It incorporates muscle and fat similar to its slaughtered counterpart and boasts the same organoleptic attributes of a delicious tender, juicy ribeye steak
Aleph Farms and its research partner at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, have successfully cultivated the world’s first slaughter-free ribeye steak, using three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting technology and natural building blocks of meat – real cow cells, without genetic engineering and immortalisation.
With this proprietary technology developed just two short years after it unveiled the world’s first cultivated thin-cut steak in 2018 which did not utilise 3D bioprinting, the Company now has the ability to produce any type of steak and plans to expand its portfolio of quality meat products.
The cultivated ribeye steak is a thicker cut than the company’s first product – a thin-cut steak. It incorporates muscle and fat similar to its slaughtered counterpart and boasts the same organoleptic attributes of a delicious tender, juicy ribeye steak you’d buy from the butcher.
Unlike 3D printing technology, Aleph Farms’ 3D bioprinting technology is the printing of actual living cells that are then incubated to grow, differentiate, and interact, in order to acquire the texture and qualities of a real steak. A proprietary system, similar to the vascularization that occurs naturally in tissues, enables the perfusion of nutrients across the thicker tissue and grants the steak with the similar shape and structure of its native form as found in livestock before and during cooking.
“This breakthrough reflects an artistic expression of the scientific expertise of our team,” said Didier Toubia, co-founder and CEO, Aleph Farms. “Additional meat designs will drive a larger impact in the mid and long term. This milestone for me marks a major leap in fulfilling our vision of leading a global food system transition toward a more sustainable, equitable and secure world.”
“With the realization of this milestone, we have broken the barriers to introducing new levels of variety into the cultivated meat cuts we can now produce. As we look into the future of 3D bioprinting, the opportunities are endless,” said Technion Professor Shulamit Levenberg, Aleph’s Co-Founder, Chief Scientific Advisor