The Future Ready Food Safety Hub (FRESH) was a Singapore-based food safety research organization with a global reputation as an authority on assessing the safety and suitability of novel food products meant for sale in the Singapore market. As Singapore had become the first country in the world to approve the sale of laboratory-grown chicken, more and more companies were approaching FRESH for guidance in their safety dossier submissions to the Singapore Food Agency. With a small team of 10 members to keep up with the growing demand for its services, FRESH considered two options: engaging companies one-on-one to address the specific challenges they faced to meet novel food safety requirements, or adopting a consortium approach engaging multiple companies to collaboratively identify and prioritize common problems and develop optimal solutions for the industry. FRESH had to decide which option would best achieve its goals in advancing food safety research and building the novel food ecosystem.

Concerns over decreasing global food security had been growing worldwide due to factors ranging from growing population and demand for food to declining levels of arable land due to urbanisation and climate change. This was exacerbated by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given its own constraints in arable land and natural resources, Singapore was well ahead of other developed economies in pioneering the novel food industry development for food security. FRESH was a research centre launched by the Singapore government in 2021 to foster public-private partnership to build up local food safety science and R&D capabilities to support the safety assessment of novel food ranging from plant-based and cell-based meat to microbial and insect protein. FRESH knew that its rare and valuable expertise on novel food safety assessment would position it well to not only support Singapore's transformation of its own agri-industry, but also play a catalytic role in the international novel food scene with Singapore's strong reputation for stringent food safety standards. FRESH had to decide between two options for its future business model-remain as a public-funded institution or become a corporatized entity.