NEW TECH FOODS

Cell-based meat producer Eat Just has paused its operations in Singapore as it looks to reassess its strategy within Asia.  

Singapore newspaper the Straits Times (ST) reported that a Just Eat spokesperson said: “We’re evaluating various processing conditions, the unit economics and a larger strategic approach to producing in Asia". 

The media outlet stated that Eat Just is no longer producing in Singapore, with the Good Meat manufacturing plant in Bedok – which was expected to cost $61 million and was slated for a Q3 2023 launch – no longer in operation, while its $120 million Just Egg factory also cancelled. 

When asked about the delay in the opening of the Bedok facility, Eat Just’s spokesperson said there is “no firm timeline” on when it will be operational. They added that the firm is “planning to produce at least twice as much in Singapore this year than any year before”.

Additionally, Singapore’s Huber’s Bistro – which started selling Eat Just’s cell-based chicken products under the label Good Meat in January 2023, – stopped offering the novel food in December last year.   

ST visited Bedok Food City – the industrial premises in Singapore that house the Good Meat facility – on 29 February. Workers from other firms in the building said the US company’s two units on the ground floor are shut and were rarely opened in the last six months.  

An Eat Just spokesperson told The Cell Base:

The current pause in production in Singapore comes amid overseas reports of legal and financial woes confronting the US company. New outlet Wired reported last month that Eat Just is in a legal dispute with a former partner over alleged unpaid invoices. Additionally, in September last year, Bloomberg reported that Eat Just faced a $100 million lawsuit from its bioreactor manufacturer and that the firm had dismissed about 40 employees in a cost-cutting move. 

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