In a 1931 essay, Winston Churchill wrote about how he sees the future of food production: “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium,” he wrote.
Fast forward some 90 years, and Churchill’s prediction is coming true, thanks in part to Israeli food-tech company Aleph Farms, which has developed a unique method to cultivate steak meat from isolated cow cells.
First to develop cultured steak
“We’re the first company that has managed to develop cultured steak. Not ground beef or nuggets — an actual steak,” says Aleph Farms’ Senior Manager of Marketing Communication Yoav Reisler.
The company’s primary vision is not dissimilar to that of Churchill — to advance food security through the ability to produce meat independent of climate change and dwindling natural resources.
The company grows only the edible parts of cows, using stem cells to generate meat. The focus is solely on beef for now, because of the taxing environmental impact of cattle-raising and because beef is considered the highest quality type of meat.
The Rehovot-based startup, established in 2017, now boasts 150 employees, the majority of whom work in R&D.
And it shows. In Aleph Farms’ offices, biologists and biochemists pop from room to room in white coats, giving a sense that you are inside one giant medical lab.
“Aleph Farms was established as an initiative of Strauss Group [one of the largest food manufacturers in Israel] and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, with the cooperation of private investors and the government,” Reisler tells ISRAEL21c.
The initial technology was provided by Prof. Shulamit Levenberg from Technion’s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, who over the past 30 years has developed a method of growing tissue outside the body.
Levenberg’s vision was to grow human body parts in a lab. While that hasn’t happened yet, her technology proved the perfect launchpad for creating lab-grown meat.
Cultured steaks in supermarkets by 2026
Aleph Farms has been generating quite a buzz recently. It became the first to cultivate beef in space in 2019, and even boasts Hollywood star and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio as one of its investors. In addition, celebrity chef and restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson has recently announced it is joining the company as an investor and advisor.
The company is also part of a social-action campaign that works to integrate Israeli Arabs into the country’s high-tech sector.
The actual product is expected to hit the market by the end of this year, starting with select restaurants once Aleph Farms receives regulatory approvals from Israeli Health Ministry and Singapore’s Food Agency.
Why those two countries?
“Israel and Singapore share a lot of challenges related to food security,” says Reisler.
“They don’t have enough resources to feed the local population, so they’re looking at cultivated meat that could be produced anywhere without taking up land and water needed for cattle.”
In the initial stages, Aleph Farms hopes to produce roughly 10 tons of cultured steak per year, and in the future establish additional production facilities. “The goal is to get to supermarkets in the next five years,” Reisler says.
One of the biggest challenges is to produce at a reasonable cost.