Cell-based protein heats up in Singapore, Eat Beyond announces strategic focus on TurtleTree and SingCell

Eat Beyond​​ – which received approval to list its common shares on the CSE (under the ‘EATS’ symbol) last month –  has a diverse and growing portfolio of companies playing in the plant-based protein, fermented proteins, food tech, and cultured proteins/agriculture markets.

As an investment issuer, the company’s business model allows “regular”​ investors to buy and sell shares of Eat Beyond freely, leveling the playing field for anyone to invest in the future of food, said Eat Beyond CEO Patrick Morris, who launched the company just over one year ago.

“We were seeing some great companies come out into the public sector and we’re seeing massive growth and massive interest on an investor level, but what we found is your regular investor, or what we call your retail investor, was having difficulty participating in a lot of these deals,”​ Morris told FoodNavigator-USA.

“We wanted to provide a platform where your average investor could go and participate in the food space and invest in the future of food.”​

Eat Beyond’s current portfolio includes The Very Good Food Company, Eat JUST Inc., TurtleTree Pte. Ltd., Nabati Foods Inc, SingCell Tx Pte. Ltd., Good Natured, and Greenspace Brands Inc.

“We’ll absolutely add to this group of companies. We’ll hold on for the long-term with some, and others, we may have an exit strategy which is shorter than that,”​ said Morris.

Cell-based protein: All eyes on Singapore​

Eat Beyond said it predicts Singapore – where companies such as TurtleTree and SingCell have received significant investment, accolades, and government support – will likely be the first market to approve the commercial sale of cell-based meat and milk products.

Eat Beyond’s strategic focus on Singapore’s cell-based agriculture industry, comes on the heels of the announcement by Eat Just​ (one of the companies in Eat Beyond's portfolio) receiving regulatory approval for cultured chicken as an ingredient in chicken bites in Singapore, paving the way for the forth-coming small-scale commercial launch in Singapore of Eat Just's new GOOD Meat brand.

Commenting on the first regulatory approval for cultured meat in Singapore, The Good Food Institute (GFI) executive director, Bruce Friedrich, said: “A new space race for the future of food is underway. As nations race to divorce meat production from industrial animal agriculture, countries that delay their investment in this bright food future risk getting left behind. The rest of the world should be following Singapore’s lead by funding alternative protein research and working with companies to ensure a rigorous and thorough path to regulatory approval and oversight.”​

Like Eat Just, TurtleTree and SingCell also are paving the way for the game-changing food technologies, said Morris.  

"When we looked at TurtleTree Labs and SingCell, we see their objectives highly aligned with the government priorities. We see them doing a lot of things right by integrating their offerings into the value chains for cell-based meat production and the cell-based production of key milk products. Both companies have also received strong support by way of grants from the Singapore government,”​ commented Morris.

TurtleTree​​ is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that has developed the technology to produce and recreate the full composition, functionality, and taste of milk using cell-based technology. The company’s OEM approach means that it can produce its own cell-based milk and partner with other companies to integrate it into their products.

SingCell​​ uses a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) model to leverage its proprietary platform to enable global alternative meat companies to develop scalable processes for cultured meat manufacturing.

Eat Beyond also announced that it has entered into a marketing contract with Media Relations Publishing, Carsten Schmider, to provide marketing and consulting services to create market awareness for the company.

"We plan to continue to investigate opportunities in Singapore and expand our investment base there as it is truly leading the way for many of the most game-changing food technologies,"​ added Morris.