The approval by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is only the second one worldwide for cultivated beef in particular, with all other cultivated approvals previously in Singapore and elsewhere having been for poultry, seafood or quail.
The only other regulatory approval for cultivated beef internationally also belongs to Aleph Farms, and was secured in its home base Israel back in 2023, so this is also the first approval outside of its home market.
The product that has been given the go-ahead for sale is Aleph’s Cultivated Thin-Cut Steak.
“Aleph Farms submitted this application to the SFA [back in] September 2022. This was the first time any regulator anywhere had assessed cultivated beef, so it was a pioneering process rather than a product moving through an established pathway,” Aleph Farms VP Marketing Nicky Quinn said.
“Both the SFA and industry were navigating a new category together and through the review we worked closely with the agency on scientific and regulatory questions that had never been assessed for cultivated meat before, generating additional data as the framework itself evolved.”
At this point in time, Aleph Farms is taking the foodservice route for launch in Singapore, but retail products are not out of the picture.
“We are targeting the first half of 2027 to launch through foodservice with select restaurant partners, [which] we will announce closer to launch. Retail would follow later rather than at launch,” he said.
“Our manufacturing partner here is Cell Agritech, and we will be expanding local capacity with them. Initial volumes will be modest while we do this, [but] we expect volumes to grow through 2028.”
The Thin-Cut Steak is not made with pure cultivated beef at this time — it is a combination of cultivated beef cells with a plant-protein base.
Quinn declined to disclose specifics of the pricing at which this product will be sold just yet, but has revealed that the steak will contain between 10% to 20% of cultivated beef.
“We are not in a position to discuss pricing yet and this will be set closer to launch, with our foodservice partners,” he said.
“What is for sure is that Singapore imports virtually all of its beef, and serves as a regional distribution hub, [making it] central to Aleph Farms’ approach to embedding cultivated beef into existing Asia Pacific supply chains.”
Where to next?
Singapore is known to have one of the world’s strictest national food standards, overseen by the SFA, and having secured approval here brings Aleph much closer to its expansion goals.
“Earning approval in Singapore meant meeting one of the most rigorous novel food frameworks in the world,” said Yifat Gavriel, Aleph Farms chief of regulatory affairs, quality assurance and product safety.
“It gives us a strong foundation as we pursue approvals in additional markets.”
The firm is operating based on the concept that cultivated beef can act as a ‘practical complement’ to conventional animal-based meat, a far cry from earlier calls within the alternative protein sector to replace the latter entirely.
Either way, its focus at presence is to not only commercialise but also scale up in this region in order to ensure business sustainability.
“Singapore has built one of the world’s strongest ecosystems for cultivated meat, and this clearance allows us to move toward scaling-up our commercialisation in Asia on a capital-efficient footing,” Aleph Farms co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia said.
“Food security calls for diversification of animal protein sources [and] our aim is to complement conventional beef supply chains, not replace them. Singapore is a practical place to begin that work in the APAC region.”
Moving forward, Aleph Farms has its sights set both on Asian expansion as well as further away in Europe.
“Switzerland and the UK are the next markets where we have regulatory reviews underway. [While Singapore is our] APAC innovation and scale-up hub, Switzerland is where we are preparing our European production base,” Quinn added.
“Within Asia, Singapore is deliberately the entry point rather than the whole plan, and our manufacturing partnership with Cell Agritech includes capacity in Penang to support the wider region as demand grows.”