bitelabs - making meat from the stars/bitelabs
In a groundbreaking step, last week the Rehovot-based company Alef-Farms received preliminary approval from the Ministry of Health to market cultured beef in Israel.
The product, an appropriately sized piece of meat from a cow outside the animal's body, is the first cultured beef product approved for sale in the world.
The achievement of Alf Pharm is a small but significant step in the aspect of precedent that may bring about a global revolution that will enable mass, efficient, and more environmentally friendly production of animal products.
The cultured meat technology, which enables the production of meat (from any animal) without raising animals, has been causing great excitement in recent years.
This is a solution that may overcome some of the most significant challenges of the 21st century: the increasing difficulty of providing food to the world's population, the climate crisis and the ever-accelerating emission of greenhouse gases (cattle and sheep farming is the source of over 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions) and the depletion of clean water sources and farming areas in the world
The innovative and complex technology that makes it possible to produce the cultured meat is growing rapidly, and as of 2023 there are around 150 companies operating in the world that focus on the development of creating a non-animal protein source with the potential for production on very large scales.
Dr. Dana Jordan, co-founder, and Dr. Amit Yaari, CEO, BIOBETTER, at the tobacco hothouse/BIOBETTER
In order for the cultured meat products such as steak, hamburger, meatballs and others to become part of the masses, the companies that produce the cultured meat must face some difficult technological challenges.
The most complex challenge in cultured meat technology is reducing production costs so that the price of cultured meat can approach that of normal meat, and proving economic viability.
Market surveys show that without reaching the same cost zone, it will not have a significant penetration into the meat market, and it will remain a boutique product.
Why is the production of cultured meat expensive today?
Cultured meat is grown in a "broth" (media in the professional language) that provides the cells with all their needs.
Today, the most valuable key component in the production process of cultured meat is the "growth factors" - proteins that are responsible for controlling, controlling and encouraging the division and differentiation of cells.
Without them it is not possible to grow cultured meat effectively.
Today, the cost of growth factors (proteins) is the main component of the total cost of the cultured meat production process.
These are proteins that are relatively complex and difficult to produce, so their price is very high.
According to various estimates, the cost of growth factors reaches about 50% and more of the total cost in the cultured meat production process, which makes cultured meat production unprofitable today.
For example, the hormone insulin, which is essential to allow cells to grow at a rapid rate and differentiate for example into fat cells, is currently sold at costs of more than 100 dollars per gram.
According to recently published studies, among others by the GOOD FOOD INSTITUTE (GFI), (an international non-profit organization that works to promote alternative proteins) - in order to make cultured meat a viable industry in terms of costs for the consumer, it will be necessary to supply insulin at prices that are 100 times lower (! ) its cost today, and increase global production capacity a thousandfold (!).
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The first lab-made hamburger served in London, August 5, 2013/Reuters, Reuters
Israel is one of the leaders in the world in the potdak [food technology] industry and in the field of specially cultured meat development.
In recent years, a number of world-class leading companies have grown in Israel, including Alf Pharms, Supreme, Stakeholder, Liver Meat, Ever After Meat and others.
Along with these companies, it is important that Israel also develop technologies that will make it possible to cheapen the production processes of cultured meat and make it economically viable so that masses around the world can consume it in the marketing chains and serve it to the table.
One of the Israeli companies that decided to face this challenge is Biotar, located in the Tel Hai industrial area in the north.
The innovative technology that the company has developed, which originates from the laboratory of Professor Oded Shusiov from the Hebrew University, will be able to change the rules of the game through a significant reduction in the production of growth factors.
Bio Better's technology, which received an investment from the JVP Foundation, is based on the use of genetic engineering that enables tobacco plants to be transformed into independent "production systems", fed by light, air and sun, on which the growth factors, the valuable proteins that are so critical in the production process of cultured meat, are produced.
Instead of using large and very expensive facilities that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and which fail to satisfy the growing demand of the cultured meat technology, Biobater uses the huge tobacco farms as agricultural and natural breeding farms that drastically reduce the required investment in the production infrastructure of the growth factors, and the ongoing production costs.
Cultured meat tested in taste tests/screenshot, YouTube
In addition, Biobetter has developed a patented technology that allows it to extract the growth factors from the tobacco leaves.
Combining these elements together makes it possible to reduce production costs to a single dollar per gram of protein, and there is almost no limit to the scope of production, since it depends only on the scope of the area allocated for growing plants.
The company works in collaboration with farmers in several regions of the country, with their help it grows tobacco plants that express different growth factors over several acres.
At the same time, research and development work is being carried out to optimize the production and production processes, in order to start marketing growth factors as early as 2024.
The approval of the cultured meat product of Alf-Farms is great news for the industry, but in order for it to reach end consumers, restaurants, homes, the production process must be simple More, and much cheaper.
Israel, as a global foodtech powerhouse, brings the good news to the world twice: both in the actual development of cultured meat products and in the ability to produce and develop innovative solutions that produce growth factors - the critical diamond in the meat production process - at costs that change the rules of the game and make cultured meat the next food gospel.
The authors are Dr. Amit Yaari, CEO, and Dr. Dana Jordan, co-founder, BioBetter
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