bigideaventures
  • Accelerator
  • Funds
  • Portfolio
  • BIFC
  • Team
  • Media
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Apply
Select Page

Grow meat at home from stem cells? It’s coming, says Shiok Meats CEO

by admin | Mar 7, 2020 | Press

SINGAPORE: What if you are able to “grow” your own meat at home? Would it change the way your family eat?

The idea is not in the realms of science fiction any more, according to stem cell scientist Sandhya Sriram.

She envisions that people could have a small bioreactor — “a fancy name” for something like a pressure cooker — that can maintain the right temperature and conditions for cells to grow into meat.

“It’s much like making beer or wine at home, or even baking a piece of bread,” says the 35-year-old.

It is already happening in Japan, where there are biohackers trying their hand at developing DIY meat at home through the Shojinmeat Project, a citizen science project.

Sandhya knows more than most about this technology and how to make cultured meats. She is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Shiok Meats, the homegrown company growing cell-based shrimps in a laboratory.

Dr Sandhya Sriram is the co-founder and CEO of Shiok Meats, which grows cell-based shrimps in a lab.
Dr Sandhya Sriram.

She gives it 10 years before people can “have this kind of set-up in their house for them to make meats”.

Meantime, consumers here will get a taste of things to come when her company starts selling its shrimp to restaurants next year, she discloses.

So you can walk into a restaurant that we’re partnering to basically buy a shrimp siew mai dish or shrimp fried rice or a shrimp soup dish.

It has been 18 months since Shiok Meats began as the first cell-based clean meat company in Singapore. And it is unlikely to be the last.

READ: Commentary: Clean meat – the next big thing in Singapore’s push towards agriculture?

FOR NOW, IT’S S$150 A SIEW MAI

Growing meat in a lab is cutting-edge technology being attempted by a handful of companies around the globe.

Growing meat in a lab is cutting-edge technology being attempted by a handful of firms in the world.
Photo credit: Shiok Meats

Their labs have successfully made hamburger patties and shrimp dumplings, but these are not yet commercially available because a tiny amount of cell-based meat costs thousands of dollars. Last year, it cost Shiok Meats S$5,000 to produce eight dumplings.

That has since come down to S$5,000 for a kilogramme of shrimp meat. In other words, each siew mai would set you back S$150.

READ: Siew mai goes high tech: Singapore’s first cell-based shrimp dumplings launched

By year end or the start of next year, however, it will be a “two- to three-digit number” per kilogramme.

And that has to do with the biological research her start-up is doing, says Sandhya, who earned her PhD from the Nanyang Technological University.

WATCH: Lab-grown meat, in Singapore restaurants in 2021 (& at home by 2030)? (2:41)

At heart of the technology, what her company does is to take out stem cells from live shrimps and grow the cells “over and over again” by feeding them a liquid nutrient, or “nutrient soup”.

“It’s a mix of proteins, carbohydrates and fats, very similar to what the animal would eat itself. But because the cells don’t have a digestive system, you have to give them a very simple ingredient mix,” she explains.

“It’s made only by pharmaceutical companies. It’s not made by anyone else in larger quantities for us to purchase, hence the cost. So 90 per cent of our multi-thousand-dollar kilogramme per shrimp is the price of that nutrient solution.”

The pharma companies do not reveal what is in this proprietary substance, “but to an extent, we as scientists definitely know”, she says.

The Shiok Meats team is trying to make their own nutrient solution for their animal stem cells.
The Shiok Meats team. (Photo credit: Shiok Meats)

And by swapping some of the pharmaceutical-grade ingredients for plant-based and edible ingredients, Shiok Meats has reduced the cost. “We haven’t found an exact alternative for the rest. So now we have to start working on those,” she adds.

We’re getting there … It’s been only 18 months since we started, but we’re quite positive that we’ll launch commercially next year in Singapore.

START OF A REVOLUTION

While cell-based meats come from an animal, what has recently taken the world by storm are plant-based meats. They are, to an extent, direct competitors in the market, acknowledges Sandhya.

“But honestly, (in 2050) the world’s population is going to be 10 billion … We don’t even have enough food to feed the seven billion that we are currently,” she says.

“You need different sources of food … So I believe that a mix of plant-based, cell-based and insect-based protein is going to be the future. It’s already started.”

READ: Crickets, algae, soya discard — 3 foods of the future, made in Singapore

What dinner might be made of in future.
What dinner might be made of in future.

To consumers who might think that cell-based meats are slightly like Frankenstein food, she points out that “most of your packaged food that you get in a supermarket now” were made in labs “at one point in time”.

“Then it goes out of the lab and goes into … a food manufacturing facility,” she adds. “That’s exactly what we’re doing with cell-based meats.”

Shiok Meats is setting up its manufacturing facility this year, specifically for shrimp. And it plans to grow cell-based crabs and lobsters after that.

But does its shrimp, when cooked, really smell and taste like shrimp meat to begin with?

The first time the start-up did a blind test, Sandhya got her co-founder and a chef in a culinary school to do the tasting and “they couldn’t tell the difference”, she recounts. “The flavour is inherent.”

Shiok Meats CEO Sandhya Sriram (right) with her co-founder and chief technology officer Ling Ka Yi.
Sandhya with her co-founder and chief technology officer Ling Ka Yi. (Photo credit: Shiok Meats)

The only thing is that the company cannot make “a structured shrimp” right now. “It’s minced, hence the dumpling. But we’re working towards a shrimp that will look like the real thing,” she says.

She herself, as a vegetarian, had never eaten shrimp before that, “so you can imagine that it’ll take me a while to get used to the taste”.

“But I know that I can eat it without any guilt … I know where exactly it comes from and I know that we’ve made it,” she adds, citing “clean shrimp farms” as the source of the stem cells.

“We take those shrimps that are not treated with antibiotics (nor) bleach, (and) don’t have heavy metals or mercury.”

There are no microplastics, Shiok Meats CEO Sandhya Sriram says of her company's shrimp meat.
There are no microplastics either, says Dr Sandhya. (Photo credit: Shiok Meats)

Shiok Meat also runs its final product by third-party organisations that do accredited testing for those components.

And even before the company can take its meat to restaurants, let alone people growing their own meat, Sandhya thinks the world is already witnessing a revolution with people talking about cell-based meats.

“(This) is very, very important because for us … consumer education is more important than getting the product to market so fast. Because we have to educate consumers as to why they have to choose this product,” she says.

Watch the full exclusive interview here. CNA’s In Conversation airs on Wednesdays at 9pm.

Lab-grown food from Shiok Meats, a cellular aquaculture and cell-based clean meat company.
Lab-grown food from Shiok Meats, a cellular aquaculture and cell-based clean meat company, the first of its kind in Singapore.

Source: CNA/dp

Recent Posts

  • Founder’s Story: Fern Ho co-founder and CEO at The Leaf Protein Co.
  • The Big Idea Podcast: Food (Episode 38 Väcka)
  • Founder’s Story: Meet Alison Fagan founder and CEO at CF Foods Group
  • 3 innovators that are shaping the next stage of food innovation in Singapore
  • Spanish startup Cocuus raises €2,5M in Funding to scale its 3D bioprinting technology for the production of alternative proteins

Archives

  • June 2022
  • April 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • November 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • July 2016
  • July 2015

Categories

  • Blog
  • Events
  • Podcast
  • Portfolio
  • Press
  • Research Paper
  • Uncategorized
Apply New York Apply Singapore Apply Paris
  • Contact
  • Funds
  • Investing
  • Partners
  • Portfolio
  • Foodivate
  • Research
  • Terms
  • Anti Spam
  • Copyright
  • DMCA
  • FTC
  • Privacy
  • Social Media
New York

88 Pine St., 14th Floor
New York, NY 10005

Singapore

No. 9 Chin Bee Drive,
SG, 619860

Paris

Station F, 5 Parv. Alan Turing 75013 Paris, France 

Newsletter
Stay on top of our latest news.
Loading
Don’t worry, we won’t spam you.
© 2020 Big Idea Ventures. All Rights Reserved
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
 
Required 'Candidate' login to applying this job. Click here to logout And try again
 

Login to your account

  • Forgot Password?

Reset Password

  • Already have an account? Login

Enter the username or e-mail you used in your profile. A password reset link will be sent to you by email.

Close
 

Answers

 

Account Activation

Before you can login, you must active your account with the code sent to your email address. If you did not receive this email, please check your junk/spam folder. Click here to resend the activation email. If you entered an incorrect email address, you will need to re-register with the correct email address.