Singapore Startup Unveils $45 Lab-Grown Grain Of Rice To Combat Poverty

Singapore’s quest for food sovereignty has reached its logical, lobotomised conclusion as local startup NanoNom secures $80 million to produce a single, lab-grown grain of rice. The "Cultivated Carb" aims to solve the impending food crisis by being entirely unaffordable to anyone currently experiencing it.

CEO Marcus Seah, who hasn't stepped into a hawker centre since 2012, insists the bio-engineered grain "optimises the mastication interface for a post-flavour world."

However, the public response has been characteristically brutal. "Walau, $80 for one rice grain? This one is special power rice or what? Can cure gout ah?" asked taxi driver Lim Beng Huat. "These tech bros really too much money already. Last time we eat grass because poor, now they sell us grass-flavoured foam and call it 'disruption'. Go fly kite lah!"

Undeterred, NanoNom plans to launch a 3D-printed laksa leaf next year for the low price of your firstborn’s kidney.