Since December 2020, Singapore became the first country in the world to approve the commercial sale of cultivated meat. The initial approval was granted to GOOD Meat, the cell-based meat division of California-based Eat Just, for its chicken product developed from animal cells without slaughter.
Nearly five years after that landmark decision, Singapore has continued to move forward.
As of early 2026, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has approved seven new cultivated meat products within just one year (2025), making it the fastest regulatory approval pathway in the world for this category. The SFA’s review process takes an average of 9 to 12 months, significantly shorter than in the United States or the European Union.
Commercial-Scale Production Begins to Emerge
Until recently, cultivated meat was associated with small-scale demonstrations and extremely high costs. However, that perception has started to shift, particularly based on developments in Singapore throughout 2025.
Vow, an Australian startup that received SFA approval for cultivated quail in April 2024, recorded the largest harvest in the industry’s history in May 2025, producing 538 kilograms in a single production cycle.
That record was soon surpassed. In June 2025, Vow reported producing more than 818 kilograms of quail in a single week across multiple production cycles.
Behind this growth is an unusual infrastructure setup. Vow operates a 20,000-liter bioreactor—the largest of its kind for cell-cultured food production.
The system was built by former SpaceX engineers in less than 14 weeks at a cost of under US$670,000. With this capacity, Vow is targeting annual production of 130,000 kilograms by the end of 2025.
Meanwhile, Dutch company Meatable has announced plans to build the first cost-competitive cultivated pork facility in Singapore, in partnership with TruMeat.
On another note, GOOD Meat made history in May 2024 as the first company to sell cultivated meat in regular stores. They teamed up with Huber's Butchery, and each 120-gram package was priced at SGD 7.20.
Regulation as the Key Driver
Singapore's speed is no surprise. As a city-state, it imports more than 90 percent of its food supply, making food security a practical necessity rather than a policy slogan.
Since 2019, the government has implemented the “30 by 30” initiative, aiming to produce 30 percent of the nation’s nutritional needs locally by 2030, with alternative proteins and cultivated meat included in the strategy.
However, by late 2025, the policy was revised. Singapore replaced it with the Singapore Food Story 2 strategy, which targets 30 percent of protein consumption and 20 percent of dietary fiber to be produced locally by 2035.
The framework is built on four pillars: local production, import diversification, stockpiling, and global partnerships.
The SFA has explicitly stated that cultivated meat is not part of its short-term food security strategy due to high production costs, although research and development continues to be actively supported. Currently, cultivated chicken remains 10 to 20 times more expensive than conventional chicken.
In January 2025, Singapore enacted the Food Safety and Security Act (FSSA), which formally codifies the novel food regulatory framework and clarifies approval pathways for new companies entering the sector.
The SFA has also allocated S$42 million across eleven future food projects, nine of which focus on improving the nutritional value and functionality of alternative proteins.
In October 2025, French startup Parima became the first European company to receive human consumption approval from the SFA, further diversifying the origins of companies entering Singapore’s market.
This reflects how a clear and responsive regulatory framework continues to attract global investment, even amid a 40 percent decline in global funding for cultivated meat in 2024.
