Float Foods OnlyEg Receives Temasek Grant To Help Commercialize Its Plant-Based Whole Egg Substitute

Singapore food tech Float Foods recently announced that the Temasek Foundation, a non-profit organization under the philanthropic arm of investment company Temasek, has given a project development grant to the former, that will help commercialize its debut product, OnlyEg, Asia’s first plant-based egg yolk & white alternative.

Back in December of last year, Float Foods had just unveiled its plant-based whole egg substitute, OnlyEg, which is Asia’s first of its kind alternative protein product that imitates the yolk and white components of a real egg, which makes it unique compared to the other liquid blends available on the market.

With the product currently under development with plans to officially launch it by 2022, the company received a grant from the Singapore-based investment company Temasek under its Temasek Foundation that will help commercialize OnlyEg, making it Asia’s first commercial plant-based whole egg substitute.

In an interview with KrASIA, founder and CEO of Float Foods, Vinita Choolani said that the company will work on several other plant-based products. “A large part of the grant will be spent developing and optimizing our OnlyEg technology and commercializing it worldwide as the first full replacement of table eggs with fully versatile applications—fried egg, soft  boiled, egg white omelette, scrambled etc.”

Developed from legumes-based proteins that acts as substitutes for both egg yolk and egg white, according to the company, the product can be prepared within minutes and can be a great plant-based substitute in Asian cuisines as well as a great sustainable choice as its cruelty-free, vegan-friendly and more sustainable than its conventional animal-based counterpart.

In a press release seen by Green Queen, Choolani said that eggs play a major role in Asian cuisine. “Some of our local favourite ways of enjoying them are on its own, as soft-boiled eggs with toasts for breakfast, or a sunny side-up served with rice dishes such as nasi lemak or fried rice. Ultimately our goal is to apply food science and innovation to build plant-based products such as OnlyEg that enable cultural relevance and contribute to a sustainable food ecosystem that can be a part of Singapore’s future food plans.”

Eggs play a major role in Asian cuisine. Our goal is to apply food science and innovation to build plant-based products such as OnlyEg that enable cultural relevance and contribute to a sustainable food ecosystem that can be a part of Singapore’s future food plans

Vinita Choolani, Founder and CEO of Float Foods

Apart from this, OnlyEg has embraced a “food as medicine” approach due to which the company claims that the nutritional benefits of the product are being developed to be higher than that of a chicken egg.

Choolani’s experience with Inex Innovate, a leading women’s health care biotech company, has helped her understand what is needed for the product to be high on nutritional value “Matching the nutritional make-up is only the beginning of what we want to achieve. Eventually, we want to be able to create variations of our plant-based products that are embedded with nutritional properties that can enhance the lives of consumers with different dietary needs. In doing so, OnlyEg will be placed on the forefront of plant-based egg substitutes by closing the gap between the original product and the substitute further than ever before.”

Temasek is a major supporter of the food tech industry, while elsewhere it is strengthening its commitment to climate change being as the first priority for the company going forward, which is also in line with Singapore’s several sustainability initiatives taken both, by governments as well as corporates, for instance, the city is working on increasing its food self-sufficiency to 30% by 2030 to defend against supply chain shocks.

Speaking exclusively to Green Queen, Choolani said: “While we work hard with investors and innovation partners to develop OnlyEg to its full potential, we’ll be padding out the next two years with a line of commercially viable plant-based products created using proprietary and licensed technology that will form the bedrock of our plant-based food ecosystem.”

Float Foods has also completed proofs-of-concepts for OnlyEg and other alternative protein products including plant-based yogurt, cheese, and blended egg patties and shreds, along with currently raising capital through a Series A round.

Vegan eggs are having a moment around the world with famous pioneers such as San Francisco’s Eat Just offering its liquid egg replacement for years and Asian startups like Evo Foods developing a similar liquid version.

However, Float Foods’ version is among the first in the world to achieve the likeness to a real chicken egg, and certainly the first in the Asian market, where 65% of global egg production is based.

Elsewhere, French food tech Les Merveilloeufs has also worked on an egg alternative that comes in a shell, and once cracked, looks exactly like a real egg with its distinctive egg and yolk separation.

Lead image courtesy of Float Foods.