Hong Kong’s richest man has a taste for vegan ice-cream.

Li Ka-shing’s Horizon Ventures has upped its investment in California-based synthetic milk start-up Perfect Day, leading a $300 million capital injection alongside the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investment) and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings.

Perfect Day is a pioneer in the lactose-free, vegan-friendly dairy products market and last year launched a range of ice creams made from “milk” grown in tanks.

The company makes the milk using microbes that have been genetically engineered to eat sugar and produce the proteins usually found in cow’s milk: whey and casein. These can be used to make foods like ice cream, butter and cheese.

Horizon’s renewed interest in the company has sparked speculation about the U.S. firm's designs on the Greater China market.

But it’s unclear whether Perfect Day's techniques will pass muster with Chinese regulators, which have strict standards for the import and labelling of genetically modified foods.

Perfect Day's website says its products do not contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) because the microbes are filtered out of the milk, but that “genetic modification is part of our process.”

The company is one of a growing number of synethetic food-makers eyeing Chinese markets, including Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods.

Read the full story later today on Caixin Global.

Contact reporter Flynn Murphy (flynnmurphy@caixin.com)