Portfolio Company Meatable Update

RNS Number : 2577C

Agronomics Limited

10 October 2022

 

10 October 2022

Agronomics Limited

("Agronomics" or the "Company")

 Portfolio Company Meatable Announces Partnership with Commercial Scale Cultivated Meat Manufacturer Esco Aster

Agronomics (AIM:ANIC), the leading listed company focused on the field of cellular agriculture, is pleased to announce that portfolio company Meatable B.V. ("Meatable") has announced a partnership with the world's only licensed large scale contract manufacturer for cultivated meat, Esco Aster, based in Singapore. This partnership will facilitate the production of Meatable's cultivated pork products, which are aiming to initially be launched in selected restaurants in Singapore in 2024, subject to meeting Singaporean regulatory requirements.

Agronomics holds 4,859 shares in Meatable, representing an equity ownership of 5.84% on a fully diluted basis.

The full announcement is set out below without any material changes:

Cultivated meat leader Meatable announces partnership with the world's only licensed manufacturer Esco Aster to become first cultivated pork producer in Singapore

● Industry-leading food company Meatable is announcing its first international expansion to Singapore in partnership with industry-leading Contract Manufacturer Esco Aster

● The partnership will enable Meatable to produce cultivated pork, including dumplings, sausages and other products for customers - a first for the Southeast Asian country

● Huge steps have been taken to create cultivated pork that has the same structure, texture, juiciness and pronounced pork flavour that customers know and love

● Meatable aims to meet the demand for meat that doesn't harm the planet, animals or humans

10 October, Delft: Meatable, the innovative Dutch food tech company that is on a mission to deliver cultivated meat at scale, is partnering with Esco Aster, the first and only commercially licensed cultivated meat manufacturer, as part of its first international expansion to Singapore. The partnership will see the two companies collaborate to produce cultivated pork, with the aim to have products ready for launch in selected restaurants in 2024. This marks the next step in Meatable's mission to create meat that serves the planet's growing appetite without harming people, animals or the environment.

Meatable was founded in the Netherlands in 2018 with the aim to produce cultivated meat that looks like, tastes like, and has the nutritional profile of traditional meat, to serve the planet's growing appetite for meat without harming people, animals or the environment. The company is currently focusing on developing cultivated pork, including sausages and dumplings, to make cultivated meat more accessible to the wider public.

Meatable's first international expansion

Meatable is partnering with Esco Aster in Singapore to enable it to bring its first products to market, most likely starting with cultivated pork dumplings and sausages. Meatable chose the Southeast Asian country for its first international expansion as it is a leading food and agritech hub. Singapore was the first country to approve cultivated meat in 2020 with Esco Aster's facility, as part of its 30 by 30 strategy. Singapore aims to build up its agri-food industry's capability and capacity by producing 30% of its nutritional needs locally and sustainably by 2030. Currently, the country imports 90% of its food , with each citizen consuming an average of 62kg of meat annually. In 2020 alone, over 123,000 metric tonnes of pork were consumed in Singapore.

Esco Aster was founded in Singapore in 2017 and is currently the first and only production facility worldwide to obtain regulatory approval to produce cultivated meat products in Singapore. Its first-in-class cultivated meat production facility, combined with industry-leading scientists and food safety specialists, enables the acceleration of proof-of-concept to market.

Together, the two companies will produce cultivated pork on a small scale by 2024 for restaurants with the aim to have products on sale in supermarkets by 2025, with Esco Aster enabling Meatable in developing, upscaling and realising its first consumer products. It helps that both companies are aligned on the mission to have a positive impact on the global meat industry, starting in Singapore, but with plans to expand across the world as and when legislation for this nascent sector develops.

The world's first cultivated pork dumplings

To address the Singaporean consumer, Meatable is working on the development of several pork products, including cultivated pork dumplings, a world-first for the cultivated meat industry. The global dumpling market is poised to grow by $4.01bn between 2021 and 2025 . To serve this demand, Meatable is working closely with Singaporean chefs, to develop great-tasting bespoke pork, specifically for the Asian market. The team has taken huge steps in the last few months to create cultivated meat products which have the same structure, texture, juiciness and pronounced pork flavour that customers know and love.

The aim is that Meatable's dumplings, and other cultivated pork products including sausages and mince, will be the perfect choice for local partners in Singapore and the wider Asian market who are looking to diversify their consumer offerings with a tasty, healthy, cultivated meat which is produced locally while staying true to the local cuisine.

Creating meat without harm

Meatable's proprietary opti-ox™ technology will revolutionise how cultivated meat is produced in what is predicted to become a $25 billion industry by 2030. The company only needs one single cell sample, taken harmlessly from an animal, to replicate the natural growth of muscle and fat to create real meat, in what Meatable believes to be the fastest process in the field, to grow the pork needed for its sausages and dumplings. Meatable's technology enables it to create cultivated meat without the need for FBS (foetal bovine serum), whilst at the same time using only a fraction of the resources from energy to water.

In the meantime, Meatable is going to work closely with Singaporean food regulators to ensure its pork dumplings meet regulatory requirements as it gears up for production. As well, the wider team will continue to develop and optimize its dumplings and sausages to ensure the final products offer the right tastes and characteristics of traditional meat and satisfy the world's growing demand for meat that doesn't cause harm.

Krijn de Nood, co-founder and CEO of Meatable, said: "At Meatable we strongly believe that cultivated meat is the future of food, in order to produce meat sustainably and as local as possible. To do that it's imperative that we provide a wide variety of products to cater for all cuisines, worldwide. Given Singapore's status as a pioneer of cultivated meat, we're delighted to be partnering with Esco Aster to begin production of our cultivated pork products with the aim to launch in restaurants in 2024. Our team has been working closely with the country's butchers and chefs to develop the perfect cultivated pork dumplings and it was incredible to recently taste the dumplings and know that we have created something indistinguishable from traditional meat - because it is real meat. Along with our sausages, we have made great strides in recent months to create products that will satisfy the world's appetites without harming the planet or animals in the process."

Xiangliang Lin, CEO at Esco Aster, said: "Meatable has emerged as one of the world's leading companies in developing cultivated meat. We're delighted to be partnering with them to facilitate their launch in Singapore and to enable the business to start producing cultivated pork for customers. With our scientific expertise, operational know-how and enabling technologies, we believe that we can help companies reach their milestones and advance to the next step of cultivated meat production with market approval at scale. We're excited about the potential for cultivated meat to transform how we feed the world and we're looking to expand our facilities within and outside of Singapore to enable more companies like Meatable across this space."

Hans Huistra, COO of Meatable, said: "We're excited to work closely with Esco Aster and the Singaporean regulators as we gear up to launch our first products for restaurant launch in 2024. Over the past four years, we've been constantly innovating and developing our technology to get it to the stage where we can perfectly recreate some of the meat products we all know and love. Esco Aster will enable us in developing, upscaling and realizing our first consumer products, together we will make a positive impact on the Singaporean meat industry.

About Meatable:

Meatable is an innovative, Dutch food company, aiming to deliver, at scale, the new natural , cultivated meat that looks like, tastes like, and has the nutritional profile of traditional meat. Its proprietary opti-ox™ technology enables Meatable to produce meat rapidly, sustainably, and without harming animals. Founded in 2018 by Krijn de Nood (CEO), Daan Luining (CTO), and Dr. Mark Kotter (principal inventor of opti-ox technology), Meatable has brought together a team of experts with unique knowledge in fields including molecular biology, chemistry, tissue engineering, bioprocess development, food safety, and food science to create the new natural meat. Follow Meatable : LinkedIn , Twitter , Instagram , Facebook .

About Esco Aster:

Esco Aster is a homegrown company rooted in Singapore  and currently the first and only production facility in the world to obtain regulatory approval by a government agency and is ISO 22000 certified, recognised internationally, to produce cultivated meat products for commercial manufacturing and sales in Singapore. Esco Aster, using its AsterMavors^® manufacturing platform and linearly scalable bioreactor farms, aims to produce proteins which are mass market consumer friendly, environmentally sustainable and tasty across ages and culture groups, all without harming the animal. In line with their vision to become more self-sufficient and have 30% of domestic food produced locally, Esco Aster is gearing up for further expansion to provide regulatory-approved manufacturing platforms worldwide as well as market access via our channels and partners in ASEAN.

Follow Esco Aster: LinkedIn , Youtube , Email

About Agronomics

Agronomics is a leading listed alternative proteins company with a focus on cellular agriculture and cultivated meat. The Company has established a portfolio of 22 companies at the Pre-Seed to Series C stage in this rapidly advancing sector. It seeks to secure minority stakes in companies owning technologies with defensible intellectual property that offer new ways of producing food and materials with a focus on products historically derived from animals. These technologies are driving a major disruption in agriculture, offering solutions to improve sustainability, as well as addressing human health, animal welfare and environmental damage. This disruption will decouple supply chains from the environment and animals, as well as being fundamental to feeding the world's expanding population. A full list of Agronomics' portfolio companies is available at  https://agronomics.im/ .

About Cellular Agriculture

Cellular Agriculture is the production of agriculture products directly from cells, as opposed to raising an animal for slaughter, or growing crops. This encompasses cell culture to produce cultivated meat and materials, and fermentation processes that harness a combination of molecular biology, synthetic biology, tissue engineering and biotechnology to massively simplify production methods in a sustainable manner.

Over the coming decades, the source of the world's food supply traditionally derived from conventional agriculture is going to change dramatically. We have already witnessed the first wave of this shift with the consumer adoption of plant-based alternative proteins but today, we are on the cusp of an even bigger wave of change. This is being facilitated by advances in cellular agriculture. This change is necessary, given scientists claims that if we maintain existing animal protein consumption patterns, then we will not meet the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting warming to 1.5 ℃

AT Kearney, a global consultancy firm, projects that cultivated meat's market share will reach 35% by 2040. This combined with the Good Food Institute's estimate that a US $1.8 trillion investment will be required in order to produce just 10% of the world's protein using this technology, means that we are on the cusp of a multi-decade flow of capital to build out manufacturing facilities. Funding in the field of cellular agriculture is accelerating, however still less than US$ 4 billion has been invested worldwide since the industry's inception in 2016.

For further information please contact:

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