An Israeli foodtech startup that produces lab-grown chicken breast has managed to reduce the production cost of its offering to $7.50 per one quarter pound, beating market expectations.

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Future Meat Technologies, based in Rehovot, announced this week that it has also raised another $26.75 in funding, allowing it to scale up production and accelerate research and development.

The company is backed by the leading forces in the food and agriculture industries including Tyson Foods, ADM, Müller Group and Rich's Products Corporation, alongside leading venture capital investors such as S2G Ventures, ADM Capital, Emerald Technology Ventures, Manta Ray Ventures and Bits x Bites.

Future Meat Technologies advertises it cultured chicken as providing the same texture and distinct aroma of farm-raised chicken meat. The company plans to market its chicken products to consumers and restaurants within 18 months, and is also developing cultured lamb kebabs and beef burgers.

"Cultured meat technology is the Apollo program of the 21st century," said Prof. Yaakov Nahmias, founder and chief scientific officer of Future Meat Technologies.

"It required massive efforts of biologists, chemists, engineers and food experts to reduce the cost of cultured meat by over 1,000-fold in just a few years. We are proud to be within reach of cost parity with traditional agriculture without any need to resort to genetic engineering, ensuring the supply of safe, delicious food for coming generations," Nahmias explained.

According to "Cost-efficient production has been a critical focus area for the cultured meat industry. This development is a major step forward in Future Meat Technologies' ability to provide affordable, scalable and sustainable products that can meet the growing demand for meat," said Rom Kshuk, CEO of Future Meat Technologies.

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A food truck serving up a variety of alternative meat dishes to unsuspecting carnivores managed to fool hundreds of Israelis into thinking they were eating the real thing.

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With a goal of attracting 200 tasters over a span of two days, alternative meat company Redefine Meat joined forces with meat distributor Best Meister in setting up a blind taste test in the guise of a food truck in the central moshav of Kidron.

The experiment proved to be a success when over 600 people visited the truck, ordering over 1,000 meals. A whopping 90% of customers said the alternative meat on offer was comparable to the real deal in both taste and texture.

All of the revenue from the food truck's sales went toward local restaurants impacted by government restrictions imposed to rein in the coronavirus pandemic.

Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, who heads Redefine Meat, said, "We believe Alt-Meat should taste as good as animal meat – simple as that. Redefine Meat has achieved that with every product it has put to the test, transitioning the Alt-Meat conversation from health and sustainability and the view that 'this is really close' to 'wow this meat is super delicious.'

"The incredible results of the food truck exemplify this. We initially only expected 100 visitors a day, as the event was held in a small village due to COVID-19 restrictions. But through word of mouth, we ended up receiving over 600 customers in one day – with queues as long as 50 minutes. What this has shown is that meat lovers can enjoy our alternative meat because it tastes and feels like meat – not solely because it is better for the environment or animals," Ben-Shitrit added.

Following the success of the blind taste test, the alternative meat company formed a strategic partnership with Best Meister, which will distribute Redefine Meat's products in the first half of 2021.

Best Meister CEO Ori Zaguri, said, "We've been excited by Redefine Meat's unique alternative meat offering for a while, but the food truck event cemented it for us. Not only was consumer feedback overwhelmingly positive, but Redefine Meat's technology will also provide us the scale to create a wide-variety of quality meat cuts for our customers on-demand from one single source. We believe the mass meat-eater market is ready for alternative meat of this quality, and we are excited to be the first to deliver it to them."

Founded in 2018, Redefine Meat uses proprietary industrial 3D printers to replicate the texture, flavor, and eating experience of beef and other meat products using plant-based ingredients.

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Slaughter-free meat food tech startup Aleph Farms has announced a new program, Aleph Zero, which will make it possible to produce fresh meat grown from non-GMO cells at any location, making the supply of meat independent of climate change and available natural resources.

Aleph Farms is partnering with technology companies and space agencies on long-term collaborative R&D contracts that will help integrate its cell biology, tissue engineering, and food science innovations  into existing space programs through BioFarms in extraterrestrial environments. The company plans to apply the knowledge acquired from space sites to production facilities on Earth. 

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Aleph Farms co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia explained that "'Aleph Zero' represents the mathematical symbol of the smallest infinite number, and how Alph Farms brings space infinity closer by supporting deep-space exploration and colonization of new planets. The term also represents the company's vision for producing meat with near-zero natural resources." 

The Rehovot-based startup first experimented with producing  meat on the International Space Station a year ago, in collaboration with 3D Bioprinting Solutions. These trials resulted in new abilities to cultivate meat directly from various types of cow cells in microgravity environments. 

"The constraints imposed by deep-space-exploration − the cold, thin environment and the circular approach − force us to tighten the efficiency of our meat production process to much higher sustainability standards," Toubia noted. 

"The program 'Aleph Zero' reflects our mission of producing quality, delicious meat locally where people live and consume it, even in the most remote places on Earth like the Sahara Desert or Antarctica. Providing unconditional access to high-quality nutrition to anyone, anytime, anywhere," adds Toubia. "When people will live on the Moon or Mars, Aleph Farms will be there as well."

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Bennett said in a statement that Israel would allow the agricultural exports after the Palestinian Authority began accepting Israeli beef. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials.

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The trade crisis erupted in September when the Palestinians decided to stop importing beef from Israel. The PA claimed most of the 120,000 head of cattle they imported monthly from Israel was itself imported and that they, therefore, preferred to import directly from abroad. The move appeared aimed at reducing the Palestinians' economic dependence on Israel.

Shortly after the September announcement, Israeli cattle ranchers saw a drop in their market and pressured Israeli authorities to take action. Bennett retaliated with a ban on Palestinian beef and other products, triggering the Palestinians to expand their boycott, and stop importing Israeli vegetables, fruits, beverages and mineral water.

The Palestinians said their actions are aimed at pressuring Israel into revoking its ban, while Israel said normal trade would be restored the moment the Palestinians reverse the cattle ban that sparked the crisis.

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While lab-grown hamburgers and chicken are already in development around the world, Israel's Aleph Farms claims to be the first company to have developed steak in a laboratory and is in talks with some high-end restaurants in the United States, Europe, and Asia to have it on the market in 2021.

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It plans initially to offer minute steak developed from a small number of cells taken from a cow, avoiding the need to slaughter the animal in the process or use antibiotics which can be harmful to meat-eaters.

Aleph Farms hopes to have its product on a limited number of restaurant menus from 2021 in a trial phase, aiming for an official launch in 2023, first in restaurants and then in stores.

Its next product will be a thick steak with "the properties that we like and we all know," said Neta Lavon, vice president for research and development.

A serving of its minute steak – a thin slice of meat that cooks very fast – currently costs around $50 but Aleph Farms says it hopes to bring that down by 2021 to only a slight premium to current prices of steak offered in restaurants.

Eventually, it aims for mass production, bringing the price down further and making its steaks viable for sale in lower-priced steak houses.

Didier Toubia, co-founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, said the company has ambitions to be one of the world's top three meat producers within 20 years, challenging market leaders like Tyson Foods, which has invested in another Israeli startup developing cultured meat, Future Meat Technologies.

Toubia, however, did not give a revenue target for its product.

He set up the company in 2017 in partnership with Technion-the Israel Institute of Technology and food maker Strauss Group's incubator The Kitchen. In May, it raised $12 million from investors including Cargill, and it has now raised $14 million to date.

Demand for traditional meat substitutes is growing and analysts estimate the US plant-based meat market, for example, could be worth $100 billion by 2035.

The number of startups producing laboratory-developed meat has risen from four at the end of 2016 to more than two dozen by last year, according to market researcher the Good Food Institute.

Dutch startup Mosa Meat projects the cost of producing a hamburger will be about 9 euros ($10) once production scales up.

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