Ants Innovate: Cultivating Meat That Tastes Like The Real Deal Through T-Up

Dr Chen Qimin (left), scientist from A*STAR BTI seconded to Ants Innovate, and Yvette Tay (right), who was attached to Ants Innovate under Dr Chen’s mentorship during her Integrated Work Study Programme in 2023.

Imagine sinking your teeth into a tasty and juicy meat cutlet that’s made of a combination of cultivated cells and plant-based ingredients? Not tough, not mushy, and not bland. Rather, it comes with a good mouthfeel and tastes like the real thing. Thanks to state-of-the-art technology at Singapore startup Ants Innovate, sustainable hybrid meat cuts could soon find its way onto your plates.

Ants Innovate co-founder Prof Hanry Yu wanted to find a way to develop high quality and affordable hybrid meat cuts at scale. While existing technology such as 3D printing produced meat cuts that taste good, the method is slow, expensive and not scalable.

Another technology, high moisture extrusion, is costly, but yields high throughput. However, meat cuts produced by this method have fibres that don’t hold well, and are prone to separating during the cooking process. The result: a less-than-satisfying bite because the meat is too soft.

Boosting R&D Capabilities with T-Up

Dr Chen Qimin from A*STAR’s Bioprocessing Technology Institute was seconded in 2021 to help develop the startup’s first line of plant-based products such as dumplings, bak kwa (Chinese barbecued meat) and curry puff.

Leveraging her experience in food science and product development, Dr Chen helped to identify market opportunities for the business. To make the existing plant-based products stand out from the competition in terms of taste, she experimented with infusing them with Cell Essence made from pork cells, imparting a distinctly porky flavour that was well-liked by the team and provided the foundation for further development of hybrid meat products.

At a recent taste testing event for pork-flavoured Cell Essence, feedback on Cell Essence-enhanced, hybrid pork cuts and various NouMi plant-based meat was largely favourable. Ants Innovate is working towards obtaining regulatory approval for Cell Essence from the Singapore Food Agency by the end of 2024.

As part of A*STAR’s T-Up programme, Dr Ng Shengyong from BTI was the second scientist seconded to Ants Innovate. His role was to help the company enhance its technical expertise and further its R&D capabilities.

Since he joined Ants Innovate in January 2023, he and his team have been instrumental in developing the company’s cutting-edge Scalable Micro-Imprinted Lapis Expansion (SMILE) technology that replicates whole-cut meat’s naturally fibrous texture using plant proteins.

“SMILE is a scalable process, and gives us good control to create meat cuts that look and taste good,” Prof Yu says. “The method is much like what people do in semi-conductor manufacturing. We cast the product into sheets and print perforated sheets that are stackable. This way, the fibres in the meat are loosened, but stay tethered during cooking.

“When you bite into it, the meat’s mechanical heterogeneity is intact,” he adds.

Compared with the high moisture extrusion method that’s commonly used in the industry, Ants Innovate’s cost is only about a tenth, according to Prof Yu.

Currently, the startup is using a prototype for its micro-imprinting technology. It is looking for partners to collaborate on the design of the machine and to take the business to the next level.

By further integrating SMILE meat cuts with Ants Innovate’s Cell Essence – a novel ingredient that amplifies the natural meaty flavour of cultivated animal cells - less than 3% of animal cells is used in the production of hybrid meat cuts, compared with an industry standard of up to 70%. Due to the versatile nature of the technology, Cell Essence can be applied to emulate various types of meat flavours, such as pork, beef, or seafood.

Bridging Research, Academia and Industry through T-Up and IWSP

As Ants Innovate continues to enhance its technical capabilities through the T-Up programme, the collaboration extends beyond seasoned scientists to the next generation of innovators. This partnership is highlighted by the collaboration between A*STAR and the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) through the Integrated Work Study Programme (IWSP). By giving students real-world experience in research and product development, the IWSP is key to shaping the future of alternative proteins while applying academic knowledge in industry settings.

Yvette Tay, a Year 3 undergraduate at SIT in 2023, was attached to the Product Development department of Ants Innovate, to work on the company’s plant-based bak kwa under the mentorship of Dr Chen. Yvette was tasked to introduce new flavours and refine the formulation of Ants Innovate’s bak kwa series to be stored at ambient conditions.

Over her seven-month IWSP stint, Yvette successfully developed six flavours for the bak kwa catalogue and extended the product's shelf life from 2 weeks to 2 months under ambient storage conditions.

Gwendolyn Koh (left), Business Development Manager at Ants Innovate with Yvette Tay (right), who was attached to the Product Development department of Ants Innovate in 2023

As Yvette acquired hands-on experience in pilot plant production, she shared that she had learned from Dr Chen key considerations for scaling up processes, and that intended process outcomes may differ from small batch production. Yvette shared that the knowledge-sharing sessions with Dr Chen enabled her to be more innovative when developing solutions in product development.

“Apart from providing technical guidance, Dr Chen was a true inspiration for me. She provided emotional support whenever I faced challenges and gave me valuable advice on career development,” says Yvette.

Developing the NouMi line of Plant-based Products

“The T-Up programme was instrumental in the commercialisation of our first product line,” says Dr Chen, who completed her stint in early 2024. “Yvette played an important role in this outcome, as she improved existing processes and used innovative solutions to solve practical problems.”

NouMi is now a spin-off company focusing on plant-based products. Prof. Yu notes that as costs are high and margins are low, the company is considering new production opportunities in China and Malaysia in the near future.