Israeli startup Future Meat Technologies has opened the world’s first industrial meat growing company in Rehovot, “Israel Khayyom” newspaper reports.
The plant plans to produce 500 kilograms of artificial meat a day, which will be enough to cook 5,000 burgers.
The plant can now produce cultured chicken, pork, and lamb without the use of animal serum or genetic modification, and will soon begin producing more beef. Future Meat Technologies provides fast production, about 20 times faster than traditional livestock.
The goal of the startup is to make cultivated meat accessible to everyone, and it must be tasty and healthy. This is what future generations want to provide with this type of product.
The future artificial meat production process is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% and require 96% less freshwater than traditional meat production.
Future Meat Technologies wants to supply its products to the United States in 2022. Now the startup is waiting for approval of its production by regulators in several countries. In addition, Future Meat Technologies is considering several production facilities in the States.
Is it healthier than usual and will it help to feed everyone? Why artificial meat is becoming increasingly popular and whether it will replace the “classic”
“Meat from a test tube” is grown in the laboratory in the form of cell culture, which has never been part of a living, full-fledged animal organism. “Test tube meat” should not be confused with imitation meat, which is a vegetarian product made from vegetable protein, often soy or wheat.
The forecast of the American think tank RethinkX shows that by 2035 the meat industry in the US will go bankrupt, and beef will be almost completely replaced by artificial meat, demand for cattle will decrease by 70%, and milk and meat production will fall by more than at 50%.
Talks with U.S. regulators
An Israeli startup wants to replace chicken coops, barns, and slaughterhouses with bioreactors to churn out cell-based meat for American diners, Bloomberg reports.
Future Meat Technologies Ltd. is in talks with U.S. regulators to start offering its products in restaurants by the end of next year. The company has just opened what it calls the world’s first industrial cellular meat facility, which will be able to produce 500 kilograms (1,102 pounds) a day.
“From the get-go, our main focus was around scaling up and reducing cost in order to have a commercially viable product,” Chief Executive Officer Rom Kshuk said in an interview.
The cultured meat industry, which produces proteins like beef and chicken by growing cells instead of slaughtering animals, now spans more than 75 companies. As pilot plants take the technology out of the lab, Eat Just Inc. became the first company to sell cell-grown chicken in a restaurant in Singapore.
Since the first prototypes, startups have cut costs by 99% and if consumers take to these products, the market could reach $25 billion by 2030, McKinsey & Co. said in a report last week. But to compete with conventional meat, costs need to be slashed even further.
Future Meat Technologies, which has raised $43 million from investors including Tyson Foods Inc., Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., and S2G Ventures LLC, claims the lowest price for cultured chicken breast. It’s managed to cut the cost to $4 per 100 grams, a fraction of the original price, and plans to cut it by half again by the end of 2022, Kshuk said.
The company’s facility, located in the Israeli city of Rehovot, can produce cultured chicken, pork, and lamb, with the production of beef coming soon.
Still, it’s small compared with some conventional farm factories, some of which slaughter thousands of animals per day. The Good Food Institute said cultured meat production will need to reach millions of tons a year to progress from the demonstration to the industrial stage.
Future Meat will be able to “scale-out” production lines and replicate the facility elsewhere, Kshuk said. It plans to target the U.S. market – which has some of the biggest meat consumption rates in the world – before expanding to Europe and China. The company has yet to decide what type of meat to start offering first.
Singapore’s Float Foods in Oversubscribed Seed Round for its Whole Egg Alternative
In global agribusiness news, Singapore-based startup Float Foods has received funding from the Singapore-based Temasek Foundation to produce vegetable eggs OnlyEg. The amount of the investment round was not disclosed. The Temasek Foundation is Temasek’s non-profit philanthropic arm.
Float Foods has announced funding of SGD $2.2 million (approx USD $1.66 million) in an oversubscribed seed funding round. The capital raise will boost R&D and accelerate the commercialization of its flagship product.
OnlyEg, a vegetable analog of an egg, is made from legumes. The product contains the same amount of proteins and vitamins as a chicken egg, the developer claims. According to the website Agfundernews, Float Foods was founded in June last year. It took her less than a year to create a product detached from the competition.
OnlyEg is like fried eggs, where the “white” is separated from the “yolk”, describes the portal. In most analogs, the “egg” mass is not divided into these two fractions. They are obtained from them, for example, as an omelet or scrambled eggs.
The new invention can be prepared in the same way as its original counterpart – scrambled eggs from regular eggs. They are similar in taste and texture, says Float Foods.
The company received funding from Temasek through an innovation grant scheme. The grant will be aimed at commercializing OnlyEg, improving formulation, increasing nutritional value, and reaching mass sales. The purpose of these grants is to support ideas and innovations that improve the quality of life, especially in cities.
Float Foods rivals include the plant-based Just Egg, which is produced by US company Eat Just. She, like Float Foods, operates in Singapore, and recently received permission to sell her other product – artificial “meat” there. Read more in the agribusiness news.
Float Foods insists that the new “egg” OnlyEg also meets Singapore’s rules to ensure food safety by 30% locally produced by 2030 versus 10% now. For this, the country’s regulators are ready to stimulate the production of alternative types of food.
The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) lists eggs as an important food category for the local population, along with fish and herbs. Support for their production is included in the country’s grant program for $ 22.3 million, launched in April this year. Float Foods hopes that the company’s products will eventually appear not only on the shelves of Singapore, but also in other countries.
Float Foods expects to begin commercial sales of OnlyEg in Singapore in early 2021. The startup is now seeking additional seed funding to scale the OnlyEg release.
In recent years, manufacturers of analogs of vegetable “meat”, “milk” and other alternative products have been actively developing, attracting not only new buyers but also investors.
Singapore-based startup Float Foods has developed a plant-based analog of chicken eggs. For research, he attracted $ 1.6 million in investments.
The herbal counterpart contains the same amount of protein and vitamins as a regular chicken egg. The legume-based product is called OnlyEg and has both white and yolk. Thanks to this, eggs of plant origin can be cooked in the same way as natural ones – soft-boiled or in the form of fried eggs.
One of the startup’s goals is to reduce the environmental damage caused by agriculture. According to the company, when producing 10 chicken eggs, 2.7 kg of carbon dioxide is emitted, and about 200 liters of water must be spent to produce one egg.
The product is expected to be available to Singaporean consumers in 2022.
Looking to commercialize OnlyEg in a proprietary line of plant-based whole egg technologies, the company is developing the product to have the versatility to be compatible with all diets and cuisines. The closest market alternatives are currently liquid blend egg substitutes limited in preparation to scrambled eggs and omelets. The legume-based OnlyEg claims to achieve a comparable degree of likeness to a real chicken egg and will be commercialized as two separate components – egg yolk and egg white.
Singapore is fast becoming famous for being an alt protein hub for investment and development. Float Foods itself recently launched NEW FOOD Startup 2020, the first joint cross-border food incubator with Indonesia. OnlyEg is currently in R&D to improve its nutritional profile and longer shelf life, and on track for commercial release in Singapore by 2022.
“The response to our first funding round has been phenomenal and highly encouraging. We’re proud that what we’ve built in the last year—amidst a global pandemic—can allow us the position to choose the right investors that not only believe in Float Foods’ vision of innovating and advancing a sustainable, plant-based food ecosystem in Singapore and beyond for everyone but also pave a clearer way forward as we work towards delivering our promise of a fully functional, versatile plant-based whole egg substitute aligned with Singapore’s 30 x 30 goals,” shared Vinita Choolani, CEO of Float Foods.
