Review Says Animal Testing May Not Be Appropriate for Evaluating Safety of Cultivated Foods
The APAC Regulatory Coordination Forum has published a review paper evaluating whether whole-food animal toxicological studies are appropriate for testing the safety of cultivated foods and food ingredients. Scientists have reportedly raised concerns about the reliability, cost, time-intensiveness, and ethics surrounding long-term, whole-food animal feeding studies. Alternative, non-animal-based testing methods are claimed to provide more relevant, specific, timely, and humane solutions for safety evaluation. The review paper brings together insights …
JSBio to Accelerate Cellular Agriculture Sector’s Path to Industrialization With Serum-Free Cell Culture Media
JSBio, a cell culture media manufacturer in the APAC region, has announced that it is strengthening its commitment to accelerating the cellular agriculture sector’s path toward industrialization and sustainability. JSBio has over ten years of experience in large-scale biopharmaceutical production, and has developed and manufactured more than 200 serum-free cell culture media products tailored to various cell types. After collaborating with cultivated meat companies, JSBio has developed the CellKey® culture …
APAC-SCA and Beyond Impact VC Launch Initiative to Support the Future of Food and Cellular Agriculture
The APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture (APAC-SCA) has formed a partnership with Beyond Impact VC and the Beyond Animal investment platform to advance funding in the cellular agriculture and future food sectors. As part of the collaboration, Peter Yu, Program Director of APAC-SCA, will take on the role of advisor to Beyond Impact VC. In this capacity, Yu will provide guidance on potential investment opportunities within the growing cellular agriculture …
Webinar Recap: Rethinking Food: APAC as a Living Lab for the Future | update #15
The recording of our recent webinar, “Rethinking Food: APAC as a Living Lab for the Future,” is now available on the vegconomist YouTube channel. This session explored the transformative role the APAC region is playing in the future of food innovation. Moderated by Nadine Filko, the webinar brought together a diverse panel of experts: Megumi Abigail Yoshitomi, President of the Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture; Byron Perez, Programme Doctorate at …
APAC-SCA Report Finds 76.7% of Chinese Respondents Would Try Cultivated Meat
The APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture (APAC-SCA) has conducted a market study examining consumer perceptions and acceptance of cellular agriculture products across four Tier 1 cities in China — Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Only 9.7% of respondents were aware of cultivated meat and seafood, but 76.7% said they would be willing to sample these products at least once, mostly due to the appeal of trying new things. However, many …
APAC Regulatory Coordination Forum Releases White Papers to Harmonize Cultivated Meat Standards
The APAC Regulatory Coordination Forum has released two white papers that address essential safety and regulatory concerns for cultivated meat to support their commercialization while promoting safe innovations in the Asia-Pacific market. The new resources examine current gaps in cell line developments and cell culture media components — the building blocks of cultivated meat production — identified as the two regulatory topics of highest interest in 2024. The cell line …
Dutch Startup Meatable Joins APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture, Set to Pioneer Cultivated Pork in Singapore
Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable announces it has joined the APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture (APAC-SCA), becoming its newest member as of September 2024. APAC-SCA is a coalition of Asian cultivated meat and seafood companies advancing cell-based foods to meet the soaring animal protein demand in a bid to ensure food security and sustainability. The organization has opened its membership to companies based outside the APAC region, aiming to support …
Paleo Considers Legal Action Against Vow Regarding the Mammoth Meatball
Belgian precision fermentation firm Paleo announces it is considering legal action against Vow, an Australian cultivated meat company, for claiming that mammoth myoglobin protein is Vow’s invention, “while knowing that the technology (mammoth myoglobin) was already developed two years ago by Paleo, with patent applications ongoing.” Paleo develops animal-free heme proteins as ingredients for the alt meat sector. It focuses on producing myoglobin, a heme protein found in animal muscles. In July 2022, …
GFI: Majority of Alt-Protein Investors Remain Optimistic About Industry’s Long-Term Growth
The Good Food Institute (GFI) has released a new analysis showing that, despite challenging macroeconomic and market conditions, investment interest in the alternative proteins sector remains strong, with 99% of investors surveyed showing optimism for its long-term potential. Observing the rapid growth of alt-protein investments in the past decade, which has doubled YOY and now totals about $14.2Bn globally, GFI noted the marked slowdown and deceleration of investments last year, …
“Regulatory Milestone” as GOOD Meat Receives Approval for Serum-Free Cell Growth Media
GOOD Meat, Eat Just’s cultivated meat division, has become the first producer worldwide to receive regulatory approval for the use of serum-free cell growth media in cultivated products. To date, most cultivated meat producers have used fetal bovine serum to grow their cells. However, the serum is expensive, of inconsistent quality, and comes with ethical issues. GOOD Meat believes that the use of serum-free media will make cultivated meat production …