A story with meat: foodtech from the chefs' point of view

Anyone who has experimented with meat substitutes knows that even in the few cases where the product tastes good, it can't really replace the real thing.

That is, this is on the assumption that you have not yet tasted the "laboratory" products of Yosef and Bizi, a chef and filmmaker who invented food-tech from the point of view of chefs

Talia Levin

26/10/2022

Wednesday, October 26, 2022, 4:16 p.m. Updated: Friday, October 28, 2022, 8:34 a.m.

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Chefs in the foodtech industry are often used in the marketing phase.

Here are the developers (photo: Haim Yosef)

Four years ago,

met quite by chance.

It was one of those fateful encounters that change your whole life, your outlook on the world, your career.

In their case it took them on a fascinating journey through the worlds of food tech.

And if you read the term "food tech" and you nod your head in understanding, of "yes - we already know the world of food substitutes", stop - because I thought so too.

Believe me, after a short visit to the two's laboratory, you will suddenly realize that you still don't know anything.

"We played with ancient wheat with a few other chefs," Yair Yousfi tells me, "We started doing experiments, we glued, burned and fermented it the way we like to do. Then we brought a box of wheat covered in mold to an event we did a few years ago with Binyamina Winery."

"Everyone asked us why the hell we needed it, and Bizzy looked and said 'You did fermentation' and immediately put it here. That's where I knew we were going to be friends."

This chance meeting gave rise to a deeper thought about the development of new culinary processes.

"We realized that there is a very big hole in the market, of how you make delicious vegan or vegetarian food. And especially one without butter, without cheese, without stock."

It was a long journey that included consultation with cooks, chefs, various scientists at the Technion and the Hebrew University, until the token fell.

The laboratory: "We started doing experiments, we glued, burned and fermented it as we like to do" (Photo: Haim Yosef)

live at all

"I think this moment was first of all a meeting between several things," says Goldberg, "curiosity in the whole subject of food, fermentation, fermentation, suddenly people started to be interested in it. Many felt that vegetarian, vegan food needed to be redefined."

"You can make food that is plant-based and delicious, of course you can. But it is very difficult to make food with a flavor substitute for animal protein, at the level of taste of animal protein. There is this thing that is very "animal", long cooking for example , chowder, these are things that you get addicted to with taste."

Yair (known as Yosef) and Omar (Ben Gal) chefs and owners of the barut never said it like that.

"They said, we make certain food in Brot, we know how to make salad, so there is a dish for vegetarians and a dish for vegans to fill the need, but something is missing there."

There are plenty of meat substitutes, and I'm sure you're familiar with it too, although with some reservation, at least on the part of the foodies among you, who understand that the substitutes still don't taste as good as the original animal protein.

And maybe it's time to tell what exactly the two offer, not the meat substitutes themselves but the natural flavorings that give the meat experience that carnivores from Dopalim know (and we'll get to that in a bit).

Yousfi: "It took us some time to understand that we are playing in a fascinating and very complex world here, a world of flavors and flavorings that we consume every day sometimes without knowing it. In Israel, flavorings are worth millions of dollars a year. Flavorings are present in everything, even in a hamburger from frozen meat, you know the This?"

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Yair Yousfi: "We realized that there is a very big hole in the market, of how you make delicious vegan or vegetarian food. And especially one without butter, without cheese, without stock" (Photo: PR)

And why actually?

"Because when the meat is not of sufficient quality, you have to add a few percentages of synthesized meat flavors to it. It's a huge market that you can't escape from unless you live at all."

Bizzy: "We realized that we must have an advantage over other companies by first of all saying that culinary professionals and chefs will play a central role in this company. Usually in food tech companies, chefs have three roles: explaining to people what the product is, chefs are part of the marketing system, they create demand, And in taste companies there are a sort of chef councils that meet from time to time to understand why these and those flavors are used and the scientists synthesize these compounds chemically or biologically in the laboratory, but the chefs themselves are not partners in development or research. Here it is very important for us to understand, for that matter, what the taste of cooking is Long? How do you get such a taste?"

Ben Zion (Bizzy) Goldberg.

A meeting of curiosity (Photo: Public Relations)

A whole generation demands

So the chefs Yair Yousfi, Omer Ben Gal and Asaf Gronovitz, also from Brut, began to ferment for a whole year and create flavors, the connection with the team of scientists was made when they founded MFL, an acronym for Mediterranean Food Lab, where they produce, or rather extracts, completely natural flavoring agents , green, environmental, healthy and yes - they are the only ones who have already raised 2.5 million dollars, and are currently preparing for another fundraising round to catch up with the demands that have already been created by the worldwide interest of large and well-known food companies.

Bizzy: "When we reached the point where we start talking to big customers, as soon as we passed the point of 'let me taste', the next step was immediately 'OK, when are you producing?'

This phase will create very fast movement, it is challenging. And we are working very quickly to be able to supply these quantities."

Bizzy: "That's right, that's the first focus. We started to think that there was no point in solving a problem with the same means by which it was created. I mean, on the one hand, there is great activity in the world of meat substitutes, and on the other hand, consumers are already starting to vote with their feet, and realize that it's not really tasty. Someone once showed We compared natural sausages and real sausages in the amount of flavorings, and we found out that real sausages have 0.5 percent flavorings, but why - if they are made of meat? When the world of meat substitutes began to grow, they brought in the experts in the flavor of meat and that's how the world is complex, but we say it's impossible to solve the problem with the chemical substances. We wanted to be clean label, green, vegan, it's not only tastier and healthier, but we live with a generation that is starting to ask for these things in the products it purchases."

Then Yosef entered the central table in the small space of the laboratory.

The one from which the good news comes, that around her table sit both chemists and scientists as well as chefs who concoct flavors.

And he serves me, the seasoned carnivore, a dish of lentil and cabbage stew.

I explain to him that I have a problem with a "lentil" taste, and that lately I've really been trying to reduce my meat consumption to the point of stopping completely, but I'm having a hard time with the substitutes, solvates, and sodium.

Yosef is just asking me to take a bite.

There is no doubt that the meaty taste is present and anyone who knows the taste of meat in the mouth may be mistaken and think that this is a meat dish by all accounts.

This dish, which was served the first few times in Brut, was even returned in a panic by some frightened vegetarians and vegans who thought it was meat or, mercifully, they were allowed to use meat stock.

onion soup.

Taste and texture of butter, without butter (Photo: Haim Yosef)

They replace the bone that grandma pushed into the buckwheat

Yosef explains to me that meat is the most common flavoring agent in the world, and contrary to what everyone thinks, only 40% comes as a cut from the cow.

"Actually 60% end up on the plate as some kind of flavoring agent, stock, soup cube, stock that you prepare or buy at the supermarket in a concentrated manner."

Bizzy chicken: "My grandma used to do that. Not to mention the ground meat you use in lasagna. No one eats lasagna or bolognese because of the cut. These are the things to look for in long cooking , flavors. It's not related to the bites of the chicken, it's related to the taste and its ability to remain in the mouth after eating."

Ofek Lanciano who is a food technologist in the company comes out to meet me again with several dishes, the second is an onion soup in which I feel a strong buttery component and does not hide my findings.

Of course, there is no butter, no beef stock, and not even monsodium.

And this is the place to mention that flavors that normal companies produce are with synthesized substances.

The fact that the laboratory is the exact opposite, does not require them to have overly complex regulation because they meet the criterion of "pantry materials" and manage to make delicious "experiments" on the restaurant menu.

Yosef: "You see, we had very interesting materials on hand, but it took us at least a year to understand what the context was, and that it should come in meat substitutes. How do you make, for example, a flavor extract for a vegan chowder?

It's an art

"We won't eat less meat because we will eat more substitutes," says Bizzy, "we will eat less meat because we will learn to eat differently."

And Joseph adds that we will go back to how we used to eat.

"Lentils, chickpeas and beans. There is enough protein in the West, you just have to figure out how to make it tasty. All in all, think about fermentation, the tastiest things are made this way, wine, cheese, chocolate, kimchi, chocolate, beer and coffee" .

In order to achieve the desired taste, they do what is called trial and error, "it's a combination of trial and error, with tasting and also with computer work" explains Bizzy, about big data calculations alongside the chefs' kitchen experiments.

"An Israeli consumer, whatever you bring him, if it doesn't taste good, you get it in your face right away," says Yousfi, emphasizing that at the end of the experiment and tasting, it must suit the customers' palate.

When I wonder how they will catch up with the demand for the tons they need to produce for international tastings in the small laboratory in Beit Hashoeba alley, they are already talking about production abroad and dreams that will undoubtedly come true faster than they think. that the company is already deeply established and exists.

Only now did we actually start messing with it after we realized that there was a lot of meat in the existing product." Literally.

• Of money

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