{"id":8060,"date":"2024-03-24T10:35:20","date_gmt":"2024-03-24T10:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationisrael.org.il\/en\/?post_type=article&p=8060"},"modified":"2024-04-07T08:07:27","modified_gmt":"2024-04-07T08:07:27","slug":"food-for-thought","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/innovationisrael.org.il\/en\/article\/food-for-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Food for Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dr. Ori Cohavi comes from a background in biological research and pharmaceutical development. Aviv Wolff comes from the worlds of hi-tech and cyber entrepreneurism. So, what do they have in common? A burning desire to make an impact by doing important things that benefit mankind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was exactly the foundation on which Remilk <\/strong>was founded in 2019. Wolff is the company’s co-founder and CEO while Dr. Cohavi is the CTO. “The worlds of food-tech have generated great interest in recent years”, says Dr. Cohavi, “and we began to understand the heavy toll the world of food production we are familiar with as consumers has on the planet’s limited natural resources and, specifically, animal-based food”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out of the wide world of food, the two chose to focus on milk \u2013 a huge global market worth almost 1 trillion dollars, and one of the leading global contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and refuse and largest users of land and water resources. This is a market that has numerous substitutes which sometimes constitute good solutions but which most of the population is yet to adopt due to considerations of flavor, nutrition, habit, and price. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “We saw that the milk market, despite its range of diverse products, had almost no good alternative solutions”, says Dr. Cohavi, “and we thought about how we, as two Israelis without funding, a food-tech background, or backing could overcome this challenge”. The dilemma quickly became a scientific-technical question and, after examining several possible angles and in-depth research, the two decided that their solution was precision fermentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The process developed by Remilk uses micro-organisms in the form of yeast into which the DNA sequence containing the production instructions for the milk protein is inserted. “This is a recognized and safe technology for manufacturing food products, but we use it in a unique way to produce large quantities of milk protein”, says Dr. Cohavi. “For years, humans have assembled the relevant database which we used to ‘download’ the relevant milk protein DNA sequence, copied it, and inserted it into the yeast”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Dr. Cohavi, it is the amazing reality of our lives that enables synthetic biology. “Until recently, we only had the tools that nature provided and the maximum we could achieve was to develop them incrementally, but now we have a set of tools the use of which is limited only by our imagination”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remilk’s solution is intended to enhance the efficiency of the protein production and to meet the needs of the world’s growing population and, with it, the need for nutritious and healthy food without having to rely on animals. “The yeast consumes very little resources and emits very little waste into the environment”, explains Dr. Cohavi. If the DNA sequence is inserted into the yeast, it produces the milk protein just like a cow, without the need to grow the animal for years, with all that entails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The practice is based on bio-convergence \u2013 a combination of biology, computation, and engineering: “We took the bio-informatic data of how to produce the protein, implemented it using molecular biology methods to produce the strain and then produced the protein via precision fermentation in fermentation tanks”, Dr. Cohavi explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remilk employs every means possible in the development process, including extensive use of AI, for example, by creating the optimal conditions for the yeast to be more productive in a constantly improving process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To facilitate the combination of disciplines, the company’s human capital encompasses a diverse range of abilities, from computation and engineering via bio-informatics and biology to food professionals whose role is to develop familiar milk products while using the protein as the base component.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of all the milk’s components, Remilk only produces the protein \u2013 a basic and critical component that contains the necessary nutritional qualities, but which is not itself a milk product. The company therefore employs a talented team of food development professionals who specialize in the development of recipes for a variety of milk products for its partners, the large food corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not a trivial process. Milk is an extremely complex product. Although most of it consists of water, there is also protein and milk fat which Remilk does not produce, as well as lactose and many other components, not all of them desirable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We don’t copy the cow milk with all its components, because people don’t need cholesterol, growth hormones or lactose, which most of the population are sensitive to”, Dr. Cohavi explains. “We focus on the protein as the most basic component providing nutritional value. We build the protein on which the product is built ‘bottom-up’ by starting with the protein, adding sugar and plant-based fat, water, and the lactic bacteria that provide the good flavors. This way, our product is devoid of the components that constitute disadvantages. It is important to point out, however, that because the composition of our protein is identical to an animal-based milk protein, the milk products based on it are not a solution for people who are allergic to the milk protein”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the health advantage, Remilk’s products have numerous ecological and animal welfare advantages. Its method enables a dramatic change in the environmental impact: a significant decline in cows’ greenhouse gas emissions, and in the use of land resources and water because the huge grazing areas are replaced by vertical tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, Remilk’s process uses no animals and therefore avoids issues of animal suffering and disease, as well as the use of hormones and antibiotics etc. “The present method served the world’s population for a long time”, says Dr. Cohavi, “but to feed eight billion people \u2013 or many more very soon \u2013 there is an urgent need for another solution and that’s what we offer”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Replacing the Cows with Yeast<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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