Exclusive: Friends & Family Pet Food Launches Cultivated Meat in Hong Kong

US food tech startup Friends & Family Pet Food has expanded its cultivated meat products for dogs and cats to Hong Kong, debuting the lineup online ahead of a brick-and-mortar rollout.

Hong Kong’s 240,000 pet-owning households can now buy cultivated meat for their furry friends.

Friends & Family Pet Food, a Californian startup commercialising cultivated quail products for dogs and cats in Asia, has rolled out its range in Hong Kong.

Its functional pet treats are available online on vet-owned marketplace PetProject.HK and leading e-commerce platform HKTVMall, with a physical store launch also in the works.

“Whenever you have brand new products, our research shows that consumers are more likely to try them in-store than online. So that’s a great reason to expand to brick-and-mortar stores in Hong Kong,” co-founder and CEO Joshua Errett tells Green Queen.

The startup has also made its mass e-commerce debut in Singapore via Lazada, adding to its retail presence across 10 stores in the island nation, including Vanillapup, PawMarket and Neko Neko.

It comes five months after Friends & Family introduced its suite of cultivated meat products, based on Japanese game bird Pharaoh quail, in Singapore, which span functional treats and broth toppers.

The firm had secured regulatory approval for its innovations from Singapore’s Animal and Veterinary Service in June 2025, which has underpinned the Hong Kong launch.

“Hong Kong SAR doesn’t have a pre-market approval process, and there is no ingredient-level approval to seek there,” explains Errett. “Our approval is in Singapore, and we import our made-in-Singapore products in line with the published pet food guidance from Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department on labelling, traceability and sourcing.”

Targeting Asia’s pets-over-children boom

Founded in 2024, Friends & Food makes its pet food by cultivating quail cells over seven to 10 days, before harvesting the biomass in small batches and blending it with fermented whole-cell nutritional yeast. This is then freeze-dried into treats and broth toppers.

For the treats, which come in teeth and gum care and skin and coat glow varieties each for dogs and cats, it blends this base with postbiotics and konjac, providing 60% protein with no additives, antibiotics or fillers.

The toppers also target the same health functions. The skin and coat glow versions support skin health and reduce noticeable itching within a month, and the teeth and gum care offerings enhance oral health for fresher breath.

For this line, the cultured meat and its nutrient-rich broth are freeze-dried together with nutritional yeast and postbiotics to create gamey, high-protein toppers. These can be scooped dry or stirred into hot water for a savoury broth, boosting either wet or dry food with 68% protein.

Clinical studies have proven the products’ benefits, including 27% fewer bad breath compounds, 20% less scratching, and a 50% improvement in stool quality. The treats also have an “astonishing acceptance rate with pets”.

While it’s based in the US, Friends & Family’s initial focus is on Asian markets – and just as well, given the region’s youth is increasingly opting to parent cats and dogs instead of kids.

Childbirth rates are declining across the continent, with people opting to marry later or not have children at all. Instead, they’re filling that gap by adopting dogs and cats. China’s pet population, for instance, is set to outnumber kids under four nearly twofold by 2030.

Hong Kong, which estimates suggest is home to 930,000 pets, isn’t immune to that trend. The city’s birth rate has hit record lows, falling by 15.6% between mid-2025 and mid-2026, while the pet population has generally expanded post-pandemic.

And its residents are seeking high-quality, nutritious food options for their companion animals. Health-supporting supplements and functional foods are gaining popularity, especially with treats and snacks, which make up around a fifth of the local pet food market.

Cultivated pet food is a ‘contact sport’

In Singapore, Friends & Family sold around 400 packs within the first six weeks of launch. The company now has eight SKUs, covering the treats and toppers, and plans to release six more in the coming months.

There’s still work to be done on the consumer awareness front. The startup partnered with the University of Hong Kong to conduct field research in Singapore earlier this year, and found that the majority of consumers are unaware or unsure of what cultivated meat is.

“Nearly half had never heard of cultivated ingredients at all. ‘Cultivated’ as a selling point didn’t score very high, either,” says Errett. “This result, I think, comes from so few cultivated food companies selling products, and most of the industry having little to no contact with consumers.

“So we’re making changes to better explain cultivated protein and its benefits for cats and dogs. For instance, I personally loved how premium and elegant ‘Game Bird’ looked on our packaging, but consumers in the study mostly didn’t share my vision and wanted more clarity, so we’re replacing it with the actual species name.

The results provide a useful direction for its launch in Hong Kong too, which the company calls “one of Asia’s most pet-forward and early-adopting consumer markets” with strong appetite for innovative, low-carbon pet nutrition.

“We’re looking for on-the-ground momentum across Asia, which means more markets and more retail partners. After Singapore, Hong Kong was a natural first stop,” said co-founder and COO Maurice Yeo.

Friends & Family, which raised an undisclosed sum in December, is currently working to secure another $1.1M to fuel its expansion into different markets with a wider range of products.

According to Errett, one of the positives from its consumer research was that people who saw and smelled the treats were keen to offer them to their pets. “This reinforces my fundamental belief that this is a contact sport – you need to get to market and interact with the people who will be buying what you’re selling,” he says.

“Cats and dogs all over the world are drawn to animal protein, so we expect much of this research to carry over. We’ll learn what Hong Kong shoppers want from how they respond.”