Shuttered Tetrick facility in Singapore

According to the Straits Times the cell-cultured meat project established by Josh Tetrick in Singapore has apparently ceased operation.  The facility in Bedok Food City extending over 30,000 square feet was heralded as an advance in sustainability and the future independence for the City-State from meat imports in a ceremony during late February. 

It is understood that the facility involved an investment of $60 million.  A second facility established as a subsidiary of Tetrick’s holding company to produce liquid egg products has apparently also closed.  In March 2022, Eat Just announced a plant in the Pioneer industrial district but this project will evidently not proceed.

Tetrick’s companies are mired in legal claims from suppliers of equipment including an action for $100 million from a manufacturer of bioreactors ordered to produce cell-cultured meat.

Aspirant producers of cell-cultured meat have encountered numerous problems relating to transition from laboratory-scale production using plastic roller bottles to commercial volumes using bioreactors. Substrate required to culture cells is expensive and the process is inherently energy and water intensive.

Tetrick (center) in better days

There are now questions as to the consumer acceptability of cell-cultured meat even if available at prices equivalent to the real product. The entire cell-cultured meat segment has disappointed investors in both an inability to produce saleable quantities due to technical restraints and the vast amount of money required for research and development.  Venture capital companies are also reviewing the potential sales figures for plant-based meat alternatives and their high production costs relative to the products they intend to displace. To add to problems faced by start-ups livestock-producing states in the U.S. and individual E.U. nations are enacting restrictive legislation on the sale and labeling of cell-cultured chicken and beef even before any product becomes commercially available.

Promise unfulfilled

Authorities in Singapore approved the sale of cell-cultured meat products in December 2020.  Despite investment and unsubstantiated hype, Tetrick’s companies have only produced token quantities of cell-cultured chicken sold at a gourmet restaurant principally as a curiosity.  The USDA and FDA approved the U.S. sale of cell-cultured meat from Good Meat, a Tetrick company, and Upside Foods in June 2023.  Neither company has produced commercial quantities of faux beef or chicken. 

There has always been a taint of Theranos associated with the cell-cultured meat segment that has been reinforced by allegations of deception and failure to deliver on promises and projections.