Eat Just Bags $170 Million, Partners Luxury Hotel To Scale Cultivated Meat

Eat Just has secured a $170 million investment and partnered with the luxury hotel, JW Marriott Singapore South Beach, in order to scale up its cultivated meat division.

The plant-based food tech brand will use the funds to boost the production of the meat alternatives. And, it hopes to install facilities in the US and Asia, according to Food Ingredients First.

Eat Just

CEO and Co-Founder Josh Tetrick told the news outlet: “This investment, along with the historic decision by JW Marriott Singapore South Beach, points to what’s ahead.

“Meat without killing animals will replace conventional meat at some point in our lifetimes. The faster we make that happen, the healthier our planet will be.”

A Chinese restaurant within the luxury hotel, Madame Fan, is set to be one of the first restaurants worldwide to serve cell-cultured chicken, courtesy of Eat Just.

“Continued investment is critical to ensure that cultivated meat can meet the moment.”
Bruce Friedrich, Executive Director of The Good Food Institute

Cultivated meat market

In a statement sent to PBN, food expert Bruce Friedrich welcomed the news. However, he said it’s important to keep perspective.

The cultivated meat market share will remain ‘just a fraction’ of the ‘conventional’ meat market, he said. And that’s unless governments start injecting funds into basic research and development.

Additionally, they must ‘incentivize’ among the private sector, in order to enable the industry to scale up.

“Continued investment is critical to ensure that cultivated meat can meet the moment – providing a more sustainable, safe, and secure way of feeding people with far fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

“And, far less land and water required, and no contribution to antibiotic resistance and pandemic risk.”

Friedrich is also the Executive Director of The Good Food Institute (GFI), a global non-profit food organization.

‘Sustainable future’

GFI’s Acting Manager Director, Mirte Gosker agreed further support is needed to propel the cultivated meat market.

‘Now the responsibility rests with global leaders to bring this better way of making meat to the masses.

‘For the entire industry, investments and commitments like this continue to signal that this technology is here today rather than some far-off future endeavor’, she said.

However, Gosker predicts the meat alternative will soon boom: “Fully electric cars will someday simply be referred to as cars.

“Cultivated meat can become the default if the industry receives adequate public and private funding to scale up.”