Singapore Food Agency Publishes List of Approved Novel Foods

The Singapore Food Agency has published its complete list of approved novel foods, including cultivated meat and fermentation-derived proteins, days before doling out another green light.

Cementing its regulatory leadership for sustainable proteins, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has published a list of all novel foods approved for sale on the island.

The Southeast Asian country has established itself as a future food leader: it was the first to clear the sale of innovations like cultivated meat and gas-fermented proteins, and one industry leader predicts that up to a dozen other companies are already awaiting approval for cultivated meat.

However, the financial and scale-up challenges these startups face have put alternative proteins on the back burner in the country. They’re no longer part of Singapore’s food strategy, with environment minister Grace Fu citing “higher production costs and weaker-than-expected consumer acceptance globally”.

Singapore is currently focusing on R&D to make this sector “more competitive and mainstream”, but its publication of the novel foods list (which covers approvals until October 2025) is a sign that food tech remains a major focus for its government.

Singapore Food Agency’s cultivated meat approvals

The SFA list, published last week, spans 14 products and ingredients, including cultivated meat and algal protein, as well as fermentation-derived foods.

The document mentions four cultivated meat products. Two of them belong to US startup Eat Just’s Good Meat brand, which earned the world’s first regulatory green light for cultivated meat in Singapore in 2020.

That approval was for Good Meat’s cultivated chicken, which still used the controversial fetal bovine serum. The second, granted in 2023, was for a newer iteration of Good Meat chicken produced via a serum-free process.

Then came the SFA’s approval for Australian startup Vow’s cultured quail in April 2024, which has since been commercialised in a variety of dishes – including parfaits and foie gras – across restaurants in Singapore. Currently, it’s available in 17 locations across the city-state.

Rounding out the document is the October 2025 green light for Parima, a company formed from the merger of French cultivated meat startups Gourmey and Vital Meat. This approval, first reported by Green Queen, was for the latter’s chicken product.

However, this month, Parima earned the go-ahead for the cultivated duck innovation developed by Gourmey (the move came days after the document was published). The company now plans to enter Singapore through premium channels, starting with haute cuisine before a targeted retail rollout.

Additionally, Singapore has approved Friends & Family Pet Food Company‘s cell-cultured Kampung bird ingredient for sale as dog and cat treats, although this falls under the remit of the Singapore Animal & Veterinary Service rather than the SFA.

Algae and microbial fermentation breakthroughs

Aside from cultivated meat, seven approvals are focused on the fermentation category. The first of these – which also marked the SFA’s food novel food clearance – is the dried green algae ingredient developed by US startup Triton Algae Innovations, which was issued in May 2019.

This green powder can be used as a protein-boosting ingredient in a wide range of applications, including nutritional supplements, pastas, juices and protein bars. Triton Algae received a go-ahead for its red algae ingredient in 2022 too, which is particularly suited for plant-based meat applications.

Between these two decisions was the 2021 approval of Fy protein, an ingredient born out of research conducted for NASA on a fungal strain found in the geysers of the Yellowstone National Park. It was developed by US startup Nature’s Fynd, which has rolled out yoghurts and sausage patties made with the fungal protein in its home country.

Moreover, the SFA has greenlit Solar Food’s Solein protein, which is produced by feeding microbes greenhouse gases like carbon rather than sugars. The bright yellow powder has made its way into several products and dishes in the country, including a gelato, iced lattes, mooncakes and ice cream sandwiches.

In 2024, the agency granted two approvals for mycoprotein. The first was for The Better Meat Co’s Rhiza ingredient, which can be used in meat analogues, as well as an “enhancer” in dairy products and blended meat applications. The second was for Fermotein, a whole-cell bioproduct by Dutch startup The Protein Brewery, which can be used in meat and dairy alternatives (among other applications).

Finally, the SFA also approved the sale of a mycelium ingredient derived from the Pleurotus pulmonarius strain (often known as the lung oyster or phoenix mushroom) in 2025, although it is unclear which startup is responsible.