A California-based food-tech company has broken ground on a US$120m factory in Singapore that will make scrambled-egg-like protein derived from mung beans.
The company, Eat Just, Inc., has raised over $800m in funding since its founding in 2011, the company told GCR.
In Singapore it is working with Proterra Investment Partners Asia on the venture to build and operate the factory in a bid to meet Asian demand for plant-based protein with its bottled, pourable JUST Egg product.
According to one projection, the size of the global plant-based meat market will reach $24.8bn by 2030, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 19.3% a year.
The factory will be built on a 2.7-hectare site in the Pioneer planning area of Western Region.
Minister of state for trade and industry, Ms. Low Yen Ling, was among officials wielding a spade for the ceremony on 17 March.
The factory will be Eat Just’s first in Asia, complementing existing factories in North America and Germany.
Eat Just says it has sold the plant-based equivalent of more than 200 million eggs, thus saving 7.2 billion gallons of water (equal to 11,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools), avoided 29 million kilograms of CO2e (equivalent to taking 6,287 cars off the road for a year) and spared 11,800 acres of land.
Proterra invests in sustainable agri-food businesses. Tai Lin, Asian managing partner, said in October: “we would like to help consumers across Asia get better access to the excellent plant-based egg product by establishing a fully integrated supply chain within Eat Just Asia”.
- Edited 21 March 2022 to update figures for investment secured by Eat Just, Inc., as well as volume of product sold
