Vow is officially on market 🎉

Today we announced our biggest milestone yet: Vow is approved for sale in Singapore and has launched Forged Parfait — the flagship product from Vow’s Forged luxury food brand created with cultured Japanese Quail.

I am feeling a lot of things: relieved, proud, and excited.

We are the third company in the world to sell cultured meat — a huge feat given this is the goal of more than 150 companies in our industry. We’ve achieved this in less than five years with funding of $56 million; that’s around half the time taken and with less than 10% of the capital raised by our competitors that have reached the market.

This isn’t a surprise, it’s by design. We set out with a very different belief in how cultured meat would come to market and reach widespread consumer adoption. Here’s how Vow works.

How we believe change will happen

Consumers are selfish. I am. You are. We all are.

It’s why meat consumption is going up. Believing change will happen through a sudden, shared and altruistic awakening is delusional.

Let me explain:

The prevailing approach taken by hundreds of plant-based and cultured meat companies is to meet consumers where they are today: Replace a beef burger with a beef burger (whether it’s made of plants or cells), replace chicken with a cell-based chicken, and so on.

You’re not going to change consumer behaviour by offering them something which is a similar enough version of what they already consume.

Externalities like sustainability or animal ethics are not enough for us to change our behaviours for very long, despite what we’d like to believe. This is why plant-based alternatives have plateaued in sales in the past three years; the ethical or moral motivations aren’t reason enough to get meat-eaters to forgo a thing they love, and any alternative is fighting against a lifetime of experience on what chicken is and isn’t.

By only changing the process of production, rather than the food itself, you are asking consumers to change their behaviour for the benefit of the planet or animals alone.

We will inevitably choose the food that gives us the most pleasure, it’s one of the reasons we find it so hard to diet. If we struggle to change our behaviour for the sake of our own health, how much less likely is it that we will make long-term, consistent behavioural change for the planet, or for animals especially when it requires sacrifice of flavour, taste, nutrition or all three.

At Vow, we know that we are all selfish.

We believe the only way for us to change our behaviour is to offer new foods that we also choose selfishly in occasions where we would otherwise eat meat.

We focus on using cultured meat to deliver new experiences you can’t find in animals, whether that may be: nutrition, convenience, cost, novelty or exclusivity.

That is our approach at Vow.

Enter Forged

There’s something remarkable about cultured meat — buildings full of dedicated scientists, engineers, and chefs inventing a new way to produce protein. Meticulously crafting factories and products. There’s a precision and an inbuilt requirement for care and diligence which is unlike anything I’ve come across in food.

When we set out to build Vow, we set out to build the biggest food company in history. This is still our goal, which may seem incongruous with launching a luxury brand for the most discerning diners. But again, this isn’t a surprise, it’s by design.

We believe the adoption of cultured meat should mirror electric vehicles; starting as a premium commodity, and moving down market as the technology matures.

Shamelessly copying Tesla, Forged is our Roadster.

This is all possible as cultured meat can create entirely unique experiences. In the same way, computers allowed artists an entirely new set of tools to create beautiful art over the past half-century while shaping our world and culture in the process, cultured meat offers a new pallet for culinary artists ways of crafting emotionally resonant food experiences.

Forged is about celebrating the distinctiveness of creating and tasting something new for the first time. We make food that is deliberately different, working with the best chefs to offer truly unique food for the world to experience.

Forged Parfait offers an impossible contrast of rich heaviness with a tantalising light creaminess. It’s the first of several products we are launching under the new Forged brand, and by far the closest to what you know today.

To taste Forged Parfait in Singapore, book here.

Where to next?

Forged parfait in Singapore is just the beginning.

Throughout 2024, we intend to roll Forged out across several markets with several products of increasing novelty and distinctiveness. We know Forged is a brand that will likely only ever be in top restaurants and hotels and only ever featured in meals for special occasions.

For us, Forged is the first step to changing the behaviour of millions by creating entirely new food we each choose selfishly.