Singapore startup Fattastic Technologies has partnered with Ajinomoto Thailand to explore applications for its healthy plant-based alternative to animal and saturated fats.
A fast-emerging player in Asia’s alternative fat field, Singapore-based Fattastic Technologies has begun an exploratory R&D partnership with food conglomerate Ajinomoto Thailand.
The collaboration will focus on the startup’s innovative vegan fat ingredient, FattFlex, which uses encapsulation technology to replicate the mouthfeel, texture and taste of animal and saturated plant-based fats for a variety of applications.
“This exploratory partnership represents an exciting opportunity to investigate new ways for foods to offer products that balance taste, health considerations, and sustainability goals,” said Fattastic founder and CEO Satnam Singh.
Fattastic aims to replace saturated fats in food
A former researcher at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singh founded Fattastic in 2022 after becoming disillusioned with the existing crop of meat and dairy alternatives.
The startup’s proprietary oil structuring tech transforms the physical structure of plant oils, turning them into solid formats to resemble animal fats and conventional plant-based lipids like palm or coconut oil.
Its ingredients offer the same functionality as these conventional fats – widely used in bakery, confectionery, and alternative protein products – but without the deforestation, land use, emissions, or high amount of harmful saturated fat content.
Fattastic can tune the melting temperature of FattFlex, which has low calories, 80% lower saturated fat content, and encapsulated flavours and nutrients.
Its standard fat has a high melting point (between 60-100°C) that prevents it from leaking out when cooking, while being low in calories, making it suitable for plant-based meat and bakery applications.
The startup also offers customised fats for a wider set of innovations, including confectionery, plant-based dairy, and the aforementioned products. Here, flavour encapsulation shields against heat to enable sustained flavours, and these ingredients can be fortified with vitamins and omegas too.
Sustainable fats in vogue amid Ajinomoto’s future food focus
The Ajinomoto Thailand partnership will involve the “exploration of more sustainable alternatives to conventional fats” and the application of FattFex trials in food formats to optimise functionality.
According to Singh, trials with Fattastic showed potential for the ingredient as a substitute for conventional fats, given it maintained the same taste while helping reduce saturated fat content.
The firm has received funding from Entrepreneur First, ProVeg incubator, Better Bite Ventures and Space-F, and was part of the Techbite Accelerator Program with Ajinomoto and KX Knowledge Xchange. It was also a finalist in FoodHack’s 2025 FoodTech World Cup.
It is among a number of startups making sustainable alternatives to animal fats and palm oil for the food industry, with others including Nourish Ingredients, Time-Travelling Milkman, NoPalm Ingredients, Clean Food Group, Äio, Melt&Marble, Lypid, and more.
And earlier this month, fellow Singaporean startup Terra Oleo secured $3.1M to scale up production of its waste-derived precision-fermented palm oil and cocoa butter substitutes.
Ajinomoto, for its part, has signed several partnerships with sustainable food brands globally. It is developing plant-based meat products with Daring Foods and its new parent company, v2food, and its Europe arm is working with France’s Standing Ovation to produce animal-free casein proteins.
In Singapore, its Atlr.72 brand has released mooncakes and ice cream sandwiches with Solar Foods’s CO2-derived Solein protein, and the food giant’s Thai division has a commercial deal with Singaporean bean-free coffee brand Prefer.
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