Aleph Farms Ltd., Israel, partnered with Technion--Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, to develop what is said to be the first cell-grown minute steak.
This new product demonstrates the ability to grow different types of natural beef cells isolated from the cow into a fully 3-dimensional (3D) structure similar to conventional meat. The breakthrough obtains the true texture and structure of beef muscle tissue steak.
Aleph Farms grew the slaughter-free steak without the need for devoting vast tracts of land, water, feed and other resources to raise cattle for meat.
Cell-grown meat is typically grown from a few cells of a living animal, extracted painlessly. These cells are nourished and grow to produce a complex matrix that replicates muscle tissue.
One of the barriers to grown meat production has been getting the various cell types to interact with each other to build a complete tissue structure as it would in the natural environment inside the animal. The challenge is to find the right nutrients and combination that allows the multicellular matrix to grow together efficiently.
“We’re shaping the future of the meat industry—literally,” says Didier Toubia, co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms. “Making a patty or a sausage from cells cultured outside the animal is challenging enough, imagine how difficult it is to create a whole-muscle steak. At Aleph Farms, this is not science fiction. We’ve transformed the vision into reality by growing a steak under controlled conditions. The initial products are still relatively thin, but the technology we developed marks a true breakthrough and a great leap forward in producing a cell-grown steak.”
