i'm audrey tan and this is our better nature a series showing you how
singaporeans are innovating to improve singapore's environment for the future
in this episode we visit a vertical indoor farm at emirati to find out how it grows a ton of
vegetables in a day we also drop by a factory in woodlands to see how alternative meats and seafood
are made from plant-based powder but just how does food made and grown locally help the environment
for one it reduces the need for transportation by air which has a large carbon footprint there
is also more control over what goes into what we eat and finally less reliance on the livestock
sector for food which is responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions
i want to see the texture because you know fish fingers about the texture right yeah it's all
about the texture and the taste i'm at growth well foods a three-year-old company founded on a vision
to create plant-based nutrition for asian pellets yeah i really does look like like real fish this
is one of the innovation that the company has created and i think i think you can also see
some of the products over here actually a lot of people when they think about plant-based food they
might still not be equally informed and many times if you ask people what is plant-based food they'll
tell you oh this is the char shoe that i eat at hawker center made from gluten but actually we
have noticed that alternative protein has really evolved over time with better technology and you
could see over here a range of core ingredients we use to create plant-based food options you
have soy protein isolate that we use to make our chicken nuggets you have conjugate powder which
is a very high fiber ingredient we use to make our seafood range aside from fish sticks the company
also produces plant-based fish and chicken patties popcorn chicken and nuggets and it all starts here
at the factory at jtc food hub sunoco with one of singapore's first high moisture extruders
the reason why high moisture extruder is so important i can come and take a look is because
we are able to then blend uh different protein powder whether it's soy chickpea mung bean and
really through the unique twin-screw extrusion process create cleaner ingredients thinner raw
materials with less additives to form the base of our meat and simple alternative so as the extruded
product comes out into a belt this is usually like the slab or the belt format and then you
can actually dice it into a mince you can cut it into chunks this allows us to have different
variations to create texture in a meat and seafood alternative currently growth wells facility
has the capacity to produce about 4 million kilograms of alternative meat and seafood per year
singapore currently imports more than 90 of its food but is building its agri-food industry's
capability and capacity to sustainably produce 30 of its nutritional needs locally by 2030.
to achieve this ambitious 30 by 30 goal the singapore food agency is leveraging technology
and innovation as key enablers to transform the industry into one that is highly productive
climate resilient and sustainable of course singapore is only so big and land can't easily
be given over to farming so when it comes to producing more food here you could say that
things are looking up take sastenia for instance it opened its first farm in 2013 in an office
building so our aim is to use technology to find ways to grow produce at the heart of the demand
and how we do this is via a control environment system where we are able to control all parts
of the environment and all factors so that we can grow traditionally imported crops right
here in singapore so for every pack of products produced that we are able to send to our consumers
they are 100 clean such that you can eat straight from the pack without even washing
so that saves energy as well as water from on our consumer side as well in one day
the company produces a ton of kale spinach lettuce and arugula which is sold in supermarkets here
its farms are no more than 60 minutes from the city centre and sassania prides itself on the
consistency of its produce thanks to regulated light and water so if you look around you can see
in terms of the size of our our lettuce heads here they are all of consistent size and this is
very much enabled by the technologies tech that we have put together firstly we are able to provide
consistent lighting hours to our crops just the right amount of intensity for them and we are
also able to ensure that through our hydroponic system we are able to provide consistent amounts
of crop nutrition for the plants and the result here is that we are able to see
consistent output and hence we are able to ensure we provide some sort of food resilience
to the cities that we operate in adjacent to the plant-based world of alternative foods
singapore is also placing a trail in the business of cultivated meat in 2020 it was the
first country to approve the sale of cultured chicken by california food tech firm eat just
by 2023 the company's good meat division is set to open asia's largest cultivated chicken meat
facility it's not just startups that are looking to help our health and environment
at nanyang technological university students from the food science and technology program
are finding new ways to provide us with sustainably derived options from plants
and food byproducts these include a plant-based ingredient to replace eggs and dairy in mayonnaise
and an oil from microalgae that could replace the use of palm oil this pink powder is actually the
probiotic powder that you could take in your pill form in the mornings typically we obtain
this gum from acacia trees but in this case you know we don't have acacia trees in singapore but
we do have something and that is durian seeds one of singapore's favorite fruit so this is actually
rich in a gum as well and what we would do in the lab is to extract the gum from these durian seeds
into something you see here and then we mix this with the probiotics and you get this little pink
liquid here and from here to here basically we use the spray dryer that you just saw earlier to
convert it into this encapsulated form considering how much durian singaporeans eat i think that's a
very good way to make use of all these unwanted seeds there's been a lot more traction in this
field lately i think also because of developments in the industry is becoming more cost effective so
that really is what drives consumer adoption and i think right now we're really at this wave of
the next food revolution and we're about to see a lot of exciting new innovations everywhere to
reach our 30 by 30 goal we may need a collective shift in mindset to accept these future foods
are you ready to make the move check
out the singapore green plant 2030 website to find out more
you