Singapore-based cultivated meat start-up Ants Innovate held a private tasting on Wednesday (14 August) to inaugurate Cell Essence, its first functional ingredient for the production of hybrid cultivated meat.

Guests included Esco Aster, Temasek Foundation, Enterprise Singapore, The Straits Times, Phoon Huat, The Good Food Institute APAC, A*STAR - Agency for Science, Technology and Research, APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture and Food Studio Holdings. The tasting session was co-organised with Esco Aster.

Cell Essence is a cultivated pork oil, specially crafted for hybrid meat. The event showcased the culinary potential of Cell Essence in three cell-enhanced alternative meat dishes:

🧆 Meatballs

🥟 ⁠Shanghai-style soup dumplings (xiao long bao)

🍢 Grilled meat cut skewers

The dishes also featured Ants Innovate's other proprietary functional ingredients – Scalable Micro-Imprinted Lapis Expansion or ‘SMILE’ lean meat cuts and NouMi Vegan Base.

In a post on social media, one guest said: “The versatility of Ants Innovate's cultivated porcine oil as a cooking ingredient is remarkable!”

Another guest said: “It was an amazing event demonstrating that affordable and tasty cell-based or hybrid dishes can be served on our dining table soon."

Ants Innovate is an alumni of Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR), and was founded in 2020. The start-up aims to supply functional ingredients for cultivated and plant-based protein manufacturers to make premium whole-cut meats.

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