LAB TO TABLE: Israeli tech kitchens cook up future of animal-free food
According to the Good Food Institute Israel, a nonprofit organization that seeks to promote research and innovation in the field, Israel plays a substantial role in the alternative proteins global market.
RICKY BEN-DAVID: For a growing share of consumers who consider themselves vegan, vegetarian, or “flexitarian” — people who eat a mostly plant-based diet with animal products occasionally thrown in — animal-free products that taste, look, and feel like meat can prove an attractive option for a meal. A recent poll in the US suggests that more than half of young Americans in their 20s consider themselves flexitarians. And the number of vegans in the US has increased by about 600% since 2014. These consumers turn to plant-based diets for a variety of reasons, among them allergies or sensitivities to dairy, environmental concerns, animal welfare, and human rights…
Food tech covers a very broad area that includes nutrition, packaging, food safety, processing systems, novel ingredients, and alternative proteins. The latter comprises plant-based substitutes for meat, dairy, and egg, cultured dairy, meat and seafood, insect proteins, and fermentation products and processes. In the past seven years or so, “Israel has become the second-largest ecosystem for alternative proteins,” Eldan told the group of reporters, as the share of vegan, flexitarian, and kosher consumers grow.
According to the Good Food Institute Israel, a nonprofit organization that seeks to promote research and innovation in the field, Israel plays a “substantial role” in the alternative proteins global market, with Israeli startups raising a record amount of money from investors in 2020 — $114 million, up 154% from $45 million in 2019, and eightfold from $14 million in 2010.
In the plant-based category, Israeli startup Redefine Meat is a leading player with over $35 million in funding so far. Founded in 2018, the company makes 3D-printed, animal-free lamb and beef cuts, burgers, sausages, lamb kebabs, and ground beef. The products are sold in more than 150 Israeli restaurants and establishments, and the company announced last week that its products will launch at select high-end restaurants in Europe…
In the cultivated meat subsector, Aleph Farms is a standout. The startup was founded in 2017 by Dr. Didier Toubia and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s Prof. Shulamit Levenberg… Aleph Farms rolled out the first cultivated steak in 2018 and a cultivated ribeye cut earlier this year… Aleph Farms has plans for a market launch in 2022 and is building a new 3,000-square-meter facility to produce its cultured meat at scale, said Neta Lavon, Aleph Farms’s CTO and VP R&D…
Aleph Farms is one of several cultivated meat companies operating in Israel in a field the government has eyed for investment and growth. Earlier this month, the Israel Innovation Authority earmarked NIS 220 million ($69 million) for four new consortiums to lead development and acceleration in a new of fields, among them cultivated meat.
The sector includes MeaTech 3D, a maker of lab-grown meat products that started research into the production of cultivated pork meat; SuperMeat, which grows beef and poultry cells; and Future Meat, a Jerusalem-based biotechnology firm that creates cultured meat from chicken cells and is working on cultured lamb kebabs and beef burgers…
Aleph Farms is one of several cultivated meat companies operating in Israel in a field the government has eyed for investment and growth. Earlier this month, the Israel Innovation Authority earmarked NIS 220 million ($69 million) for four new consortiums to lead development and acceleration in a new of fields, among them cultivated meat.
The sector includes MeaTech 3D, a maker of lab-grown meat products that started research into the production of cultivated pork meat; SuperMeat, which grows beef and poultry cells; and Future Meat, a Jerusalem-based biotechnology firm that creates cultured meat from chicken cells and is working on cultured lamb kebabs and beef burgers.
Future Meat’s technology is based on the work of Prof. Yaakov Nahmias of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is licensed through Yissum. Nahmias serves as co-founder and chief scientific officer of the startup. The company recently launched what it called the world’s first industrial cultured meat production facility in Rehovot with the capacity to produce 500 kilograms (about half a ton) of cultured product per day.
Future Meat launched a new production facility in Rehovot, Israel in June 2021. (Future Meat)
Israel is also home to a whole food tech ecosystem made up of accelerators, hubs, and centers that foster and fund new startups. Millennium Food Tech, an R&D partnership traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, has invested in a number of Israeli food tech companies including SavorEat, Aleph Farms, and Yofix, a maker of soy-free, fermented, plant-based prebiotic and probiotic dairy alternatives…
In the same vein is Israeli startup Remilk… The startup, founded in 2019, produces milk proteins via a fermentation process that are “chemically identical” to those present in cow-produced milk and dairy products. “The end result is 100% similar to ‘real’ milk,” but free of lactose, cholesterol, growth hormones, and antibiotics, said Aviv Wolff, who co-founded Remilk with his scientist partner Ori Cohavi… Remilk can also offer ready-made products like hard cheese, yogurt, and cream cheese…
Two months ago, Jerusalem Venture Partners inaugurated a new food tech innovation center in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona. The Technion also recently launched a food tech center on its Haifa campus. The Israel Innovation Authority, together with major Israeli food manufacturer Tnuva, beverage company Tempo and leading Israeli VC company OurCrowd, set up a food tech incubator in 2019 in Kiryat Shmona called Fresh Start. The center works with seven Israeli startups including one that is developing cell-cultured fish and two that are working on sugar reduction technologies. SOURCE…
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