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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

SavorEat

Sodexo to Deploy SavorEat’s Plant-Based Burger Printing Robot at the University of Denver

This week, food service giant Sodexo and plant-based 3D printing specialist SavorEat announced they will be rolling out SavorEat’s 3D printing robot at the University of Denver. The deployment of the SavorEat Robot Chef marks the first deployment of the Israel-based company’s 3D printing technology in the U.S.

SavorEat, which went public on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 2021, has been building its plant-based 3D printing technology for half a decade. The printer, which both prints and cooks plant-based burgers, was first rolled out in Israel last fall through a partnership with catering company Yarzin-Sella. The printer enables customers to customize their burger, choosing the size of the burger, doneness, protein level, and cooking style.

SavorEat, which initially pushed its product’s plant-based 3D printing angle, started focusing on promoting its burger printer as a robotic chef over the last year-plus with the launch of its second-generation platform. The company has published several blog posts hailing the benefits of automation in restaurants and says it plans to help restaurants reduce costs through back-of-house automation.

The partnership with Sodexo was inked back in 2021, and at the time, the two companies indicated they would deploy the plant-based meat printer in 2022. From the announcement:

Sodexo will examine the robot chef system and the first product developed by SavorEat, a plant-based protein burger, within higher education institutions across the U.S. In parallel, both parties are working on reaching an agreement for the distribution of SavorEat products.

In 2020, SavorEat CEO Racheli Vizman told The Spoon that their plans extend beyond food service and that the company would someday build a home-based 3D meat printer.

“That’s our goal,” said Vizman. “Where we can also have, next to a microwave, we can have machines that you know can create a variety of products.”

While you may need to wait a while for the home version of SavorEat’s Robot Chef, in the meantime, you can try out a SavorEat printed burger at the University of Denver’s Rebecca Chopp Grand Central Market in Community Commons starting this week.

SavorEat’s 3D Printing Robot Coming to Colleges Courtesy of Sodexo

Foodservice giant Sodexo North America and Israeli food tech company SavorEat announced today that they have partnered on a program that will test out a new type of robotic plant-based cooking appliance to colleges and universities next year.

SavorEat makes a 3D printing robot that simultaneously extrudes and cooks plant-based proteins. The company’s appliance can produce a range of products including plant-based burgers, and in the near future kebabs, steaks and more. Additionally, the settings can be tweaked to create more customized plant-based meat such as a burger with higher fat content. The SavorEat can make three dishes at once, every five minutes.

According to the press announcement sent to The Spoon:

Sodexo will examine the robot chef system and the first product developed by SavorEat, a plant-based protein burger, within higher education institutions across the U.S. In parallel, both parties are working on reaching an agreement for the distribution of SavorEat products.

For its part, Sodexo has certainly become a forward-thinking, tech-friendly company. In this year alone, Sodexo has expanded its partnership with Kiwibot to bring delivery robots to more college campuses, and it has partnered with controlled environment agriculture (CEA) grower Vertical Harvest to source local greens for colleges and hospitals.

That Sodexo is piloting a high-tech program to delivery plant-based meats should come as no surprise then. Sales of plant-based meat grew 45 percent over 2020 and the category is now worth $1.4 billion. Adding this partnership with SavorEat allows Sodexo to reach more vegetarians and flexitarians on college campuses.

This is the second big pilot program for SavorEat, which will be conducting a test of its robot at the BBB hamburger chain in Israel.

3D Meat Printing Startup SavorEat Goes Public, Raises $13M via IPO

SavorEat, the Israeli startup developing a 3D printing platform for plant-based meat alternatives, has had an initial public offering (IPO) on Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), raising NIS 42.6 million ($13 million) in funding.

The company is the second 3D meat-printing startup to go public this year, but will be the first company focused on plant-based meat analogs to trade on Israel’s stock exchange. The first meat printing startup, MeaTech (trading as Meat-Tech 3D Ltd), is developing technology for printing cultured steak.

The IPO comes on the heels of $5.5 million in venture funding raised earlier this year, including a $3 million funding round raised this summer. According to the company, they plan on using the IPO funds to continue developing its technology, which is unique in that it both prints and cooks the meat simultaneously.

From The Spoon’s earlier post on SavorEat:

SavorEat’s technology prints and cooks simultaneously, which allows the company’s printers to make a fully cooked piece of 3D printed meat like you might see produced by a futuristic appliance like that in the TV show Upload.

The food comes out “ready to be eaten,” said Racheli Vizman, company CEO. “We’re printing one layer, then we cook one layer, print one layer, cook one layer. So at the end, you get something that’s ready to be consumed.”

I caught up with Vizman via email to ask her about why she decided to take SavorEat public. You can see her answers below:

Why did you decide to go IPO vs. raise venture funding for more financing? 

Vizman: Going IPO has some additional advantages, such as the recognition of the potential we have as a company in the local ecosystem as well as the potential of the foodtech market, this brings a lot of new growing and business opportunities locally and globally, access to capital in the future and the money we raised will help us to continue to develop our technology, product and market penetration.

How big a deal is it to be publicly traded in Israel? In the US, it takes quite a bit of work in advance to prepare for an IPO for NASDAQ or the NYSE. 

Vizman: Since I have experience in preparing for an IPO in Nasdaq (in Beyond Air), the requirement are more or less similar while the timeframe in TASE is shorter. Putting this aside, it is a very big deal on its own as there have been just a very few IPOs in TASE in the past year, being one of this few showcases the importance of the company’s activity for the local market. 

What do you plan to do with the money? 

Vizman: To boost the development activities, adding additional pilots testing and support commercialization. We are also in the stage in which we are looking for global partnerships (with a focus on the US market) and we hope this recognition of TASE will boost that as well.

Is being public similar to the US where you have to report financial results every quarter? 

Vizman: Yes it is more or less similar but for medium size companies we need to report every 6 months

3D Meat Printing Startup SavorEat Lands $3 Million in Funding

Israel-based SavorEat, a company which has developed a proprietary technology that simultaneously print and cooks plant-based meat substitutes, has landed a $3 million funding round. The funding round was led by investors Mor and Meitav Dash.

The funding round, which was first reported by Israel-based news publication Globes, is the second for SavorEats in the last two weeks. Prior to this investment, the company had raised $1.75 million from Millennium Food-Tech.

The investment comes as interest in 3D printed meat alternatives heats up, especially in Israel. Other startups competing in this nascent market include Redefine Meat (formerly Jet Eat) and Meatech, a company which prints cultured meat cells into steak.

SavorEat’s technology is unique in a couple of ways. The first differentiator is that is uses a plant-based cellulose as a binder. The cellulose is combined with other ingredients such as plant-based fats and protein to make the final product.

Another thing that sets SavorEat apart is that it prints fully cooked pieces of meat.

From my piece on SavorEat earlier this month:

The other big differentiator for SavorEat’s technology is that it prints and cooks simultaneously, which allows the company’s printers to make a fully cooked piece of 3D printed meat like you might see produced by a futuristic appliance like that in the TV show Upload.

The food comes out “ready to be eaten,” said Vizman. “We’re printing one layer, then we cook one layer, print one layer, cook one layer. So at the end, you get something that’s ready to be consumed.”

According to SavorEat CEO Racheli Vizman, the company has signed a partnership with one of the largest fast-food chains in Israel, BBB Group (Burgus Burger Bar), and they plan on testing the product out in the restaurant chain in the next twelve months. From there, the company hopes to use the recent funding round to commercialize and expand using the their recent funding.

SavorEat Plans to Build an Appliance For The Home That Prints & Cooks Meat

“That’s our goal,” said Vizman when I caught up with her via a zoom call. “Where we can also have, next to a microwave, we can have machines that you know can create variety of products.”

But to get there, first her company is working on building a product that can print and cook food instantly for a large quick service food chains, starting with one of the biggest in Israel, BBB (Burgus Burger Bar).

“We are about to start this testing it in their facility within a year, while we believe that we will be commercialize it in a larger scale two years from closing the financial round that we are now running.”

That financial round Vizman is looking to close is a $3.5 million seed round led by a company called Next Food, an Israel based food tech investment fund. Next Food led SavorEat’s pre-seed round of $1.75 million.

3D printed meat has gained momentum over the past couple years, especially, it seems, in Israel. SavorEat joins two other venture funded Israel based 3D meat printing startups in Redefine Meat (formerly Jet Eat) and Meatech, a company which prints cultured meat cells into steak.

Two things set SavorEat’s technology apart from those and other 3D meat printing startups. The first is the company’s binder, which is a proprietary plant-based cellulose. The cellulose is combined with other ingredients such as plant-based fats and protein to make the final product.

“We’re using the cellulose to bind a variety of fats and proteins and other tastes and flavors and combine a very stable emulsion,” said Vizman.

The other big differentiator for SavorEat’s technology is that it prints and cooks simultaneously, which allows the company’s printers to make a fully cooked piece of 3D printed meat like you might see produced by a futuristic appliance like that in the TV show Upload.

The food comes out “ready to be eaten,” said Vizman. “We’re printing one layer, then we cook one layer, print one layer, cook one layer. So at the end, you get something that’s ready to be consumed.”

This print and cook technology, according to Vizman, will give the cook a high degree of precision of over the final print.

“The nice thing about that is that you can also control the way you cook it. You can decide whether you want it medium, you want in rare, well done. How you want to cook it in the you want to grill it from the inside and rare from the outside.”

The company’s technology was invented by Oded Shoseyov, a serial inventor and entrepreneur who spends much of his time spinning out new ideas from his research lab at Hebrew University. Shoseyov is SavorEat’s chief science officer. Shoseyov and Vizman are joined by other executives from companies like Stratasys (3D printing) and IFF/Frutarom (flavors).

The full interview with Vizman, where we go in depth on the company and its technology, can be read below if you are a Spoon Plus subscriber. Find more information here about subscribing to Spoon Plus.