Israeli start-up Redefine Meat, innovator of a 3D plant-based meat printing system, has announced the completion of a US$6 million seed round. The investment is led by CPT Capital and also includes Israel-based Hanaco Ventures, Germany’s largest poultry company The PHW Group and Israeli angel investors.Redefine Meat will use this investment to complete the development of its revolutionary alternative meat 3D printer, which will be released next year. The company plans to launch mass production in 2021.

“We don’t share our ingredients list, but I can tell you that Redefine Meat is 100 percent plant-based. It is comprised of natural and safe ingredients that are already consumed by people throughout the world. Our products are free from cholesterol, hormones and food pathogens found in animal meat. The macro-nutrients are comparable to beef, with a similar level of protein and fat content. We use a mix of protein, including pea protein, to achieve great texture and a well-balanced nutritional profile,” Adam Lahav, CBO of Redefine Meat tells FoodIngredientsFirst.

Founded in 2018, Redefine Meat is developing a comprehensive solution that combines its proprietary semi-industrial 3D digital printing platform – “one of the world’s fastest 3D printers,” according to the company  – with a 3D meat modeling system and plant-based food formulations. The solution delivers a new category of complex matrix meat analogs, while also aiming for cost-effectiveness and scalability.

The emergent technology advances the capacity to produce meat analogs that replicate the appearance, texture and flavor of animal meat used for steaks, roasts and stews. The company advocates the use of 3D printing to produce alternative meat products that enable the creation of a “productive and flexible 21st-century supply chain” that is “dramatically more sustainable than current animal factory farming and meat processing.”

“Over the last few months, we have served hundreds of our products to consumers in our lab, in collaboration with chefs, restaurants and butchers,” says Lahav. “Of course, we need to work on scale, but this is not a major challenge as we source raw materials that are already far more affordable than beef.”

The company aims to enable meat distributors and retailers to design the characteristics of their meat to cater for seasonality, changing demands and consumers preferences with “printed meat” that is “100 percent predictable and replicable.” Redefine Meat’s cholesterol-free products have a 95 percent smaller environmental impact than animal meat, according to the start-up.

“However, we see our technology as far more than a single product. The machines that will be rolled out starting in 2020 offer a wide range of capabilities beyond just producing one good product. We give ourselves some time to perfect and improve the technology so that our customers and consumers will enjoy its full potential for the long term,” Lahav explains.

Redefine Meat targets companies that already specialize in meat and plant-based meat products in the sale of its machines and ingredients in cartridges. “We believe this will allow us to grow quickly while focusing on constantly improving our technology and products and launching more and more capabilities for our platform,” adds Lahav.

“Our goal is not just to develop a new food product, but to introduce a new technology for developing, producing and scaling alt-meat products. We have already successfully printed great products for multiple foodie events, and over the coming 12 months, we will take the technology to the next level,” adds Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, Co-Founder and CEO at Redefine Meat. 

The future is printed food
The 3D printing process comprises a computer-aided mechanism that produces a three-dimensional object from design model by successively adding material layer by layer. This year, the nascent innovation made significant strides through new investment from the food sector.

In July, 3D printed Cadbury’s Dairy Milk debuted at a pop-up shop opened in Melbourne, Australia. Mondelēz, the multinational owners of Cadbury, as well as other chocolate brands Milka and C?te d’Or, have been developing 3D printed treats with Dutch contract research organization TNO over the last four years. TNO researched printing with various Mondelēz chocolate materials, developed prototype 3D printers, assisted with chocolate design challenges and assisted Mondelēz in bringing the concept to commercial application.

Set to debut in premium Singaporean restaurants in 2020, lab-grown crustacean meat by start-up Shiok Meats utilizes 3D printing to add texture to synthesized shrimp meat. This year, the company closed its seed round funding at US$4.6 million and began talks for its Series A. “We are currently producing the shrimp meat as a paste/minced form, so the texture is as you would expect for a paste. We are working on providing texture for a 3D ‘c-shaped’ shrimp via 3D-printed scaffolds and hydrogels,” Dr. Ka Yi Ling, CSO of Shiok Meats, tells FoodIngredientsFirst in an exclusive interview.

In April, UK food and drink research company Campden BRI began a research project to assess and evaluate how 3D-printing applications could benefit the industry. Ingredient scientist, Gael Delamare, who leads the team, says: “There have been major steps forward in 3D-printing in recent years and it has made a huge difference to many industries. However, applying technology to the food sector isn’t straightforward. There are many factors to consider, such as shelf life, microbial contamination, printing temperature, texture, rheology and ultimately whether different foods can even be used for printing. All these issues need to be taken care of to meet consumer expectations and to do so safely. "