Asia Sustainable Foods Platform and CREMER Joint Venture’s First Contract Manufacturing Facility Brings Alternative Proteins Closer to Asian Consumers

20 Jul 2022 3 min read

From left to right: Mr Marcel Strassburg, Head of New Ventures and M&A of Cremer Group, Mr Pradeep Pant, Chairman of Asia Sustainable Foods Platform, Mr Damian Krueger, General Manager of Sustainable Nutrition, Ms Low Yen Ling, Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Dr Claus Georg Nette, Chairman of CREMER Group, Mr Mathys Boeren, CEO of Asia Sustainable Foods Platform, Mr Damian Chan, Executive Vice President of the Economic Development Board (Photo credit: Temasek)

Asia Sustainable Foods (ASF) Platform, a wholly-owned company of Temasek, and CREMER announced today that their joint venture, Cremer Sustainable Foods (CSF), officially opened its first plant-based protein contract manufacturing facility in Singapore. The facility is located within LOGOS Food21, a high specification food production building in the Tuas Food Zone.

CSF is one of the few contract manufacturers for alternative proteins located in Asia. As demand increases for healthier, more sustainable food options from consumers in Asia, CSF is well-positioned to manufacture plant-based alternative protein products in Asia, for Asia.

“We observed the insufficient availability of contract manufacturing capacity and capabilities for alternative proteins in Asia as compared to the US and Europe. Moreover, localised manufacturing would shorten the supply chain and reduce the carbon footprint of alternative proteins.”

Mathys Boeren

CEO

Asia Sustainable Foods (ASF)

The 11,000 square-foot facility will be able to manufacture up to 1,300 tonnes of plant-based protein per annum which is equivalent to approximately 4.3 million chicken breasts, and is one of the largest High Moisture Extrusion (HME) contract manufacturing facilities in Singapore.

HME is a nascent technology that allows for the production of plant-based protein products that resemble meat more closely in texture as compared to traditional plant-based manufacturing techniques, such as dry texturised vegetable proteins. The facility will augment Singapore’s local food manufacturing capacity and contribute to the country’s 30 by 30 vision of producing 30% of local nutritional needs locally, by 2030.

The contract manufacturing facility will also enable FoodTechs to accelerate their scale-up in an assetlight manner as they will be able to save on upfront capital, time and resources required to establish their own manufacturing facilities and operations.

“We are glad to support this partnership between ASF and CREMER as it complements our efforts to develop urban food solutions and grow the agrifood sector here. This facility will enrich our ecosystem by helping alternative protein startups optimise, scale up production, and launch their products in the region and beyond. We look forward to seeing more innovative alternative protein products being manufactured in Singapore.”

Damian Chan

Executive Vice President

EDB

CSF will leverage CREMER’s deep industry experience in food manufacturing and operating HME facilities to provide capable and reliable service to plant‐based protein FoodTechs. This is particularly valuable in Asia, where few companies have mature HME knowhow. CSF will also look to grow in scale with its FoodTech customers to the rest of Asia.

“For CREMER, the customer has always been the starting point of our decisions. We are constantly improving and developing value-added services and products for our customers in tomorrow’s world. Recognising the growing importance of sustainability, health and plant-based foods in supporting the global food ecosystem, CREMER wants to play a major role in driving these trends by contributing production knowledge we have gained over decades. By bringing HME capabilities to Asia, CREMER aims to provide production support to the fast-growing plant-based community here.”

Damian Krueger

General Manager of Sustainable Nutrition

CREMER

CSF will complement ASF’s mission in accelerating the commercialisation of sustainable foods in Asia, by being the go-to solutions provider to FoodTechs at every stage of their growth cycle. As part of its end-to-end offering, ASF is also building the Food Technology Innovation Centre (FTIC) that will feature R&D advisory, test kitchens and shared pilot scale equipment for product development. The pilot scale equipment at FTIC will be of compatible technology with CSF, and FoodTech customers can tap on FTIC to develop new products which can then be manufactured at scale, with CSF.