3D print steak

3D-printed steak, anyone? I taste test this ‘gamechanging’ meat mimic | Food

Across four major cities – London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Tel Aviv – a new meat was born, containing precisely no animal. The London champion of the company, Redefine Meat, is the celebrity chef Marco Pierre White. At Mr White’s in Leicester Square, chefs, investors and barbecue and burger connoisseurs – as well as former winners of MasterChef – gathered to taste it.

The tone of the event was set by the offering of a pipette of “blood” – “Doesn’t it taste like blood, though?” asked an excited waiter. Well, yes. But memo from the world of carnivore: blood is more something we put up with than something we actively want to drink.

“I’ve had vegans complaining that this is too much like meat,” said Redefine Meat’s chief executive and founder, Eshchar Ben-Shitrit. “Personally, I don’t eat meat. I think it’s wrong to kill animals and eat them. But in order to get the flexitarian, it’s better to disregard the opinion of the vegan. ”

Plant-based meat alternatives are nothing new, and the recent boom in demand from part-time vegetarians, or flexitarians, has fed a surge in innovation, from seitan to pea protein products. Yet this is an unarguable technological breakthrough. While a mince texture has been achievable for some time, plant-based whole cuts – which is to say, a cut that has the mouthfeel and the appearance of a steak, or a lamb chop – have long been considered beyond man’s wit.

Dishes prepared with Redefine Meat’s plant-based products. Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters

Redefine Meat is cagey about which protein it uses (investors say it is soy; it also uses pea protein, along with ingredients your grandmother would recognise, beetroot, chickpeas, coconut fat), but is delighted by its method: the “meat” is 3D printed, and the mimicry is extraordinary.

The molecules of difference that create the flavour of beef, as distinct from that of lamb, are few but extremely powerful. This is certainly the closest synthetic approximation yet. Ben Bartlett, a chef and barbecue expert, said: “I judge on taste, texture and appearance – I’ve had so many bland and dull plant products. Then suddenly this came along and I was marking them 9s and 10s.”

The starter was “pork sausage” in a thick, umami-ish, Moroccan-tinged sauce of aubergine and yoghurt. It was not quite indistinguishable from the real thing, having a trace of sweetness that hinted at its true nature, but it was unmistakably the “gamechanger” that everyone describes.

But not until the beef dish was the technical achievement really shown off. It resembled a stifado, a slow-cooked Greek stew heaped with baby onions, and the form was judiciously chosen; how much it would look like a steak if it had been flash fried, I don’t know. Yet the resemblance to meat, in the grain, the way it pulls apart, the mouthfeel, is absolutely uncanny. “Many of the traditional meat alternatives are fine,” said Jane Devonshire, the 2016 MasterChef winner, “but you wouldn’t get them past my husband. ” This beef, Mr Devonshire would approve.

Redefine Meat’s 3D-printing process. Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters

White is not quite the unabashed carnivore his early image put across, and spent nine months as a vegan a decade ago. “I went from 20 stone to 15, I became fascinated by the weight loss. Then I started to look at cheeseboards and just hear a voice in my head saying: ‘Eat me.’” Nevertheless, he is associated with a certain mode of eating – fine cuts of noble provenance, a world away from processed or synthetic food. But he appears genuinely to have been won over by Redefine Meat. “I think it’s the cleverest thing I’ve seen in my 45 years in the industry,” he says.

Tom Cenci, the head chef at Stoney Street restaurant in east London, is slightly sceptical about flexitarianism, particularly when it’s done for environmental reasons. “Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. If you’re eating asparagus on Christmas Day, or you’re not treating the animal you’ve slaughtered with respect, and eating the whole of it, that’s just as bad for the environment as eating meat,” he says. Yet he notes the importance of this innovation; the vegetarian offering of 10 years ago – a risotto at the bottom of the menu as an afterthought – isn’t cutting it any more.

The genius climaxes with a lamb dish, devised to be very like loin, dressed with peas. You would, no question, be able to tell what animal this was meant to be. It is as different to the “beef” as actual lamb is to actual beef, but still has that trademark, sweet back note. Would you choose it in lieu of lamb, when these 3D cuts are slated to cost about the same? It would take some flexitarian commitment to get you over the line.

Would you eat this 3D printed plant-based steak?

As the race quickens to provide diners with the best meat alternatives, one start-up is producing so-called 'whole cuts' of plant-based meat using 3D printers.

Israeli firm Redefine Meat say they better replicate the texture, flavour and smell of steaks and lamb.

A five-course lunch at London's Chotto Matte was organised for a large-scale tasting, where 50 chefs, restaurant owners and food critics were invited.

Most were positively surprised by the quality of the product, titled 'New Meat'.

A sustainable approach to meat consumption

More people are interested in reducing their meat consumption or adopting vegan dietAP

Jordan Sclare, Global Executive Chef at Chotto Matte which hosted the event, says New Meat is fairly close to the "real thing."

After all, it is composed of real muscle and fat cells, taken from animal cells and woven together.

 "When you're slicing it, there's a hell of a lot of similarities. When you're cooking it on the barbecue, you can tell that it is a bit different because it cooks very fast and it sears quite quickly. Whereas different cuts of raw meat have different cuts, you know you have the fillet or the shin or the shoulder that slow cooks.

"So it looks kind of like a slow-cooked 'beef'. But then when you sear, it becomes like pink and seared, like how a 'beef' fillet would."

Redefine Meat hope to convince heavy meat-eaters and meat lovers to reduce their consumption.

 "We're offering an easy switch and ability to continue eating meat without compromising on health, sustainability or taste. We are trying to convince more and more people to eat less meat," says Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, CEO of Redefine Meat.

How is 'New Meat' made?

The complex 3D printing process gives the plant-based product it's meat-like textureAP

Technically, the R&D team of Redefine Meat first worked to study real cuts of meats — they even developed AI to observe the texture of meat to replicate it.

That's how they're able to match the look of a piece of 'beef' for example.

And to complete the trick, all senses have to be fooled.

 "This is the blood and the perfume that actually are carriers of flavours and scents that go inside their final product," says Alexey Tomsov, food engineer for the R&D department of the company.

The exact list of ingredients is closely guarded. The company says that New Meat is made by "using a range of proprietary and patented technologies" and "plant-based ingredients," including chick peas.

 "So actually, we have natural colours that are extracts from fruits and vegetables that give it that really typical colour that we expect to get from an animal product. And actually, we also have here flavours and additional elements that give it that really unique flavour that we get from animal-like flavour carrier," he says.

As for the blood, Tomsov is not allowed to say much more.

Regarding texture, Redefine Meat is using production facilities with 3D printers.

A new one will open in the coming months in the Netherlands, where 5,000 tonnes of New Meat will be produced per year.

 "We call it actually additive manufacturing, where you build the product layer by layer. That enables us to control the fibre structure to trap fat and moisture within the fibres and to create a food product that is man-made, the one that you're eating today, which is the closest thing to the biological meat that we're used to eat. And when you see it, it looks like meat, when you put it in your mouth, it feels like meat and your brain associates it with meat," says Ben-Shitrit.

Changing attitudes towards plant-based alternatives

Chotto Matte will continue to build menu items around New MeatAP

Chotto Matte, the restaurant where the tasting happened, already offers New Meat on its menu.

For the last two months, it trialled the new product along with 32 other restaurants spread across the UK, the Netherlands and Israel.

 Chef Sclare designed the menu around the plant-based New Meat.

He notably used the 'beef' New Meat in a spicy teriyaki, and cooked the 'lamb' New Meat with coriander and Peruvian chilli miso.

Redefine Meat intends to expand to more restaurants in Europe in 2022, and hopes to make its products available in supermarkets.

Watch the video above to see if you could tell the difference between New Meat and a regular steak.

How does a 3D printer steak taste? - such a question is no longer from the category of fantasy. Israeli startup Redefine Meat has learned how to 3D print steaks that look like real meat.

In mid-February, the startup completed another round of funding to start shipping its printers around the world. According to the plan, the expansion was supposed to begin last year, but the pandemic prevented it: the startup intends to promote the product first through restaurants. nine0003

Many companies produce artificial meat from soy and pea protein, coconut fat, sunflower oil, natural colors and flavors. But even if they taste like real minced meat, they lack the main thing: the texture and look of the steak. Redefine Meat founder Eshkhar Ben-Shitrit figured out what to do with it. His printer prints three types of voxels, or millimetric three-dimensional pixels. Some copy muscle, others fat, others blood. Each stake consists of an example of 3 million voxels. By changing the recipe and collecting them in different sequences and proportions, you can reproduce tenderloin, ribeye, picanha and other types of steaks. And most importantly - they copy not only the taste, but also the type of meat, and even sensations. “A steak is basically muscle, fat and blood in a complex structure that affects how it feels in the mouth and how it is cooked. The taste depends on how the marbled veins of fat melt when you cook,” Ben-Shitrit told Israel21c online. nine0003

How Ben-Shitrit met cows

Ben-Shitrit grew up on a kibbutz where his mother ran a dairy farm. He loved meat since childhood. And at the age of 13, he learned how to cook the perfect steak when he went to work part-time at his uncle's restaurant in Tel Aviv in the summer.

He graduated with a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, worked for a year and a half as a clerk of the Israeli Supreme Court, and in 2011 changed careers to become a product manager for Hewlett-Packard. Responsible for printing on cardboard boxes. His next job was at the Israeli company Highcon, specializing in cardboard packaging. In 2015–2017 he was its vice president of marketing. nine0003

So, Ben Shitrit loved meat. But when his first child was born, he was surprised to find that he could no longer eat beef. There were memories of his childhood on a dairy farm, where he saw firsthand how cows take care of their calves. Ben-Shitrit tried many meat substitutes, but none of them looked like a real steak. Then he had the idea to print meat on a printer to copy its texture. He quit and in February 2018 founded Jet-Eat, which was later renamed Redefine Meat. nine0003

“The company was engaged in R&D for almost two years before [in the fall of 2019] we first raised serious investments and recruited a team - in nine months the staff grew from 6 to 25 people,” Ben-Shitrit told Business Insider and last July . Now, judging by the information on the startup's website, it employs 36 people.

The startup developed its products in collaboration with scientists from the Israeli Institute of Technology Technion, using its laboratories for experiments. In September 2019The company received $6 million in seed funding from CPT Capital, a venture fund that also includes stakes in other artificial meat producers, Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. In February of this year, Redefine Meat raised $29 million in a Series A round in which new investors joined CPT Capital - Losa Group, Sake Bosch, K3 Ventures.

1/5 cow per day

Redefine Meat already has something to boast about. Last June, the company officially unveiled the world's first plant-based 3D printed steak, then began testing its product in high-end restaurants in Israel, and Ben-Shitrit became a hero in the Israeli media with the phrase "We print steaks on a 3D printer ". nine0003

True, the fastest printer at his disposal prints about 6 kg of meat per hour. With three cartridges to recharge (artificial meat, fat and blood) and maintain the machine, on good days it produces about 90 kg of meat per day. Beef cows can weigh about half a ton, but meat can account for 60–70% of the total weight.

No meat in meat, no milk in chocolate

Not only meat becomes vegan. In mid-February, Nestle announced that it would launch the first vegan milk chocolate, called KitKat V. The product will roll out to several countries, including the UK, and if successful, will expand to other markets. It took about two years to develop the bar. The main problem was that soy and almond substitutes do not mix well with cocoa and sugar, and as a result, the desired creamy structure is not obtained. KitKat V replaced milk with rice mix. This is not the first product to replace animal ingredients. Last year, Nestle launched meat-free sausage, veggie ground meat, dairy-free ice cream, and animal food with insect protein and bean and millet meat protein substitutes. nine0003

The startup is currently completing the construction of the first production line, which will assemble a new printer model designed for 10 kg of meat per hour. “It’s not yet an industrial machine, we call it semi-industrial,” Ben-Shitrit told Business Insider.

Machines will be installed directly at customers' premises to enable them to sell fresh meat. The technology that Redefine Meat is developing could disrupt the global food supply chain, Ben-Shitrit shared his thoughts with The Times of Israel online edition. 3D printers that produce meat near the points of sale make it unnecessary to buy meat in other countries, he said. nine0003

Redefine Meat was supposed to hit restaurants late last year, but the coronavirus got in the way. During the pandemic, Redefine Meat signed contracts with several organizations interested in introducing artificial meat into the assortment. For example, in January of this year, Redefine Meat announced a strategic agreement with Israeli meat distributor Best Meister. The partner will supply not only to restaurants in Israel, but also to butcher shops. The agreement was signed after a blind tasting of alternative meats in Tel Aviv (both companies claim that it was the largest in the world - it was attended by about 600 people), which showed that 90% of meat eaters like fake meat. The company wants to conduct the same test with chefs in other countries and is preparing to enter markets in Europe, Asia and North America later this year. “This is a step towards becoming the world's largest alternative meat company by 2030,” Ben-Shitrit told The Times of Israel.

What the startup hopes for

Ben-Shitrit is going to sell his meat at the price of the real one. He believes that now is the best time to bring the product to market - many large meat companies are investing in meat alternatives for vegans, flexitarists, etc.

According to Euromonitor, global sales of meat substitutes reached $19.5 billion in 2018. In 2019, investment bank UBS predicted that the plant-based meat market would reach $85 billion by 2030. And Barclays named meat substitutes as the fastest growing segment of the food industry and estimated their market by 2030 at $ 140 billion. A large contribution to its popularity is the demand from people concerned about healthy eating, animal cruelty and climate change. Ben-Shitrit says that his equipment can in the future create analogues with the structure of chicken, pork, lamb and tuna. But he started with beef for two reasons. “Beef has the biggest business potential, it's the $500 billion industry, and it's the most environmentally damaging,” he told Food Ingredients First online. “In the beef category, there is a wide variety of products for which alternative meat is not used, mainly minced meat and sausages.” He says that the 20,000 liters of water and 25 kg of feed needed to produce 1 kg of meat is a terrible inefficiency and waste. In addition, the meat produced by his startup contains almost no cholesterol and boasts a high fiber content. nine0003

Media news2

Do you want to hide ads? Subscribe and read without distraction

Meat for printing: how startups prepare steaks in a 3D printer :: RBC Pro

Pro Project partner*

TV channel

Pro

Investments

Events nine0003

RBC+

New economy

Trends

Real estate

Sport

Style

National projects

Town

Crypto nine0003

Debating club

Research

Credit ratings

Franchises

Newspaper

Special projects St. Petersburg

Conferences St. Petersburg

Special projects

Checking counterparties nine0003

RBC Library

Podcasts

ESG index

Policy

Economy

Business

Technology and media

Finance

RBC CompanyRBC Life

nine0002 Material section Main

Management · Global business trends

Articles Bloomberg

The global market for meat substitutes has already reached $14 billion. But so far, such products are more expensive than real pork or beef, and their texture is far from the original. Startups from Israel and Spain promise to solve both problems with a 3D printer0003

Photo: Baptiste Virot for Bloomberg Businessweek

The walls of the Redefine Meat laboratory in Rehovot, Israel are decorated with stucco moldings in the shape of different types of steaks, among which, of course, there are tibon and ribeye. There are books about meat on the shelves, and refrigerators are literally bursting with packages of minced meat and tenderloin, or something very similar to minced meat and tenderloin.

Technicians and researchers here are downright obsessed with their work. And no, the main goal of a startup is not at all to sell customers the perfect beef tenderloin. The company wants to create high-quality plant analogues. Redefine Meat is currently working on a 3D printer that, according to the creators, will be able to print steaks so juicy and full of flavor that even the most demanding meat eaters will not be able to distinguish them from real ones.