Shiok Meats, a Singapore-based start-up company, aims to become the first company in the world to bring shrimp grown in a lab to diners’ plates. More than two dozen firms are testing lab-grown fish, beef and chicken, hoping to break into an unproven segment of the alternative meat market, which Barclays estimates could be worth $140 billion by 2029.
The so-called clean meat, which is genuine meat grown from cells outside the animal, is still at a nascent stage. Shiok grows minced meat by extracting a sample of cells from shrimp. The cells are fed with nutrients in a solution and kept at a temperature of 28 degrees Celsius, which helps them multiply. The stem cells become meat in four to six weeks.