Singapore made headlines in late 2020 by being the first country in the world to approve the sale of a chicken nugget made entirely from cells grown in the lab!

The California company EAT JUST developed this lab-grown meat and is the first of many companies that are researching such products around the world. Growing animal meat without having to rear or kill animals has been attracting much public and investor interest for several years, with the promises that it is good for the environment, reduces climate change and gives countries ore control of their food supplies.
And lab-grown meat comes on the heels of plant-based protein, another product made by processing plant material like beans and other plant ingredients, into meat lookalikes. Some like the “Impossible Burger” even look and feel so much like real beef that the patties can be cooked as medium-rare with redness that looks like animal blood but is in reality a plant chemical that resembles blood.

Both these are what regulators in many countries called Novel Food.

Novel foods are generally considered to be those foods or food ingredients which do not have a significant history of consumption, or hitherto have not been part of the conventional food basket available to chefs and consumers. Both lab-grown meat and plant based protein are considered Novel Food and subject to new regulations concerning their safety.

Both also belong to a growing array of novel, future food, in an emerging sub-sector of so-called Alternative Proteins.
The Alternative Protein market has been estimated to be worth US$ 14-15 Billion in 2020, or about 1% of the US$ 1 trillion meat industry. Some speculate that these meats may become mainstream within even a decade, starting faster in countries with large middle classes which are already looking for more sustainable food sources.

The World’s food systems admittedly are being severely challenged because of climate change, loss of land and water resources to grow food, and a declining number of aging farmers, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations! In fact, some in the food industry have even gone so far as to say publicly that the world’s food systems are broken! And that modern farming practices continue to exacerbate the climate situation and inefficiently use up the world’s freshwater.
At the same time, the World Food Programme, which received the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, warned that more people are facing threats of hunger because of conflicts and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018 there were an estimated 830 Million people who were severely food insecure.

So how have these warnings been responded to?

The year 2020 has seen tremendous growth in investments to research and commercialize so called alternative methods of food production. Among the early entrants into the plant-based protein industry are companies like BEYOND MEAT and IMPOSSIBLE FOODs.

BEYOND launched its IPO in May 2019 at US$1.46 Billion and was immediately over-subscribed. IMPOSSIBLE FOODS is pre-IPO and already has an estimated valuation of about US 2 billion; it is also dominating the North American market with its plant-based beef patty used in hamburgers which simulates the flavor and structure of “real” beef using its proprietary technology which even allows for its patties to show the reddening and bleeding in “real” meat.

However, although there is strong evidence that alternative proteins produced in labs are less damaging to the environment, they are still beyond the affordability of price-conscious consumers. And likely to be so within the near future until scale up and technology can reduce the costs of per unit production. So for the moment they are unlikely to help in the hunger reduction efforts so urgently needed.

How has the culinary world responded? And what of consumers?
So far, the responses to the plant-based protein have been positive, with many chefs jumping on the bandwagon to create new recipes. The North American market has seen the most uptake since plant-based protein was considered quite a novelty in an animal meat dominated market. In Asia, where traditional plant-based proteins like mock meat have featured strongly in the diets of vegetarians like Buddhist priests, the uptake has been less spectacular. But COVID-19 may have become an ally to more acceptance as it is generally perceived to be safer than eating animal meat.

The picture with lab-grown meat is less clear since the first product, the EAT JUST chicken nuggets have just been launched. And the other lab-grown meats like shrimp and pork may be at least a year away from sale to consumers. Gastronomically, minced meat is a minor use form of animal meat in Asian diets. But will chefs in Asia respond in the same way as their Western counterparts to find more innovative uses of lab-grown chicken or shrimp in the interests of saving the environment? In Asia, local cuisine has strong roots in using whole animals – chicken, fish or shrimp, and it is difficult to imagine the famous ‘Singapore chicken rice” with minced chicken. It is possible, however, to picture lab-grown minced shrimp in dim sum dishes even though many Asian dishes use whole shrimp.
“Necessity is the mother of invention” as the old saying goes. So if indeed the supply of chicken and shrimp from animals grown on farms declines significantly due to different reasons like climate change, it may force a change in consumer eating habits and correspondingly, for chefs to respond by using lab-grown meat.

Another unpredictable trend is the occurrence of disruptors like pandemics, natural disasters and crop/animal diseases which reduce the supply of food. The world has seen some of these in 2019/20, notably the African Swine Fever, Avian Flu, typhoons and the Army Worm. All these, including COVID-19, caused governments to wake up to the reality that they cannot take food imports as assured but need to be prepared for some amount of food production within their countries. Singapore is a visible example when it announced its “30by30” and its “Express 30by30” plans in 2019 and 2020 respectively to produce 30% of its nutritional needs by 2030. And Alternative Protein production is an integral part of these plans.

Gazing into the crystal ball, the day may also come when food technology becomes so advanced that it may be possible to actually create the equivalent of a chicken drumstick or whole shrimp in the lab!