical food industry.
Eat Just’s lab-grown chicken bites. Credit: Eat Just
Singapore has become the first authority in the world to approve lab-grown meat for sale.
Lab-grown meat, which is grown directly from chicken cells, rather than a farmed animal, has passed the country’s regulatory authority and is now permitted for sale in the region.
The safety review by the Singapore Food Agency, looked into lab-grown ‘chicken bites’ produced by US company Eat Just, and marks the first regulatory authority in the world to approve lab-grown meat for sale.
“I think the approval is one of the most significant milestones in the food industry in the last handful of decades”, Josh Tetrick, of Eat Just, told The Guardian. “It’s an open door and it’s up to us and other companies to take that opportunity. My hope is this leads to a world in the next handful of years where the majority of meat doesn’t require killing a single animal or tearing down a single tree.”
Also known as cell-based or cultured meat, lab-grown meat is one of the leading solutions to eliminating factory farms and making the suffering of animals in the farming industry a thing of the past. And because it’s crafted in a lab rather than via animals on a farm, it’s healthier than conventional meat because it contains no antibiotics.
“A new space race for the future of food is underway”, Bruce Friedrich, Executive Director of the Good Food Institute (GFI) said of Singapore’s announcement.
"Most of the conventional meat companies have reconstituted as protein companies, and nine of the 10 biggest have either launched or invested in plant-based meat, cultivated meat, or both”, Friedrich explained.
And it’s easy to see how alternative proteins are already beginning to transform the industry: Israel welcomed a trial launch for the world’s first lab-grown meat restaurant last month, while meat giant McDonald’s recently announced its first vegan burger, dubbed the McPlant. And TIME magazine just named plant-based Impossible Pork as one of ‘The Best Inventions of 2020’.
For more on the future of food, and how lab-grown meat could help save billions of animals from factory farms, listen to our podcast episode with James Arbib: Rethinking Humanity.
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The footage was reportedly recorded at Marshall BioResources in North Rose, New York, where up to 22,000 dogs - mostly beagles - are being bred for animal experimentation.