Singapore is now approving cultivated meat products faster than any other country and traditional meat lobbies are scrambling

Singapore's food regulatory agency has approved its seventh cultivated meat product since the start of 2025, cementing the city-state's position as the global fast lane for lab-grown protein. The latest approval — a cultivated chicken product from Australian startup Vow — cleared the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) in just 14 months from initial application, roughly half the time comparable reviews have taken in the United States or the European Union.

The pace is deliberate. Singapore imports more than 90% of its food, which makes food security a genuine national priority rather than a talking point. The government's "30 by 30" initiative — producing 30% of the country's nutritional needs domestically by 2030 — has turned cultivated meat from a curiosity into a strategic pillar. SFA has built a dedicated Novel Food division, streamlined its safety assessment framework, and actively courted companies from the U.S., Israel, and Australia to set up shop on the island. As VegOut previously covered, the future of food is increasingly fungal, fermented, and lab-grown — and Singapore is betting the house on all three.

Traditional meat industry groups are paying attention. The North American Meat Institute and several European livestock trade associations have ramped up lobbying efforts at the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the UN body that sets international food standards. Their push? Stricter global labeling rules that would prevent cultivated meat from using terms like "chicken" or "beef" on packaging — a playbook familiar to anyone who watched the dairy industry fight over the word "milk." In Singapore, these efforts have gained little traction. The SFA treats cultivated products under its existing food safety framework and has shown zero appetite for the naming wars consuming regulators in Brussels and Washington.

What makes Singapore's approach interesting is how pragmatic it is. The country has no domestic cattle industry to protect, no powerful farming lobby pushing back. That political vacuum lets regulators focus on one question: Is this product safe to eat? Meanwhile, climate scientists are reshaping how we measure food sustainability by ranking water cost per gram of protein — research that gives cultivated meat advocates powerful new data points in the food security conversation.

The economic incentives are stacking up, too. Since 2019, more than a dozen cultivated meat companies have established R&D or production facilities in Singapore, drawn by regulatory clarity, government grants, and proximity to Asia-Pacific markets. GOOD Meat (the cultivated arm of Eat Just) has been selling its chicken in Singapore since 2020 and recently expanded to a second production facility. For an industry that's watched plant-based pioneers like Beyond Meat struggle under the weight of hype cycles and market corrections, Singapore's steady, unglamorous regulatory grind looks like a more sustainable model for actually getting products to consumers.

The big question is whether Singapore's approach stays an outlier or becomes a template. Israel approved its first cultivated meat sale earlier this year. The U.S. has approved two products total, both in 2023, and the process has largely stalled since. The EU hasn't approved any. If cultivated meat is going to scale — and bring its price down from special-occasion territory to something resembling normal grocery pricing — it needs more countries moving at Singapore's speed. For now, the world's smallest sovereign food market is writing the biggest regulatory playbook.

Feature image by Anna Shvets on Pexels