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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Aleph Farms

Aleph Farms is About to Send Cow Cells to Space. Here’s What They’re Looking to Learn

In five days, Aleph Farms will watch as cow cells from its research labs are handed to Eytan Stibbe, the second Israeli to travel to space and the first ever to head to the International Space Station (ISS). Stibbe will be traveling with a SpaceX crew on the Axiom-1 mission, taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in a Falcon 9 rocket on April 6th. Stibbe and the rest of the crew will spend eight days aboard the ISS, orbiting an average altitude of 227 miles above Earth. 

Why is an astronaut taking cell cultures from Aleph into outer space? As described by a post published this week on Aleph’s website, the company hopes to understand better the effects of microgravity on two basic processes responsible for muscle tissue formation, which will help them better understand how cow cells can be transformed into the building blocks of steak.

From the post:

Understanding processes in such an extreme environment, like space, will allow us to eventually develop an automated, closed-loop system that can produce steaks during long-term space missions. Similar to car manufacturers and Formula One, in space, we are developing the most efficient processes under the toughest environments. The processes we are validating in space can then be transferred to our mainstream production on Earth to help us increase efficiencies, and reduce our environmental footprint. Our space program will ultimately help us develop more sustainable and resilient food systems anywhere.

The company is working with SpacePharma, an organization specializing in developing drugs in microgravity environments. SpacePharma has developed a microfluidic device called a Lab-on-a-Chip that feeds the cells and allows them to grow in transport. Once on the ISS, Astronaut Stibbe will transfer the Lab-on-a-Chip into the ICE Cubes platform, which allows scientists on Earth to do research in real-time as images and data are sent from the Lab-on-a-Chip.

Aleph isn’t the only food company looking towards space. Last year NASA announced 28 winners of the first phase of its Deep Space Food Challenge (including one called Space Cow) and announced in January a $1 million prize purse for phase 2. A consortium called Space Foodsphere in Japan is comprised of dozens of Japanese companies as well as JAXA, and last year the group was selected to help develop food systems for long-term stay on the Moon. The European Space Agency put out a call for proposals last year to expand its research around cultured meat in space.

Aleph Farms Raises $105M in Series B Funding

Cultivated meat company Aleph Farms announced today it has completed a $105 million Series B round of funding, bringing the company’s total funding to date to $118 million. The Series B round was led by L Catterton and DisruptAD with participation from Skyviews Life Science, Thai Union, BRF, and CJ CheilJedang. Existing investors VisVires New Protein, Strauss Group, Cargill, Peregrine Ventures, and CPT Capital also participated in the round.

Israel-based Aleph Farms said the new funds will go towards increasing manufacturing, growing operations internationally, and expanding product lines. Currently, the company is developing a cultivated beef steak and will unveil a prototype for that product in November at the Agri-Food Innovation Summit. 

There is of course an enormous difference between unveiling a prototype and making these whole-muscle cuts of cultivated meat at scale. One of the challenges for cultivated meat companies is being able to produce large quantities of product at a cost that is on par with traditional meat. Aleph Farms launched a new production process at the end of 2020 that will eventually be able to reach that price parity, according to the company.

The process is the first part of a phased build-out for Aleph’s forthcoming pilot production facility, which the company says will be operational by 2022. Aleph Farms also plans to do an initial market launch at that time. The Series B funding will, in bigger-picture terms, go towards helping the company realize that goal. 

Aleph’s announcement today follows recent news from other cultivated meat companies that are also opening pilot production facilities and also aiming for commercial launches in 2022. That includes MeaTech 3D, also based in Israel and also developing whole cuts of cultivated meat. Another Israeli company, Future Meat, has already opened its facility and says it plans to sell cultivated meat in the U.S. by 2022.

Before anyone sells anything, however, these companies must get regulatory approval for each market they want to enter. So far, just one company, Eat Just, has regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat, and that’s only in Singapore. Along with price parity, getting regulatory approval is a major topic in the cultivated meat conversation these days. 

Aleph Farms says it is working with regulatory agencies, though the company did not specify for which markets. Part of the company’s international expansion will be to the United Arab Emirates and the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Aleph said it is also evaluating the possibility of a manufacturing facility located in the UAE.

MeaTech 3D Will Produce Cultivated Fat, Whole Steaks at Its Forthcoming Pilot Facility

Israeli bioprinting startup MeaTech 3D this week became the latest cultivated meat company to announce a pilot production facility, which the company intends to have operational in 2022. The plant’s location is yet to be announced. MeaTech said they will use the facility to increase the production of cultured chicken fat from Peace of Meat, a Belgian company MeaTech acquired in December of 2020. 

MeaTech says cultured fat can “significantly enhance” the texture, flavor, and mouthfeel of plant-based meat alternatives, giving them an altogether “meatier” taste than is available with current plant-based meat analogues. MeaTech said in this week’s announcement that it plans to license its cultivated fat tech — including cell lines and bioprocesses — to other companies wishing to improve their plant-based products.

However, cultivated fat is only one part of MeaTech’s overall plan. In tandem, the company will continue to develop a process for whole cuts of cultivated meat — namely steak and chicken breast — using 3D bioprinting tech.

Developing full cuts of cultivated meat is far more difficult than making minced products for burgers or chicken bites. With full cuts of meat, the various cells, including those for muscle, fat, blood vessels, and connective tissue, have to grow together, on scaffolding, to achieve the desired cut of meat. This is a significantly more intricate process than simply growing the different cells then manually combining them at the end, as can be done for a patty or nugget.

Aleph Farms, also based in Israel, is the other notable company attempting to produce whole cuts of cultivated meat. Earlier this year, the company said they had developed a 3D bioprinted Ribeye steak from cultivated protein.

So far, MeaTech has printed a carpaccio-like layer of meat. A full steak or chicken breast is in all likelihood years away. While the forthcoming pilot production facility will first be used to scale up production of Peace of Meat’s cultured fat, it will eventually incorporate MeaTech’s bioprinting tech to produce the aforementioned whole cuts of meat.

Aleph Farms Partners with BRF to Bring Cultured Meat to Brazil

Israeli startup Aleph Farms and Brazilian meat and food company BRF S.A. announced today that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to bring cultured meat to Brazil.

Under the agreement, Aleph and BRF will co-develop and produced cell-cultivated meat using Aleph’s BioFram technology platform. BRF will also distribute Aleph’s meat in Brazil.

This is the latest move in what has been a busy year already for Aleph. In January, the company announced that it was bringing its cultured meat to Japan via a similar Memo of Understanding with Mitsubishi. On the product side, last month, Aleph announced that it had made the first cultivated and 3D bioprinted ribeye steak.

The entire cultivated meat space has actually had an incredible start to 2021. In addition to Aleph, CellMEAT, Mirai Foods, Mosa Meat, and Future Meat, are just some of the companies that have raised funding for their approach to cell-based meat.

Despite all this activity, price remains a big hurdle for widespread adoption of cell-based meat. Creating and scaling cell-based meat is still an expensive proposition, though the price is coming down. In a Spoon podcast interview this week, Jim Mellon, author of the book Moo’s Law: An Investor’s Guide to the New Agrarian Revolution, said:

“At scale, and we’ve got a pretty good scientific advisory board, we think that it will be 2.5 milliliters [of stem cell material] from a cow will produce the equivalent of seven or eight cows worth of meat in 40 days. So if you can do this in 40 days, we think the input costs will be 2.5 to one. And that compares to as you all know, a cow twenty five to one, a chicken nine to one.”

How quickly cell-based meat reaches price parity with animal meat remains to be seen. Even if price parity is achieved, however, there are still regulatory issues around cultured meat that must be ironed out. But deals like the one between Aleph and BRF will help the cultured meat industry scale up and reach the mainstream.

Aleph Farms Makes a Cultivated 3D-Bioprinted Ribeye Steak

Israel-based startup Aleph Farms and its research partner, the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Israel Institute of Technology, said today that they have developed a cultivated 3D-bioprinted ribeye steak. The steak contains muscle, fat, and structure identical to what would be found in a steak from a cow, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

To create the cultivated ribeye steak, a technique called 3D bioprinting was used. This is different from 3D printing because living cells, which have been extracted from living animals, are actually printed. Once the living cells are printed, they are incubated to grow and interact to form tissues and structures identical to those found in a steak from an animal. Other companies that use 3D printing to produce meat alternatives, like NovaMeat and Redefine Meat, print plant-based proteins and fats.

In 2018, Aleph Farms unveiled a cultivated thin-cut steak. At the time, the steak was not produced using 3D bioprinting, and Aleph Farms was limited to making its first product just a few inches long and a few centimeters thick. At the end of last year, the company shared that it had created a platform for the commercial production of its cultured meat, called BioFarm, which the company hopes to have fully operational by 2022.

It is still early into 2021, and in addition to Aleph Farms’ news, there has already been a plethora of cultured meat news. At the end of January, NovaMeat announced that it had created the world’s largest piece of 3D-printed cultivated meat. Mirai Foods raised $2.7 million a few weeks ago to accelerate the commercialization of its cultured meat. Eat Just made headlines at the end of last year with its first commercial sale of cultured meat.

Aleph Farms says now that it has successfully created an entire steak it can essentially create any shape and type of steak. In the press release, the company shared that it will continue to expand its portfolio of cultivated meat products.

Aleph Farms’ Cultured Meat Coming to Japan Courtesy of Mitsubishi

Israel-based Aleph Farms announced today that its cultured meat is headed for the Japanese market, thanks to a new Memorandum of Understanding with Mitsubishi.

Through the new deal, Aleph Farms will provide its BioFarm platform to cultivate whole-muscle steaks, while Mitsubishi provides its expertise in biotechnology processes, branded food manufacturing and distribution throughout Japan.

In addition opening up a new market for Aleph Farms, today’s announcement is a nice bit of validation for the company’s BioFarm technology. Announced last November, Aleph says its BioFarm facility will allow it to scale the production of cull cultured cow meat affordably, bringing the price down to parity with factory farmed meat.

But Aleph will face some cell-cultured competition in Japan. Japanese company, Integriculture has its own lab meat technology and was awarded a grant by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry last year to build out a commercial cell ag facility.

While we’re only in January, the building blocks were put in place last year to make 2021 a breakout year for the technology. Last month, Eat Just made history by making the world’s first sale of cultured meat in Singapore. In Israel, Supermeat opened a test kitchen that offers cell-cultured chicken dishes in exchange for feedback from diners.

Aleph Farms even generated a bit of high-profile news itself last month when Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did a public tasting of the company’s steak.

Despite all the forward momentum, there are still a number of regulatory issues that need to be designed and implemented for this new technology. With cell cultured meat technology becoming more of a reality, expect a steady stream of announcements in the space throughout the year.

Aleph Farms Debuts Commercial Production Platform for Cultivated Steak, Starts Construction of Its ‘BioFarm’

Today, Aleph Farms announced a platform for the commercial production of its cultivated beef steak. The company says this platform will allow it to eventually produce meat grown from cells of a living cow affordably at scale, putting its cultivated steak at price parity with factory farmed meat.

The new production process is the first part of a phased build-out of what Aleph Farms is calling its BioFarm, a pilot plant the company intends to have fully operational by 2022.

“One of the big challenges of cultivated meat is the ability to produce large quantities efficiently at a cost that can compete with conventional meat industry pricing, without compromising on quality,” said Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, in today’s press release. “We have developed five technological building blocks unique to Aleph Farms that are put into a large-scale production process, all patented by the company.”

The company has created a prototype of beef steak produced through its new commercial production platform and will debut it via a virtual cooking demonstration at the Agri-Food Innovation Summit on November 20th.

With its new process, Aleph says it is trying to emulate the tissue regeneration process of meat produced through traditional animal farming, only outside of the animal’s body and under controlled conditions. The company also is growing whole meat (rather than minced) by using a plant-based matrix that mimics that extra-cellular matrix founds in animals.

This announcement is another indication of how the cultivated meat market is transitioning into a new phase as companies like Aleph and Matrix Meats lay the groundwork for a more scaled production of cultivated meat produced from animal cells. This development of lower-cost production is a necessary step if lab-grown meat is to ever to become a widely consumed alternative to traditional, animal-farmed meat products.

While some skeptics like Pat Brown say that these companies will never be able to get production to the point where prices will be at parity with traditional meat, others, like Josh Tetrick, say that day will definitely come, even if it takes us a decade or more before we’re buying a piece of cultivated meat at the local fast food joint.

And with today’s news by Aleph, it looks like we may have taken another step forward towards into a more sustainable, alt-protein future.

Aleph Farms’ “Aleph Zero” Program Aims to Grow Cell-Based Steaks in Space

Aleph Farms, announced its new “Aleph Zero” program today, which aims to bring the production of cell-based meat into outer space to help humans become “multiplanetary.”

Aleph’s lab-grown, slaughter-free approach to creating meat could mean that astronauts may one day could create their own steaks and other protein on long-haul missions far away from any natural resources.

Based on the press release, there isn’t a lot of, err, meat on the bones of this announcement. The company just says that it “is securing strategic partnerships with technology companies and space agencies for long term collaborative research and development contracts” to integrate Aleph Farms’ technology into space programs.

It should be noted, however, that Aleph’s meat has already been to space. Last year the company successfully grew small-scale muscle tissue aboard the International Space Station.

For something that is literally a giant vacuum, space is getting increasingly crowded with food tech. NASA is researching how to grow chile peppers in space, we learned in March that romaine lettuce grown in space was safe to eat, the Zero G oven lets astronauts bake cookies in space, and last year a Japanese consortium launched its Space Food X initiative to feed people in space.

Working on feeding people in space may seem less pressing than feeding those in need here on Earth. But as Aleph points out in its release, if food can be created in micro-gravity and far away from natural resources up in space, those innovations can help us feed people living in extreme conditions here on Earth.

Aleph Farms Launches Educational Complex, Gen Z Board to Destigmatize Cultured Meat

Cultured meat (or meat grown outside the animal) has been making headlines lately — but when it comes to general consumer awareness, companies still have a long way to go.

That’s the disconnect that Aleph Farms is trying to bridge with two new initiatives it announced today. First, the Israeli startup, which is growing cell-based steak, announced in a press release today that it’s opening an educational complex next to its Israeli production facility to give the public a more in-depth view of cultured meat. Literally. The center will allow people to actually see how the company grows its steak cells.

You can’t just waltz right in to peek behind the curtain, though. Interested parties have to submit a request to tour the facility. According to a press release, the center will admit groups of up to 20 people, and visitor priority will be given to “student delegations, academy, non-governmental and non-profit organizations.” As far as I know, this will be the first such official visitor center for a cell-based meat company.

Aleph Farms’ slaughter-free steaks [Photo: Afik Gabay]

Aleph Farms is putting special emphasis on the student angle — and younger people in general. The startup also announced today that it had launched something called a “Z-Board.” This advisory board is made up entirely of Generation Z (that is, people under 25). Z-Board members will “be partners in Aleph’s vision of developing a sustainable food system and building a transparent relationship with consumers and young communities.”

It’s not exactly clear how Aleph’s Z-Board will do all of those things (Leading social media campaigns? Giving insight into Gen Z purchasing behavior?) However, it is telling that the Israeli company is so intent on targeting younger consumers. Gen Z not only has significant buying power, they’re also the ones who will likely be the most open to trying cell-based meat. The demographic is also more highly motivated by ethical and environmental concerns than older groups, both of which could lead them to support cultured meat.

Aleph Farms has been taking big steps to grow its footprint over the past year. Last May the company announced it had grown muscle tissue in space, just a few months after it closed a $12 million fundraise.

Compared to those tidbits, news of a visitor center and Gen Z-centered board may seem pretty lackluster. However, I think it illustrates how Aleph Farms is playing the long game. The startup realizes that cultured meat will face a myriad of challenges in its trek towards the market, from scaling to cost to regulation. With its new initiatives, Aleph Farms is working to ensure that consumer understanding and acceptance isn’t one of them.

Aleph Farms Raises $12M for its Slaughter-Free Steak

Though plant-based meat has grabbed most of the headlines in alternative protein this year, thanks to Beyond Meat going public and Impossible Foods scaling up, lab-grown or cultured meat is having a banner year of its own. Case in point: Aleph Farms announced today that it has raised a $12 million Series A round of funding led by VisVires New Protein, with Cargill Protein and M-Industry participating as well.

Israel-based Aleph Farms is looking to make full-on steaks, complete with the same structure and texture as traditional meat. As my colleague, Catherine Lamb wrote last year:

To do that, [Aleph’s] scientists are working on growing four types of cells: muscle, fat, blood vessels, and connective tissue. While those last two might not sound very appetizing, Toubia said that they’re critical to replicating the texture of meat. Once they cultivate the various types of cells, they place them on scaffolds which act as a framework for the cells to cling onto. That way, the four types of cells can grow together into a finished product with the shape of steak — not just blobs of separate cell types in petri dishes that have to be manually combined.

Last December, Aleph unveiled what it called the first lab-grown minute steak: a steak made from cow cells in a bioreactor. Though the steak was only a few inches long and a few centimeters thick, The Wall Street Journal tried one, noting that it “passes” for the real thing. Aleph’s new money will go towards accelerating the development of this earlier prototype into a commercial product.

It should be noted that this is the second slaughter-free meat investment for Cargill, the U.S.’ third-largest meat producer. Cargill, along with chicken giant, Tyson, has also put money into Memphis Meats. Both companies are angling to be their own disruptor, rather than leaving that to some upstart startup.

The investment comes at a time when consumers are reconsidering the ethical and environmental impact of eating traditional meat. While sales of plant-burgers are booming right now, we are still a ways away from lab-grown meat reaching our dinner plates. Memphis Meats and Mosa Meat claim they’ll have their cultured meat to market by 2021, and JUST has said it will debut its cultured meat in Asia by the end of this year.

Before slaughter-free meat does hit the market, it will have to tackle its own set of hurdles like how it will be labeled and regulated. Most of all, however, these cultured meat companies will need to scale production to hit the mass market at a price point consumers can afford. Because unlike meat, money can’t be grown in a lab.

Aleph Farms Puts a Steak in the Ground, Unveils New Cell-Based Cut of Meat

Israeli startup Aleph Farms has unveiled what it calls “the first cell-grown minute steak” — that is, the first steak made from cow cells, but grown outside a cow in a bioreactor.

Up until now, companies such as Finless Foods, JUST, and Mosa Meats have made cultured tuna, chicken nuggets, and hamburgers, respectively. But cell-based steak, with its complex, sliceable texture, has remained elusive.

I spoke with Aleph Farms CEO Didier Toubia back in May about their plans to make the first cultured steak:

“Instead of starting with a simpler ground “meat” product and later developing 3D tissue-growing technology, [Aleph Farms] is hoping to skip ahead and bring a fully developed product — one with the same texture, structure, and taste as beef — to market.

To do that, their scientists are working on growing four types of cells: muscle, fat, blood vessels, and connective tissue… Once they cultivate the various types of cells, they place them on scaffolds which act as a framework for the cells to cling onto. That way, the four types of cells can grow together into a finished product with the shape of steak — not just blobs of separate cell types in petri dishes that have to be manually combined.”

Wall Street Journal senior correspondent Jason Bellini got to taste this new cut of cell-based meat on camera. In the video, Amir Ilan, a chef at the restaurant Paris Texas in Israel, seared the thin slices of pre-cooked steak about the size of a credit card. (Interestingly, the camera crew was not allowed to film raw slices of the steak.) He served the meat with a truffle glaze and mushrooms. The consensus? “It’s pretty good, I have to say,” said Bellini between chews. “It’s pretty close to a regular steak… it passes.”

For now, the size and texture of Aleph Farms’ steaks are limited. They can’t grow them bigger than a few inches and no thicker than a few centimeters. Though companies are working to create bigger and better-textured cuts of cultured meat through 3D printing or using plants as scaffolds, texture remains one of the biggest challenges in making cell-based meat taste like the real thing.

Aleph Farms’ news comes just a day after JUST, a San Francisco startup most known for their plant-based foods, announced that it has partnered with Japanese producer Toriyama to create the first cell-based Wagyu. Though they’re planning to make a burger instead of a steak, the one-two punch speaks to how quickly the field of cultured meat is accelerating — though it’ll be a while yet (at least a year) before JUST’s product is to market.

If you want to try Aleph Farms’ steaks, you’ll have to wait even longer. While the company didn’t give an exact timeline, the WSJ video stated that their cultured steak is still at least two years away. But the implications of this first taste test are still significant. As I wrote back in May, “If they can nail the texture of a steak, Aleph Farms has a real shot at converting even the most hardcore of carnivores.” It seems that the startup has taken one big step closer to that goal.