Donate

Korea overtakes Singapore as APAC’s cultivated meat startup epicentre + four other takeaways from GFI’s new reports

The moment you’ve been waiting for has arrived: GFI’s annual reports on the State of the Industry and Global Policy were just published!


Each one is packed with original insights from APAC and around the globe, so for anyone who is engaged in or monitoring the alternative protein sector, they’re well worth an in-depth read. 

To get you started, here are five key takeaways: ✋

🇰🇷 South Korea has overtaken Singapore as the cultivated meat startup epicentre of Asia.

📉 Private investments fell again—but public funding offers new opportunities.

حلال The pathway to halal approval is clear for cultivated meat.

⚖️ APAC dominates the plant-based and cultivated patent landscape—but lags on fermentation.

📈 Contrary to the mainstream media narrative, global plant-based meat sales increased yet again in 2025. 

Let’s dig into each one.

South Korea is Now APAC’s Largest Cultivated Meat Startup Ecosystem

After more than five years as the regional cultivated meat front-runner, Singapore’s cellular agriculture startup ecosystem has fallen to second place following a surge of momentum in South Korea. By GFI’s calculations, this shift now makes Korea the fourth-largest cultivated meat ecosystem in the world (after the US, Israel, and UK), as of the end of 2025. 

Figure 1: Distribution of specialised cultivated companies by location

Source: Good Food Institute, Alternative protein company database, accessed: December 17, 2025. Specialized companies include (1) companies primarily or solely focused on producing foods that directly replace animal products (meat, dairy, seafood, or egg analogs) or (2) companies with a significant or sole focus on serving the alternative protein industry with ingredients or equipment. To avoid double counting companies across alternative protein sectors in the State of the Industry reports, companies involved in multiple alternative protein platforms are categorized by the platform they are most involved in (e.g., plant-based, fermentation). These restrictions do not apply in GFI’s alternative protein company database.


This inversion comes on the heels of two big South Korean government initiatives. In March 2025, Korea announced the launch of a Food Tech Research Support Center focused on cultivated meat, which will open in 2027 with support from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA). The new building will be located next door to an existing Cell Culture Industry Support Center, which opened in 2023. Both are located inside a special regulatory zone in North Gyeongsang Province, where Governor Lee Chul-woo has hailed cellular agriculture as “an innovative solution for the sustainable future food industry.”

Then, in December 2025, South Korea enforced the Food Tech Industry Promotion Act, establishing a legal and administrative framework for MAFRA to support plant-based and cultivated foods, as well as precision and biomass fermentation. The Act empowers MAFRA to provide direct support to businesses, offer startup assistance, facilitate access to research facilities and equipment, and foster market entry. The Act also allows for cooperation between MAFRA and companies to address regulatory bottlenecks, rather than companies having to navigate the regulatory process independently.

Global B2B companies have taken notice of South Korea’s cellular agriculture enthusiasm. Chinese cell culture media supplier JSBio recently confirmed plans to build a dedicated culture media facility for cultivated meat production in Busan, with a target annual capacity of 1,000 tonnes.

Credit: JSBio

This shift is also indicative of broader changes in Singapore’s approach to ‘future foods,’ which has increasingly emphasised global R&D and regulatory leadership. Indeed, just last week, the Singapore Food Agency approved the world’s first cultivated duck product for commercial sale. The city-state was also prolific in announcing new research partnerships last year, including with startups from Malaysia, Japan, and other regional innovation hubs—cementing itself as the place where international companies can fine-tune and road-test their formulations before mass-producing them elsewhere.

Private Investment Fell Again—But Public Funding Offers New Opportunities

Private investments into alternative protein innovation continued to decline in 2025—as they did for most sectors aside from AI. But public funding provided new and substantial opportunities almost everywhere outside the US, which receded sharply amid broad cuts to scientific R&D. 

For comparison, in 2021, cumulative government investments in alternative proteins were a mere $700 million (USD). By 2025, that number had risen to more than $2.5 billion—a 4x increase in the same number of years. 

That 2025 number also comes with two important caveats:

1) This is a conservative estimate. China was one of the top sources of public investments in 2025, but only a sliver of their funding totals are available in public records. For example, China’s large investments in biotechnology—including nearly $1 billion from the state-owned State Development and Investment Corporation—raise uncertainties in determining how much of this investment comes from public sources, how much supports companies creating alternative proteins (or upstream or downstream enabling infrastructure), and to what degree the provided investment is nonrepayable or concessional. As such, GFI’s estimates may underrepresent China’s true contributions.

2) More investments are needed. While public funding is headed in the right direction, the gap between what is available and what is needed also remains significant. Five years ago, a Global Innovation Needs Assessment found that governments must invest $10.1 billion in alternative proteins on an annual basis in order to fully reap the rewards of a mature alternative protein sector, including up to 9.8 million jobs, $1 trillion in economic value, and benefits for food resilience, global health, and environmental security. Despite progress and enthusiasm from policymakers worldwide, governments’ estimated investment in 2025 amounts to about less than 10 percent of this benchmark.

The Halal Pathway is Clear

When Singapore’s Islamic council provided the first roadmap to cultivated meat permissibility in 2024, it aimed to solve a clear need. Data from a GFI-led industry survey had shown that 87 percent of cultivated meat producers identified complying with halal requirements as a priority for their business. 

Then, in 2025, subsequent decisions by the Korean Muslim Federation and the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, a subsidiary organ of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), largely aligned with Singapore’s model. But the biggest development came at the end of the year, when Malaysia became the first Muslim-majority country to issue a fatwa—through its Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM)—stating that cultivated meat can be halal if certain conditions are met. 

Cultivated chicken satay, courtesy of GOOD Meat

GFI APAC experts have played a supporting role in these deliberative processes by providing technical presentations to regional authorities about the science of cultivating meat from animal cells—most recently at the Singapore Halal International Seminar in September. 

Now that the pathway to permissibility is clear, the next question is: Which company will be the first to work with a halal authority to receive the seal of approval?

APAC Dominates Plant-Based and Cultivated Patents—But Lags on Fermentation

Patents are a cornerstone of innovation protection and one metric for tracking and analysing growth within the scientific ecosystem. Given that Asia Pacific is the world’s most densely populated region and home to cutting-edge innovation hubs from Seoul to Sydney, it should come as no surprise that APAC is the top region for plant-based and cultivated meat patents. 

Below are the total number of cultivated meat patent filings by jurisdiction and assignee location:

The disparity between APAC and the rest of the world is even starker when looking at plant-based meat patent filings:

That’s why it’s particularly striking that the same region also lags behind on the third alternative protein pillar: fermentation-derived proteins and fats. 

This is surprising given that third-party reports have shown that regional food-production hotspots like Australia, Thailand, and Vietnam have all the right ingredients to supercharge fermentation-derived protein innovation and biomanufacturing. For now, this economic opportunity remains woefully underutilised.

Source data for all charts available in the State of the Industry reports for each alternative protein pillar

Global Plant-Based Meat Sales Increased Yet Again in 2025. Yes, Really.

Contrary to media headlines about sagging consumer interest, retail sales of plant-based meat, seafood, milk, yoghurt, ice cream, and cheese totalled an estimated $28.9 billion USD worldwide in 2025, according to Euromonitor. This represents a three percent increase in current retail sales (including inflation) from 2024. 

Zooming in:

Outside of the top regional markets, plant-based meat startups have begun exploring new methods of reaching untapped consumer segments. 

In Singapore, for example, research by the national science agency shows that 58 percent of local consumers are likely to purchase ‘blended meat,’ which combines plant-based and conventional animal meat. Notably, half of those who said they would like to purchase blends also expressed low intent to buy fully plant-based meat, suggesting that these products may appeal to a wider range of potential consumers. 

If those market-widening efforts prove successful, they are expected to reduce costs for all plant-based meat products through economies of scale—a critical shift that we’ll be watching for in next year’s reports. 

Onwards,

Ryan Huling
Senior Writer | GFI APAC

Download the full reports

Haven’t subscribed yet? Join our mailing list below to be the first to hear about updates like this!