ASEAN Focus: 2023 food sector outlook, Mosa Meat in Singapore, Philippines trans-fat ban and more feature in our round-up.

ASEAN food sector outlook 2023: Post-COVID-19 growth in Indonesia, Vietnam dampened by food security and inflation woes​

Many South East Asian countries remain cautious and concerned over food insecurity and rising inflationary costs despite having seen stellar post-COVID-19 growth in multiple food categories.

The ASEAN food and beverage sector saw varying ups and downs during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with sectors such as alcohol taking a hit in some markets like Malaysia, and others such as snack foods and tinned goods seeing monumental growth amidst consumer stockpiling and switching to eating or cooking more at home.

As of the last quarter of 2022, sales patterns in most food and beverage categories have normalized, but industry experts remain cautious heading into 2023.

Cultivated beef entry: Mosa Meat still pushing for Singapore regulatory approval despite manufacturing deal​

Cultivated meat pioneer Mosa Meat says it is still working to get full regulatory approvals to retail its cultivated meat in Singapore, despite the signing of a manufacturing agreement with Esco Aster for production in the Asian trade hub.

The firm’s CMO Tim van de Rijdt revealed that the firm plans to have prices down to be competitive with that of premium beef at around EUR50 (US$52.33) per kg once they hit retail shelves.

The firm has its eye on Singapore as its first market in Asia, having signed a partnership agreement with local production firm Esco Aster which lays claim to being the first and only facility with obtain regulatory clearance to produce cultivated meat products in Singapore.

Trans-fat fight: Philippines to ban all prepackaged processed foods with high trans-fat levels by 2023​

The Philippines government has announced a ban on all prepackaged processed foods containing high trans-fats levels as part of its objective to completely eliminate their presence by 2023.

In 2021 the Philippines laid out guidelines to prohibit the presence of partially-hydrogenated oils (PHOs) within the food supply, whether these be in edible oils and fats or used in the preparation of processed food products.

This has now been expanded to include more guidelines for trans-fatty acids (TFAs) or trans-fats, specifically industrially-produced TFAs (artificial trans fat developed via the partial hydrogenation of oils).

Nutraceuticals in SEA e-commerce: Where do the opportunities lie and what more could be done?​

With South East Asia (SEA) one of the fastest-growing region for e-commerce, we speak to Amazon Singapore and e-commerce enabler firm CREA on the outlook and opportunities for health and nutrition brands in the e-commerce space.

Kirin’s first HMOs facility goes live in Thailand, foresees China to occupy half of market size​

Kirin’s first human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) production plant has commenced operation and the company anticipates that half of the market will be dominated by China in the future.

The production plant, located at the Rayong Province, Thailand, started operating in November and is able to produce 300 metric tonnes of HMOs per year.

It will focus on producing three HMOs, namely 2’-fucosyllactose (2’FL), 3’-sialyllactose (3’-SL), and 6’-sialyllactose (6’-SL).