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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

MeaTech 3D

Steakholder Files Patent For Printing Flaky Fish

Steakholder Foods announced today it has filed a provisional patent with the US Patent Office for a new process to create cell-cultured fish with layers of tissue to achieve “the characteristic tender flakiness of cooked fish.”

The company, formerly known as MeatTech 3D, says the new approach will be created using its 3D printing technology and is expected to enable the production of a wide variety of fish, seafood, and cuts.

“The filing of this provisional patent application is another significant step forward in our ability to 3D print a wide variety of species,” Arik Kaufman, CEO of Steakholder Foods, said in the release. “We are passionate and committed to using our technological versatility to make both the terrestrial and marine animal protein industries more sustainable.”

The move into seafood is strategically a good move considering how sky-high fish prices have risen compared to other forms of protein. Po Bronson, head of IndieBio, said as much on the latest episode of The Spon podcast.

“The seafood companies look to be in a much better position because you’re competing with what is a very expensive product,” Bronson said. “Wild caught seafood is very expensive in market prices, so your competitive index is a more matchable price.”

The company partnered with Umami Foods in August, a Singapore-based cultured seafood startup. That announcement and today’s comes amidst a flurry of deals (and patent filings) for the company, which became one of the first cultured meat companies to go public on a US exchange. Unfortunately, the company’s stock hasn’t fared well over the past year, dropping from around $11 in initial trading to under $2 today.

While it’s unclear when and at what price we’ll see Steakholder’s fish product reach the market, if they can figure out how to create a viable cellag fish product, their stock price will no doubt benefit long-term.

MeaTech Achieves Cultured Meat Milestone by Developing Muscle Fibers from Stem Cells

MeaTech3D, an Israel-based cultured meat startup, announced this week that it had demonstrated progress in the differentiation process from stem cells to muscle fibers.

According to the announcement, MeaTech has achieved the formation of living muscle fibers to a point where they “mirror key characteristics of farm-raised meat.” To achieve the results, MeaTech isolated bovine stem cells, which were then proliferated in the lab. From there, they were able to differentiate these cells into matured muscle cells with improved muscle fiber density, thickness, and length.

This news from MeaTech is just the latest from the startup as they assemble a toolbox of technologies to replicate whole cut animal meat using cell-cultured processes. In September of last year, they announced they had developed a new stem cell manipulation technology that uses plant inputs to transform embryonic mesenchymal stem cells (or eMSCs) into fat cells. That process could be used to replicate intramuscular fat, the fat structures that ribbon through a sophisticated cut of meat such as a ribeye steak. Before that, the company filed for a patent for its technology that 3D prints cell-cultured meat products.

MeaTech isn’t the only group working on developing technology to create muscle fibers via cellular agriculture. Last year, a group of researchers at the University of Tokyo in Japan were able to replicate muscle fibers via cell culture process. The Japanese group achieved a level of elasticity, as the strands contracted in the same way muscle fibers contract.

MeaTech 3D Files Provisional Patent Application For Cell-Cultured Fat Process

MeaTech 3D announced last week that it has filed a provisional patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to cover its new stem cell manipulation technology. The Israel-based company’s proprietary process uses plant inputs to transform embryonic mesenchymal stem cells (or eMSCs) into fat cells.

The patent-pending process can be used to produce intramuscular fat: the fat structures that ribbon through a sophisticated cut of meat such as a ribeye steak. The company envisions the technology working hand-in-hand with its meat bioprinting process, which involves extruding bio-inks made from muscle and fat cells to create complex structures.

This isn’t the first patent application that MeaTech has filed in the U.S. In June, they applied for a patent to secure their bioprinting process. This push to accumulate intellectual property should help the company to protect its investments in research and development as international cell-cultured meat producers prepare to compete for consumers’ affections. (The company spent $2.5 million on R&D in 2020, up from $0.2 million the year before.)

This latest patent application marks a milestone in MeaTech’s push to reduce its dependence on animal-derived materials. The most common method for turning eMSCs into fat cells involves the use of animal hormones insulin, dexamethasone, and isobutylmethylxanthine.

Yet despite this advancement, the company’s production process isn’t free of animal inputs. The eMSCs that the company relies on are generally derived from bone marrow or fat, and are most commonly grown in a substrate of fetal bovine serum.

Meanwhile, other food tech startups are vying to find alternative fat solutions that will further scale down animal intensivity. We recently reported on Nordic startup Melt&Marble’s ambitions in this arena: The company uses a fermentation process to produce fatty acids, and can customize its recipe to create fats that complement different plant-based proteins. Motif Foodworks is pursuing a different approach, tweaking plant oils to taste and feel more like animal fat.

Excell, a spinoff of Ecovative Designs, is working on another solution to the industry’s animal fat problem. The startup is currently working with cell-cultured companies to test its mycelium (or mushroom root system) materials as alternative growing scaffolds for their meat products.

Despite MeaTech’s eagerness to secure its fat production process against competitors, it’s hard to predict whether the stem-cell reliant technique will remain relevant for long in the rapidly advancing industry. As cell-cultured meat startups like MeaTech seek out ways to scale up production while cutting costs and reducing environmental impacts, it may ultimately make more sense to go hybrid, turning to plant-based fat sources.

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 Says It Will Develop Cultured Pork Products

Israel-based alt-protein company MeaTech 3D has begun research and development activities around cultivated pork, the company announced today. 

Initial activities will focus largely on developing porcine cell lines, which the company says could expand its number of potential addressable markets since pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world. The porcine cell lines will add to MeaTech’s existing cell ag efforts, including cell lines for beef and chicken.

In May of this year, the company announced plans for a pilot production facility that will first be used to increase the production of its cultured fat product and then go on to produce entire cuts of cultivated meat using the company’s 3D bioprinting technology. 

Cell lines are a crucial step in the process of making cultivated meat, since cells are the starting inputs for any eventual product. However, creating new cell lines is an expensive and time-consuming process, and researchers are still figuring out which types of cells are best suited for the kind of large-scale manufacturing most cultured meat companies are aspiring to eventually do.

Most of those companies so far have stuck to developing cultured beef or chicken products, not pork. Despite the latter being the world’s most most popular meat, a very small handful of companies is actually focused on that particular protein right now. Future Meat Technologies, also based in Israel, says its newly opened production facility is producing cultured pork. Dutch startup Meatable, New Age Meats, and Higher Steaks have also done pork prototypes during the last few years. 

MeaTech’s specific focus on cell line development will further set it apart from the masses as more companies announce plans to explore cultured pork products in the future.

MeaTech 3D Files a Patent for Printing More Cultivated Meat

Bioprinting startup MeaTech 3D has filed a patent with the United States Patent Office (USPTO) it says could significantly improve the manufacturing process for its cultivated meat.

The Ness Ziona, Israel-based company has since 2018 been developing a method for cultivated meat that relies on 3D bioprinting. Cells are extracted from the animal (without harming it) and transferred to bioreactors, where they multiply before getting differentiated into different cell types, such as fat and muscle. That process is, with some variation, akin to just about any company developing cultivated meat right now.

Where MeaTech’s method starts to differ is when the bio-inks come into play. The bio-inks are formed from the cell types mentioned above, like muscle and fat, and scaffolding material, which provides structural support cells can adhere to as they grow and mature. Once the inks are loaded into a 3D bioprinter, they are printed to, in MeaTech’s own description, “assemble cells as they would be found in a conventional cut of muscle.” The printed product is incubated to form tissue and eventually become a full cut of meat that goes to the consumer. 

Needless to say, nobody’s buying full cuts of steak from MeaTech on store shelves at the moment. The company has so far only printed a carpaccio-like layer of meat, which is considerably thinner than a ribeye-sized cut of meat. It will likely be years before the latter emerges as an actual product, though MeaTech has recently announced a pilot production facility that will help in this process.

The company’s main competitor in this area is Aleph Farms, also based in Israel. Earlier this year, Aleph said it had developed a 3D-printed ribeye cultivated steak. Elsewhere, however, many cultivated meat companies continue to focus on unstructured meat like grounds, nuggets, and patties.

MeaTech says the patent filed for this week will give the company more control during the printing process, increase printing speeds, and allow for a greater variety of inks. The end goal, of course, is to improve the manufacturing process overall in order to get the company closer to making whole cuts of meat.