Eat Just is out to make a major change in the way the world produces and eats meat. The most recent milestone in its mission is the historic regulatory approval it received in Singapore for cultured meat.
"This way of making meat is far and away safer," Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, told Cheddar Monday. "It’s cleaner, and eventually it’s going to be more cost-effective."
Eat Just creates its cultured chicken — which Tetrick calls "no-kill meat" — using animal cells. Tetrick explained those cells can come from a biopsy or cell bank. The company identifies the nutrients needed to feed the cell, and then manufactures it in a bioreactor.
The new regulatory approval lets Eat Just sell its cultured chicken in Singapore as an ingredient in chicken bites.
But Eat Just has ambitions to eventually get into millions of restaurants. Tetrick said there’s no need to have both conventional and plant-based chicken options on the menu, just a cultured chicken option.
"It satisfies everyone," Tetrick said. "It satisfies people who are trying to eat [no meat] because they don’t want to take a life. It satisfies people who don’t want to contribute to exacerbating climate change. And it satisfies people who just like good old tasty fried chicken and don’t care about any of that stuff. That’s how we think we’re going to really change the food system."
