{"id":3999,"date":"2023-06-27T12:58:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T12:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationisrael.org.il\/en\/?post_type=report&p=3341"},"modified":"2023-08-15T10:27:40","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T10:27:40","slug":"not-a-cow-in-sight","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/innovationisrael.org.il\/en\/article\/not-a-cow-in-sight\/","title":{"rendered":"Not a Cow in Sight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Some figures that are important to know: <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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The global beef industry produces between 14%-20% of greenhouse gas emissions \u2013 more than the entire automotive industry. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Almost 70% of the world’s farming areas are used for growing animal food.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Only one-ninth of a chicken’s weight is used for edible protein. This figure is even lower for a cow. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
12,500 liters of water are needed to produce 1 kg. of meat.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
10 calories of vegetation are needed to produce 1 calorie of chicken meat. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
The Hub that Identified the Trend<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
In 2011, the Strauss Group established ‘The Kitchen Hub<\/strong>‘ in conjunction with the Israel Innovation Authority. The hub aims at promoting companies developing innovative food-related technologies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hub was established as part of a strategic process undertaken by Strauss that identified trends occurring in the food industry. An analysis of these trends led to the understanding that technology would occupy a central role in the food market’s development. Among the insights gained was that the food industry is also responsible for creating solutions for the environmental ramifications of its activity, both out of a responsibility towards the planet and because consumers are becoming more sophisticated and critical. The upshot of this consumer awareness is that businesses that fail to produce products that are healthier and more sustainable will see its customers leave in favor of those that do. And, if technology can provide the solution, who better to do so than the ‘Startup Nation’?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jonathan Berger<\/strong>, Director of ‘The Kitchen Hub’, says: “We understood the need to incorporate technology in the food industry and we were among the first in Israel to enter the food-tech field. We quickly realized that entrepreneurs often have good ideas, but they lack the funding and real-world experience of commercial-scale manufacturing necessary to implement them”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The figures speak for themselves: The hub opened under the auspices of the Innovation Authority in 2015 and in December 2021 ended its seventh year of operation with proposals submitted from a total of 970 companies, 22 companies that grew in the hub, 250 jobs that it created, six factories established by hub companies, and over 220 million dollars raised for its companies. Part of this was invested by Strauss and part by other investors, both foreign and local. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The Innovation Authority’s support allowed us entry into high-risk investments and to set up companies that would have been unable to receive initial stage funding from other investors”, Berger explains. “After we took on the risk and grew the companies, other investors also stepped in”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The state’s willingness to actively invest solves a significant market failure of investors who don’t like investing in the early stages of a company. Thanks to the hub, we can successfully establish whole companies from very preliminary stages and have become “Company Creators”. 9 of the 22 are companies that we’ve established from scratch. In other words, we identified the technology, brought in the best professionals, and established a company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Thanks to the Authority’s funding and the ecosystem that has been created here, Israeli global reputation in the food-tech sector is second only to that of Silicon Valley. By the way, the funding sums raised in this sector in Israel are the highest in the world. The Authority’s contribution is, in my opinion, not just to the ecosystem \u2013 by creating jobs and factories, and as a solution to the market failure \u2013 but also, in the creation of the State of Israel’s competitive advantage over other countries”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the areas in which Israeli innovation has come to the forefront is the field of alternative proteins \u2013 proteins that are intended for human consumption but are not based on the consumption of meat or milk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Humankind is paying a high price for cellular agriculture, where cells are used to create protein. Alternative protein can be divided into three types:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Plant Protein<\/strong> \u2013 soybean which has existed for at least 30 years, peas, chickpeas, or other plant proteins from which protein substitutes are prepared. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
Precision Fermentation<\/strong> \u2013 a process whereby an organism is programmed to produce a protein.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
Cultivated Meat<\/strong> \u2013 where cell tissue is taken from a cow’s umbilical cord, grown in the lab, and used to produce clean meat that doesn’t involve harming or killing an animal. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Cell Sampling Becomes Tons of Meat<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
“Today’s beef industry begins with herds of cattle that need expansive grazing areas and large barns”, explains Didier Toubia<\/strong>, co-founder, and CEO of Aleph Farms<\/strong>, that was founded by ‘The Kitchen Hub’, on the basis of the technology developed by Prof. Shulamit Levenberg <\/strong>from the Technion. Creating new gazing areas is considered one of the leading reasons for deforestation in tropical regions. Herds of cattle that are fed without grazing pastures need huge quantities of soybean and corn which in themselves require large areas to grow. The cows also emit a quantity of methane gas that influences the trends of global warming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crowded conditions in which the animals are kept create an ideal environment for the spread of infectious diseases which means that large quantities of antibiotics must be added to their food. Various hormones are also injected into the cows to further enhance the quantity and texture of the meat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately, an animal is a machine that converts plant energy into animal energy \u2013 and does so in an extremely inefficient manner. According to Toubia, in the future, industrialized production factories will be replaced by cultivated meat production facilities that will be capable of supplying the same product with a fraction of the resources and energy needed to produce conventional meat. According to Aleph Farms’ worldview, cultivated meat will complement the sustainable farming methods for growing animals for meat, and not replace them. This process has great significance not just for the Israeli meat consumer (85% of the meat he\/she consumes comes from overseas), but also, for the global beef industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cultivated meat has clear ecological advantages. As mentioned above, raising cattle for meat is the most pollutive food, whereas growing cultivated meat will save much of this pollution and will significantly decrease water and land consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet another advantage is that only the edible tissues are grown in a cultivated meat production facility, thereby obviating the need to grow an entire cow, most of which is ultimately disposed of. Furthermore, the production enables to recycle some of the ingredients, thus reducing waste and lowering costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aleph Farms, currently operating at the Rehovot Science Park, is one of the leading companies in the field of growing cultivated meat. Its technology is based on research conducted in the lab of Prof. Levenberg who studies tissue engineering for medicine. Tissue consists of several types of cells and needs some kind of exoskeleton made from extracellular material to grow in 3D form. Levenberg and her students found a way to produce such an extracellular matrix from edible plant protein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n