PARIMA secures Singapore approval for cultivated duck, becoming first company cleared across chicken and duck

PARIMA has secured regulatory approval in Singapore for its cultivated duck, becoming the first cultivated protein company to obtain authorization across two species after its cultivated chicken received clearance six months earlier.

• The Singapore Food Agency authorized PARIMA’s cultivated duck following an extensive safety review, marking the company’s second approval in the country within six months.
• The milestone made PARIMA the first cultivated protein company to secure regulatory clearance across two species, covering both chicken and duck.
• The approval built on PARIMA’s 2025 Singapore clearance for cultivated chicken, the first such authorization granted to a European company.

The decision by the Singapore Food Agency extended PARIMA’s regulatory progress in one of the world’s most established markets for cultivated proteins. Singapore was the first country to introduce a formal approval pathway for cell-cultivated foods, and its framework has become a reference point for safety, transparency and scientific rigor.

For PARIMA, the latest approval did more than add a second product to its portfolio. It confirmed that the company had successfully navigated the same regulatory process twice, across two distinct species, under the scrutiny of a regulator known for detailed pre-market assessments.

In a LinkedIn post announcing the milestone, Nicolas Morin-Forest, CEO & Co-founder of PARIMA, said, “A world first. PARIMA has become the first cultivated protein company to obtain regulatory approval across two species.” He added: “Following an extensive safety review, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has authorized PARIMA’s cultivated duck, six months after our cultivated chicken received the same clearance.”

The development followed a sequence set in motion in October 2025, when the Singapore Food Agency granted approval for PARIMA’s cultivated chicken. That earlier decision marked the first time a European company had received regulatory clearance to market a cultivated meat product for human consumption.

“This approval is a testament to our approach,” Morin-Forest said at the time. “It validates the safety and robustness of the core foundation of our multi-species platform and strengthens our position to lead the market introduction of high-quality, economically viable cultivated proteins across multiple markets.”

The company itself was only recently formed before that first approval. In October 2025, Gourmey acquired fellow French startup Vital Meat to create PARIMA, combining two established cultivated poultry programs under a single structure. Gourmey had focused on cultivated duck and premium food applications, while Vital Meat brought poultry cell-line technology developed through decades of avian research.

Morin-Forest said the alignment between the two teams had been clear early on. “We quickly realized our two companies shared the same mission and the same hurdles,” he said. “More surprisingly, we also discovered we shared the same approach to scaling cultivated proteins: the same hypothesis on the biology and the same focus on simplicity to make production scalable and affordable.”

The merger created a platform designed to operate across species from the outset. PARIMA said its ambition was to scale the production of animal proteins directly from cells, with applications spanning both high-end culinary uses and broader food categories.

The approval of cultivated duck has now extended that platform beyond a single regulatory success. While each submission is assessed independently, completing the process for a second species under the same regulatory framework has provided a further demonstration of consistency in the company’s approach to safety, manufacturing and product characterization.

Morin-Forest acknowledged the scale of that effort in his latest statement. “Regulatory approvals in a transformative field like cultivated proteins are the tip of the iceberg,” he wrote. “What they reflect is years of hard, patient work doing what had not been done before, made possible by the expertise and dedication of the many exceptional people across our teams in biology, bioprocess, food science, engineering, data, food safety, regulation, operations, and more.”

He also thanked the regulator directly: “I want to express my sincere gratitude to the SFA team for the rigour of their collaboration over the years.”

Singapore’s role in the cultivated protein sector has been central to its development. The country established the first regulatory pathway for cultivated foods and has maintained a detailed review process that requires companies to demonstrate safety across production, composition and potential risks before products can enter the market.

PARIMA’s ability to meet those requirements twice suggested that its underlying systems could support further regulatory expansion. The company has already built a broader pipeline, including multiple filings across Europe, Asia and North America.

One of those efforts began shortly after the merger, when PARIMA entered the scientific risk assessment process in Australia and New Zealand with a submission for cultivated duck. “We’re proud to announce that PARIMA is the first international cultivated meat company to officially enter the scientific risk assessment process in Australia and New Zealand,” Morin-Forest said at the time, describing the move as part of a wider push to bring cultivated foods to additional markets.

Taken together, these developments have reinforced PARIMA’s strategy of advancing across multiple fronts, combining species diversification with ongoing regulatory engagement. Rather than focusing on a single product, the company has pursued a broader approach that aligns product development, safety validation and commercialization planning.

The latest approval in Singapore has provided the clearest indication so far of how that strategy is progressing. By securing authorization for both chicken and duck within the same regulatory system, PARIMA has moved beyond an initial breakthrough and demonstrated that its platform can withstand repeated regulatory scrutiny.

Morin-Forest emphasized that the milestone reflected the work of the wider team. “I also want to extend a huge congratulations to everyone, past and present, at PARIMA who made this possible,” he wrote.

With two approvals now secured in Singapore, PARIMA has established a new reference point for cultivated protein companies seeking to demonstrate that their technologies can translate across species within a single regulatory system.