Redefine Meat announced today it has achieved the ability to produce its 3D printed, plant-based steaks using high-production industrial-level 3D printing capabilities.
This new capability, which the company says allows them to now print up to 50 steaks an hour, will help company roll out its 3D printed steaks to select restaurants in Europe this fall for market tests as it prepares for a broader rollout of its industrial 3D meat printers to meat distributors in 2021.
Redefine’s plant-based steak is printed from three different ingredient packs which company calls ‘Alt-Fat’, ‘Alt-Muscle’ and ‘Alt-Blood.’ According to the company, they have mapped out 70 sensorial parameters that allow its printers to control texture, juiciness, fat distribution and mouthfeel.
“By using separate formulations for muscle, fat and blood, we can focus on each individual aspect of creating the perfect Alt-Steak product,” said company CEO Eshchar Ben-Shitrit in a release. “This is unique to our 3D printing technology and lets us achieve unprecedented control of what happens inside the matrix of alt-meat.”
When we spoke to Redefine last fall, at the time the company said printers cost up $100,000, but I’m guessing prices will come down slightly as they scale manufacturing of the hardware.
And while 50-steaks-per-hour production volume is certainly higher than early prototypes we’ve seen for plant-based meat production, it’s not quite industrial animal meat processing volume. As a result, the company’s printed steaks are currently only priced for higher end restaurants.
I’m hoping as the volume of production goes up and printer prices eventually drop, the price for the end user will come down enough for the company’s steak products to be sold outside of high-end restaurants at retail.
As part of the announcement, the company also announced a new partner in global flavor conglomerate Givaudan, who worked closely with the company in mapping the flavor components of the company’s Alt-Steak formulation.
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