These dumplings are made of real shrimp meat,
but instead of being farmed in water tanks or rivers,
this shrimp is grown in the lab
by Singapore-based startup Shiok Meats.
Globally, we are the only company
working on cell-based shrimp and crab.
Since we are making this from the actual cells
to the DNA level, the nutrition as well as the taste
is exactly the same as the original product.
Around the world, startups like Shiok Meats
are racing to invent and improve alternatives
to traditional meat production, which is often criticized
for environmental and ethical reasons.
The advantages of using cellular agriculture
to make seafood is that
you don't need to set up large-scale farms
or going to the oceans to catch these animals
for human consumption, so environmentally friendly.
There is very less greenhouse gas emissions
or carbon emissions as well, and it's animal friendly
because we don't slaughter animals in large scale.
Plant-based meats are already here.
Alternative proteins from homegrown insects
are on their way.
And now with advances in technology,
cell-based seafood could soon be coming to a table near you.
So ever since I've known,
I was always intrigued by the human body.
So I wanted to kind of know how the human body works,
how does digestion happen, how does blood flow,
how does the brain work and all of that,
and always imagined myself being in biology.
This passion brought Sandyha Sriram
from her home country India to Singapore
where she got a PhD degree in Biological Science
and co-founded two other tech companies
before starting Shiok Meats in 2018.
I've been a vegetarian all my life
for ethical, more environmental reasons.
I just put my skill for biology and my love for food
and my love for sort of saving this environment
and doing my part in this world together
and said, why not grow seafood using stem cells?
Cultured meat is not new.
In 2013, Dutch professor Mark Post
created the world's first burger patty from cells.
So far more than 60 companies have joined this field,
backed by increasing funding from investors.
And the cell-based meat market is projected to reach
$140 billion in the next decade.
Cultured chicken developed by startup Eat Just
was approved for commercial sale in Singapore last December
a first for a cultured meat product.
But while many companies are working on cultured chicken,
beef and duck meat, Shiok focuses on seafood.
So shrimp crab and lobster alone makes about $150 billion
worth of market share in the world.
And Asia is the largest producer, consumer and exporter
of these proteins.
And it's well-liked by all of us,
and we consume a lot of crustaceans.
So the process of growing cell-based meat or seafood
involves three main steps.
The first step is where you isolate the stem cells
from live animals.
These are the source cells of any animal,
sort of the birth cell that can grow into any organ.
And these cells are then put into large-scale tanks
called bioreactors, which are pretty much like a brewery.
But instead of brewing beer, it's brewing meats and seafood.
And we feed these cells with liquid nutrients
that convert these cells into the actual tissue, muscle fat,
connective tissue and real meat at the end of the day
that has the same taste, nutrition
and eventually the same texture and look as well.
Compared with farmed seafood,
these cultured versions are friendlier
to animals and the planet.
Shiok Meats says growing cultured seafood
is also at least six times faster than farming them.
But it's pricey.
A kilogram of cultured shrimp
costs nearly a thousand U.S. dollars.
The key reason: the liquid nutrient solution
that helps the seafood to grow
is an expensive pharmaceutical product
used to make things like vaccines.
When we started off, the liquid nutrient mix
that we used to feed our cells
used to be pharmaceutical grade,
because that was the only thing available out there.
But what we've managed to do in two and a half years
is to swap out some of the chemicals with plant extracts
or edible products that makes the food more nutritious
and delicious as well.
And eventually our process will involve 100%
plant-based and edible nutrients.
And we are aiming to be at about $50 per kilogram
by the end of this year.
The company also faces another hurdle-
how to make this novel lab-grown food
appealing to customers.
We're looking forward to sort of breaking
the myths that are out there
and making people understand that this is the future
and it's as safe for them as possible.
And it's the same meat and seafood
that they're used to eating.
Shiok Meats has raised
over 20 million dollars in funding
and plans to launch their products
within the next two years.
Yet it might still take years, even decades,
for cultured meat and seafood to go mainstream,
but Sandhya remains hopeful.
Our mission is to feed the 10 billion
that we will be in the next couple of decades
and the ever-growing population after that.
As a consumer, you walk into a supermarket
and you go to the frozen aisle of meat and seafood,
and you see everything from cell-based meat and seafood
to plant-based meat and seafood
and a small section of conventional meat and seafood.
And that's sort of the vision for the entire industry
and for Shiok Meats as well.