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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Israel

Yemoja Unveils New Scalable System To Grow Microalgae for Food

Yemoja, an Israel-based startup making marine ingredients for B2B use, unveiled its new algae production platform today. The company uses something called “fast-track photobioreactor technology” to create specific algaes meant to be used as ingredients as a food supplement or in cosmetic products.

Founded in 2017, Yemoja grows large amounts of microalgae tailored to fit each startup partners’ needs. To do so they’ve developed a closed cultivation system that can maintain a specific temperature, pH balance, and light distribution. It’s also designed to be able to cultivate several species of algae at the same time. Thus far Yemoja has raised $4 million in seed funding and investments from the Israel Innovation Authority.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Yemoja distinguishes itself with its emphasis on scalability and versatility. With its modular grow system, which looks like racks filled with tall, cylindrical containers filled with lights, Yemoja can at least theoretically add almost countless units to fulfill customer needs. Since each system is self-contained, they can also cultivate multiple species of algae simultaneously — one for a plant-based meat company, another for face masks, for example.

Photo: Yemoja’s grow units

This seems like a pretty obvious way to grow microalgae, so it’s possible that other companies out there are also growing organisms in a similar manner — or will soon start to. Especially since algae is becoming a popular health add-in to a range of food products, including plant-based proteins. That’s especially the case with seafood, as microalgae imparts a marine flavor to alternatives like shrimp and canned tuna.

However, Yemoja seems to be focusing not purely on quanitity of algae, but also bespoke, specialty products. Eyal Shalmon, the CEO of Yemoja, said in the aforementioned press release that only a dozen or so species of microalgae are commercially available right now. If they concentrate on building out a larger range of algae strains, Yemoja could help stand out in a sea of producers.

New Study Puts Cell-based Beef Grown on Soy Scaffolding to the Test

A study published today in the scientific journal Nature Food outlines a new way to give cell-based meat a realistic, well, meaty texture. In the study, which was authored by researchers from Israeli cultured meat company Aleph Farms and the Technion Institute of Technology, Israel, describe tests of a new 3D scaffold made of soy protein on which animal tissue can be grown. (Thanks for the tip, CNET.)

The scientists tested out the scaffold with bovine cells to create a sample that looked like beef muscle tissue. The scaffold is porous, which gives the animal cells space to latch on and grow their own interweaving matrix of tissue. It’s also edible and, since it’s made from soy, provides additional protein. Tasters in the study noted that the final product accurately mimicked the texture of beef and had a “meaty flavour.”

For those who don’t nerd out studying next-gen alternative protein, texture is one of the biggest hurdles facing consumer adoption of cell-based meat. Scientists may already be able to grow muscle and fat tissues, but putting them together in a way that emulates the texture of meat is a much trickier issue. That’s why most of the samples of cultured meat and seafood displayed during culinary demos thus far — shrimp dumplings from Shiok Meats, chicken nuggets from JUST, and beef burgers from Mosa Meat — have the texture of ground meat.

However, companies and scientists around the world are experimenting with new ways to grow animal tissue cells. Aleph Farms, whose researchers helped write the aforementioned study, has successfully grown cell-based steak, albeit in very thin cuts. Memphis Meats’ technology allows it to grow pretty realistic-looking cuts of cultured chicken. Atlast Foods uses mycelium (mushrooms roots) to create edible scaffolds on which to grow muscle cuts like beef. Researchers are also experimenting with materials like spinach, gelatin, and even LEGOs as cultured meat scaffolding material.

We’re still likely several years from tasting cell-based meat ourselves, no matter the texture. Before it can hit the U.S. market, cultured meat has to gain regulatory approval from both the FDA and the USDA — and we don’t know if the timeline might be slowed down by the current global pandemic. Looking on the bright side: maybe that equates to more time for researchers to continue to solve the cultured meat texture problem.

Could Chickpea Milk Be the Next Oat Milk?

Soon enough, your local barista could be asking if you’d like chickpea milk in your latté.

A new food tech startup called ChickP is set to launch a new chickpea-based protein for use in dairy alternatives, specifically milk and yogurt. The isolate was developed by a team of scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who discovered a way to extract up to 90 percent pure protein from a chickpea seed (that is, the bean) — which is much higher protein than can be gleaned from, say, almonds or soy.

Founded in 2016 in Israel, Chickp has raised an estimated $1.2 million according to Crunchbase. The startup is planning to partner with alternative dairy companies to provide them with their high protein isolates for new product R&D. The startup hasn’t revealed where they will launch, but they did indicate they were looking to work with companies with a global reach. 

Based on America’s hunger for alternative dairy, I wouldn’t be surprised if ChickP targets the U.S. market. In the U.S., sales of plant-based milk grew by 6 percent over 2018, while plant-based yogurt sales spiked 39 percent, according to data from the Plant Based Food Association and the Good Food Institute. Consumers’ rising demand for plant-based dairy has caused a flurry of companies to try and milk-ify a wide variety of plants, from macadamia to hemp to current cult favorite, oat.

However, chickpea milk has a few advantages that could help it thrive in the alternative dairy space. Firstly, chickpeas have a neutral flavor without the same bitter aftertaste that comes with, say, pea protein or soy. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, ChickP’s protein also has a smoother texture than other plant-based proteins, which can be chalky or curdle in acidic drinks (looking at you, almond milk). Finally, chickpea protein is free from soy and tree nuts, which are some of the most common food allergens. 

ChickP isn’t the only one leveraging garbanzo beans’ high protein potential. Fellow Israeli startup InnovoPro makes plant-based protein powder from chickpeas which can also be used in alternative dairy products. Here in the U.S., companies Nutriati and ProEarth also making chickpea powder for use in a variety of food and beverage products. However, ChickP’s distinguishing factor is the super-high protein content of its chickpea isolates, which means that dairy alternative companies can more easily develop products with just as much protein as the real thing. 

We haven’t tried out products made with ChickP’s protein, so it’s too early to say if it’ll have the power to break into the already crowded alt-dairy space. However, with the hunger for plant-based dairy on the rise, I expect that ChickP will have no problem finding global food companies willing to develop products using their super protein. 

The question is whether they’ll taste good enough to keep consumers coming back in the same way that others, like oat milk, have. 

Israeli Startup allerguard Raises $1.5M Seed Round to Scan Your Food Vapors for Allergens

Today allerguard, an Israel-based startup that makes a device to detect airborne food allergens, announced that it has raised a $1.5 million seed round (h/t Agfunder). The round was led by Coshare with participation from eHealth Ventures and the Israeli government’s tech investment arm. This brings the company’s total funding to $2.2 million.

Founded in 2016, allerguard makes a small handheld device that uses airborne detection methods to scan your entire plate for food allergens in 60 seconds. The details of how all of this actually works are pretty scant, but according to its website, you hold allerguard above your plate and the device absorbs vapors emitted from the food. It then uses AI to analyze the chemical structure of the vapor molecules to determine the presence of common food allergens, such as peanuts or eggs, down to parts per billion.

Hopefully allerguard is as accurate as it claims, since when it comes to severe food allergies there’s not a lot of room for error. According to Food Allergy Research & Education, in the U.S. roughly 200,000 people require emergency medical attention for a food allergy reaction per year. That number is set to increase as food allergies in children are on the rise.

So it’s no surprise that allerguard isn’t the first company to try and make it easier for consumers to analyze their food for allergy triggers. Nima makes handheld peanut and gluten detectors, and Israeli company SensoGenic makes a sensor that can analyze food for common allergens.

However, both of those devices require users to insert a sample of food in order to detect allergens, so if someone isn’t able to include every part of the meal in that small sample, it wouldn’t be comprehensive. Since allerguard is reliant not on a physical sample of food but on the molecules in vapors emitted over a plate of food, it claims that it can analyze an entire meal at once.

Both Nima and SensoGenic are already to market, whereas allerguard is still in testing stages (according to its website, the device will be available to the public “soon”). But if it can follow through on its promise to scan an entire meal at once that could mark a major game change in food allergy detection tech.

Redefine Meat Serves 3D Printed “Beef” made of Plants to Unknowing Diners

This week, diners at a fancy restaurant in Israel were served an elegantly plated kebab, garnished with an eye-catching swipe of crimson sauce and thin slices of red onion.

What they didn’t know is that the kebab wasn’t actually made of meat. Instead, it was a 3D-printed plant-based creation from Israeli food tech company Redefine Meat (formerly Jet-Eat).

“We are hijacking the dinner,” explained Redefine Meat CEO and founder Eschchar Ben-Shitrit. According to him, this marked the first time in the world that 3D printed plant-based meat was served in a restaurant.

Redefine Meat’s “meat” is made with relatively simple ingredients: three plant protein sources, fat, and water. The secret is in the printing production method. Instead of extrusion or pressing, Redefine Meat uses 3D printing to give their products a more realistic texture and mouthfeel. “We can not only mimic the fibers of the meat, but also the way that fat and water is trapped in the meat matrix,” explained Ben-Shitrit.

Serving the meat at a restaurant — with no preface or explanation — was the ultimate test for Redefine Meat. If diners liked it in and of itself, and not just because it’s plant-based, then it was a win. “We don’t want to [make] a better vegan product,” Ben-Shitrit explained. “We want to attract people who are eating meat.”

They’re not alone. Lots of companies are developing plant-based products targeted not at vegetarians and vegans, but at the growing number of flexitarians. That includes young startups like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods as well as veteran meat alternative companies like Tofurky and Lightlife. Even major food corporations and leaders in packaged meat goods like Nestlé and Tyson Foods are pivoting to develop products aimed at people who eat meat, but are looking to eat less of it.

Redefine Meat plans to launch their first product, likely some sort of 3D printed vegan “beef,” through a French butcher that distributes meat wholesale to European restaurants. They plan to have their product on menus in Europe by 2020.

Down the road, they also plan to sell their meat directly to the consumer. Ben-Shitrit told me that he expected that their meat would retail for around €30 to€35 per kilo (just under $20 per pound). That’s pretty eye-poppingly expensive, at least for the U.S. consumer. However, Ben-Shitrit expects that price to go down as they scale up the technology and get more, higher-producing machines. As of now, the company only has one small machine that makes around two pounds of meat per hour. They’re in the midst of building a bigger “alpha” machine that will make roughly ten times that. While he didn’t disclose details, Ben-Shitrit said that the company has an undisclosed amount of funding from Israeli investors.

We haven’t had the chance to try Redefine Meat’s 3D printed meat ourselves. According to Ben-Shitrit, the aforementioned diners liked the product. When they were told it was actually made of plants, “85 percent of them ranked it as meat-like.” Obviously we have to take this review with a grain of salt, but texture is kind of the final frontier of meat alternatives. Companies have figured out ways to emulate the protein, umami and even bloodiness of meat — but beyond burgers, there’s a lot of work still to be done.

Sure, a few companies are making strides in the meat-free texture department: Vivera sells plant-based steaks; Sophie’s Kitchen and Good Catch make fishless tuna, and several players are making vegan sushi. But there’s still a long way to go. If successful, Redefine Meat’s technology could help develop plant-based meats and fish with a mouthfeel closer to the real thing.

At the end of the day, there won’t be any wide-reaching dietary shifts towards plant-based eating unless those plant-based options taste really good. Which is a fact that Ben-Shitrit is very aware of. “If we have amazing technology and it’s not tasty, then we didn’t do anything,” he told me.

Hopefully Redefine Meat brings their 3D printed “meat” stateside soon so we can see (and taste) for ourselves.

Givaudan Partners with Israeli Food Tech Incubator The Kitchen

Flavor and fragrance company Givaudan just announced a new partnership with The Kitchen, an Israeli food tech incubator.

Founded by the Strauss Group, the largest food & bev manufacturer in Israel, The Kitchen is a hub for emerging startups (many from Israel) looking to reinvent different parts of the food system. The program’s 12 current participants from cell-based meat company Aleph Farms to personalized recipe service MyFavorEats to food safety detector Inspecto.

According to an Givaudan announcement, The Kitchen’s partnership with Switzerland-based Givaudan will enable the latter to “expand its innovation ecosystem further by connecting with Israel-based food entrepreneurs who are contributing to the creation of healthier and sustainable products and solutions.” As details in the announcement were pretty scant, we’re still waiting to find out exactly what that means. We’ve reached out to Givaudan and will update this post if we hear back.

But it’s not too difficult to guess what the flavor and fragrance company will be getting out of the partnership: a direct line into the cutting-edge Israeli food tech ecosystem and a source for potential new company acquisitions. Working with an incubator like The Kitchen is also a great way for Givaudan to refresh their brand image as a company that’s hip with what’s new and not stuck in the past.

In fact, Givaudan has been slowly amassing partnerships with food tech innovation hubs around the world. In addition to The Kitchen, the company also works with Bits x Bites in China and EIT Food in Europe. Last December, Givaudan teamed up with Danone, Mars, and Ingredion to launch MISTA, a platform to help businesses solve problems in the food system, in San Francisco. And earlier this month, the company co-founded the Future Food Initiative, a joint venture with Swiss universities, Nestlé and food production company Bühler to encourage nutrition research in its native Switzerland.

Lately we’ve seen quite a few Big Food companies partnering with/creating their own accelerators to tap into emerging food trends. It seems like Givaudan is really taking the whole invest-in-innovation thing to heart — and I’m betting the company has more incubator partnerships in the pipeline.

Israeli Grad Students Develop Algae-Enriched Falafel to Compete with Meat

Not to be too apocalyptic here, but the world is poised for a global protein shortage. There will be 9.8 billion people on the planet by 2050, and finding a way to feed them all — despite finite land and water resources — will be quite the challenge.

But a group of students in Israel thinks that there’s a natural solution to the impending protein crisis: algae.

Grad students at the Biotechnology and Food Engineering Faculty at Israel’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed a new type of falafel enriched with algae. Called Algalafel (get it?), the fried chickpea balls contain spirulina, a blue-green algae with high protein content.

The students won first prize at the EIT Food Project (European Knowledge and Innovation Community) at Technion. Eventually, the students want to market their new falafel, probably in ready-to-eat frozen form.

According to Time of Isreal, the students decided to make an algae-enriched falafel for environmental reasons. The FAO reports that meat consumption, spurred by increased global demand for protein, is slated to increase steadily over the next few decades, putting increased pressure on the environment and causing more carbon emissions.

But the traditional ingredients in falafel — chickpeas, onions, and flour — are already meat-free. And chickpeas are already a source of protein. In fact, InnovoPro, also based in Israel, recently raised $4.25 million for chickpea-based protein powder. So why go to the trouble of adding algae to the mix?

Firstly, it’s super high in protein. While chickpeas are about 20 percent protein, according to the students behind Algalafel, spirulina is a whopping 60 percent in its dry state. It’s also a complete protein, meaning it contains all eight essential amino acids that your body can’t produce on its own.

Additionally, while chickpeas may be more environmentally friendly than, say, beef or soy, they still require land and water to grow. Spirulina doesn’t require land, it can be harvested year-round, and it grows extremely quickly. It does need water in which to grow, but not much. In fact, it’s so easy to grow that it’s been suggested by NASA as a dietary staple for astronauts.

Up until now algae like spirulina has been relegated to trendy health foods like green juice, but with the rise in demand for plant-based protein it’s poised to enter the mainstream. Recently we’ve seen algae pop up in more and more food applications, from New Wave Foods‘ plant-based shrimp to bread made of seaweed. San Diego-based company Triton makes algae for a wide range of protein-rich food applications, including milk and meat alternatives.

Israel is becoming quite the hotbed of innovation in the meat alternative space. It’s the home of several cell-based meat companies, one of which — Aleph Farms — actually partnered with Technion to help develop its cultured steak.

Down the road, I expect we’ll see algae popping up in more and more food applications, specifically in the meat alternative space. And if we want to have a prayer of feeding the world over the next few decades, we’ll have to get started soon.

Beyond Burger(s): Aleph Farms Wants to Grow Steak Outside the Animal

It’s not even to market yet, and Israeli-based startup Aleph Farms already wants to shake up the cultured meat industry. They’re developing a new way to grow clean meat; one that will (hopefully) give it the same texture, taste, and eating experience as its traditional counterparts. 

Co-founders Didier Toubia (CEO) and Professor Shulamit Levenberg (CSO) started Aleph Farms in 2017. Levenburg had been researching tissue engineering for medical purposes for 15 years, but turned her attention to growing complex-textured meats in 2016. Today Aleph Farms’ scientists work out of a lab in the Weizmann Institute of Science just south of Tel Aviv.

What sets Aleph Farms apart from other cultured meat companies is their focus on two things: structure and texture. They want to go way beyond ground meat, which is what other companies like Memphis Meats and Mosa Meats have been able to make so far — Aleph hopes to produce something that has the same complex texture and mouthfeel as, say, grass-fed steak. They’re also focusing strictly on beef, partially because of its disproportionately high environmental footprint, but also because it’s much more challenging to replicate than chicken or duck.

Of course, all cultured meat companies hope to eventually make a product that replicates the texture and shape of traditional meat. But Aleph Farms is unique on how single-mindedly they approach the problem. Instead of starting with a simpler ground “meat” product and later developing 3D tissue-growing technology, they’re 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. 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.

According to Toubia, Aleph Farms is the only company developing this technology for beef.

Toubia hopes to grow meat much like farmers grow plants.

But they’re is still a ways away from making a steak that would fool anyone. Toubia said that they’re still in the R&D phase, and probably wouldn’t finish developing their first product for a few years. After that, they’ll still have to scale up production and make their “meat” affordable.

With JUST Foods aiming to make the first sale of a cultured meat product by the end of 2018, and Finless Foods and Memphis Meats not far behind (2019 and 2021, respectively), Aleph Farms won’t win the race to bring clean meat to market. But if they can achieve their goal of growing meat outside a cow that’s indistinguishable from “the real thing,” the startup might be able to convert the more hardcore carnivores who won’t be swayed by reasonable meat approximations. Slow(er) and steady might not be such a bad thing.

If cultured meat ever hopes to disrupt — or even replace — the meat industry, it has to mimic meat exactly. Mark Post, who made the first lab-grown burger in 2013 and started the company Mosa Meats, wrote that it has to “recreate conventional meat in all of its physical sensations, such as visual appearance, smell, texture and of course, taste.”

That means that a cultured steak not only has to look and taste like a steak, it also has to have the same texture, the same mouthfeel, and the react the same way as it’s cooked. And, considering that the only lab-grown meat we’ve seen so far has been made of thousands of muscle strands smushed together with added fat, flavor, and coloring, we’ve got a long way to go.

But Aleph Farms has a leg up on the competition in a few ways.

First and foremost, according to Toubia, are their connections. Specifically Professor Levenberg’s extensive experience in tissue engineering, which informs the core of Aleph Farms’ production methods.

They also have friends in quite high places. The startup partnered with Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, and participated in Israeli food-tech incubator The Kitchen, which is owned by food product manufacturing giant Strauss Group. That means that Strauss Group invested in, and has a direct stake (steak?) in Aleph.

Though Strauss Group isn’t particularly active in meat products, this relationship still brings to mind stories like Tyson Foods’ investment in Memphis Meats and Future Meat. 

Aleph Farms is also in a promising area for cultured meat. They’re based in Israel, along with other clean cultured meat companies Supermeat and Future Meat. Toubia guessed that this concentration was probably thanks to a few factors: Israel’s friendliness towards entrepreneurs, their expertise in and open laws about stem cells; and their large vegan community.

Talk of Israel brought our conversation to a question that often comes up when discussing the implications of cultured meat: will lab-grown pork be kosher? According to Toubia, the answer will depend on whether or not clean meat is considered “meat” from a religious perspective. If it is, cultured pork will not be kosher; but if it’s not, it would be. Which could radically change the diet of Jews that keep kosher, or Muslims who keep Halal, or Hindus who abstain from beef, etc.

As with most labeling issues around lab-grown meat, there’s no consensus on this issue yet. But Toubia likes this question because it gives him an opportunity to clarify what the cultured meat he’s working on actually is: “It’s really meat,” he said. “The end product is real meat cells which are not modified, just grown outside the animal.” So while the production method might differ, the end result is the same.

Though we may call what they make lab-grown meat, at least for now, Aleph Farms’ finished product will not be grown in a lab. “The cultured meat that people buy in grocery stores will not be grown in a lab,” said Toubia. Instead, he said it will be grown in a facility similar to a brewery — though he views it more like a farm. “I like to think of those facilities as ‘biofarms,’ places to farm animal tissue,” Toubia said. Which is why they decided to include “farms” in the name of their company. 

Aleph Farms is currently venture backed; they raised a seed round for an undisclosed amount in 2017, and are starting the process for a Series A round this year. Which puts them quite a bit behind other cultured meat companies who have already raised millions of dollars from high-profile investors like Bill Gates, Cargill, and Richard Branson. 

However, if they can nail the texture of a steak, Aleph Farms has a real shot at converting even the most hardcore of carnivores. And that, we’re happy to wait for.