Chad Smith, NAFB News Service

Singapore is the first country in the world to approve lab-cultured meat for commercial sale. On Wednesday, the Singapore Food Agency said that the cultured chicken produced by the San Francisco-based start-up Eat Just met the country’s safety standards for use in nuggets, opening the door for a commercial launch in the country. The cultured meat industry says it’s faced several challenges that, up to this point, have prevented the release of a commercial product. Those barriers include high production costs, difficulty in scaling up production, and securing regulatory approval. Before the announcement this week, no regulatory agency in the world had approved cultured meat. Industry experts say the approval process for cultured meat in the European Union and the U.S. will take years to finish. That means approval in Singapore may be a major step forward for the industry. The safety testing carried out in the approval process is likely to be useful for getting approved in other countries. A successful commercial launch in that country may help convince regulators around the globe that lab-cultured meat is safe.