It's got a population of under nine million, but in the food innovation stakes, Israel punches way above its weight. FoodNavigator-USA headed to Tel Aviv for the Food Tech IL annual innovation event organized by The Strauss Group’s The Kitchen FoodTech Hub last month to meet with firms at the cutting edge of food and ag tech. Best viewed on a laptop!
Attracting 1,700 attendees from Israel, Asia, Europe and the Americas, Food Tech IL (Nov 7) combined an educational program and a startup expo featuring 75+ Israel startups. We didn’t manage to meet all of them, but here are a few companies that caught our attention…
Led by award-winning film director, researcher and culinary entrepreneur B.Z. Goldberg, Mediterranean Food Lab deploys art and science through a traditional solid state fermentation technology combined with an AI-driven computational platform to create clean label savory ingredients that give depth, body, and meaty flavors to everything from bean-based dishes to meat-analogs.
MFL first uses microbes to eat away at a substrate such as grains or legumes or waste streams from the milling, baking, cooking oil or vegetable processing industries, and then uses the enzymes that are produced to serve as biocatalysts in a second fermentation stage, creating ingredients that would be listed as, for example, ‘fermented barley’ or ‘fermented chickpea’ rather than as ‘natural flavors.’
“Analysts debate the size of the meat-alternatives market, but if you look at what I call alternatives to meat [which doesn’t necessarily mean meat analogs, he points out], that’s an immense opportunity,” said Goldberg, who noted that solid state fermentation has been around for hundreds of years, but said MFL turns it from a black box to something more controlled.
“It's basically a way to transform large tasteless molecules into something incredibly flavorsome, turning carbohydrates into sugars, and proteins into amino acids and so on. So, basically, in the beginning, it was what I'd call 'directed and educated trial and error,' as we had good ideas about what kind of microorganisms and substrates we wanted to use.
"But as we got more and more information, we began to learn which processes might give us the molecules we wanted and what substrates we needed to use that have the precursors for those molecules."
After a while, with more and more data points, MFL has deployed machine learning to understand what to put in, in order to get something very specific out of the end of the fermentation process, understanding, for example, “the relationships between the genomics of a particular microbial strain and what you can do with a particular substrate to create a targeted flavor,” he said.
Ultimately, the potential of the platform is pretty broad, he said, but the initial focus will be on two markets: meat alternatives [eg. beef, chicken analogs etc], and alternatives to meat [which may or may not involve analogs], which are not necessarily the same thing, he argued.
And in both cases, MFL is not simply looking to precisely mimic the flavor of meat, he stressed.
“People don’t necessarily want the exact flavor of meat, they want the experience, something satisfying and rich and complex. They want long-lasting pleasure and satisfaction that can last for hours, whereas the current flavor solutions on the market have a 30 or 60-second contract with the end consumer.”
He added: “We’re in the process of signing joint development agreements with a number of different companies and we’re scaling up and finding production partners."
CreamCol creates shelf-stable high alcohol content creams with a wide range of textures and flavor spectrums, and is offering food manufacturers access to the technology via licensing opportunities, said technical director Jonathan Henen.
“There are two patents behind it and a third on the way. Basically, we take water, alcohol and protein - which could be whey or soy - and mix it together in a certain way to create a shelf-stable emulsion that can be used in everything from desserts to icing to ice cream, chocolate spreads, [solid] chasers and even butter.”
But why can’t firms just add straight alcohol to these products?
“You can take whipped cream, add alcohol to it, and make a great dessert if you plan to eat it immediately," said Henen.
"But if you wait even a few minutes, you’re going to get phase separation at room temperature, so in the food industry, in the dessert industry, that’s not going to work. The shelf life of this product has been tested at the Institute of food microbiology here in Israel in incubators at 30 degrees centigrade for six months and nothing happens. I tried to infect it with listeria, salmonella, E coli and it’s stable.”
He added: “We can go from 7-8% alcohol to 20% and above… We have full control of product texture, viscosity, stability, uniformity and flavor with no use of thickeners and minimal to zero use of stabilizers.”
Yemoja has built a patented controlled indoor growing system for producing high-value ingredients from wild strains of algae in photobioreactors (using LEDs as a light source) in Upper Galiliee. Owing to its modular design (the hermetically sealed columns are not connected), it is also ‘contamination-proof,’ claimed co-founder and CTO Dr Anikam Bar-gil.
“If one of [the contents of] these 728 columns get spoiled, which happens in biology, you just throw it away. You can’t do that if you’re growing algae outdoors in a huge pond. Yes, the sun is free, but it also creates a lot of heat, whereas we have the ability to completely control the environment and the temperature, pH and CO2 level.”
In general, he explained, the microalgae are exposed to extreme stress conditions such as high temperature, salinity changes, high osmotic pressure, UV radiation damages and other environmental stress conditions that prompt the algae to produce substances that could be used in everything from plant-based burgers to skincare products.
Yemoja's first product for the food industry is a whole-food bright red ingredient called Ounje from the red microalgae Porphyridium, which turns brown when it cooks, has a ‘blood-like’ texture and viscosity, an umami taste when heated, with 20-25% protein (in dry product form), 13-15% essential fatty acids, 30% fiber and a long shelf life that retains its stability and nutritional value through a variety of processes including hydration, cooking, freezing, and marination, claimed Bar-gil.
“Ounje has high concentrations of iron and vitamin B12. So microalgae doesn’t synthesize B12, it’s a strain of bacteria that can do that, and we treat the bacteria and the algae in a synergistic system so the bacteria synthesizes vitamin B12 and the algae synthesizes the protein.”
Edete Precision Technologies for Agriculture addresses dwindling bee populations and climate change-induced desynchronizing bloom of male and female trees by deploying high-efficiency artificial pollination as a service for insect-pollinated crops such as almonds and wind-pollinated crops such as pistachios.
The firm mechanically harvests flowers, separates the pollen from other flower parts, stores it for one to several years using a proprietary method, and then disperses it on trees using a controllable dozer enabling the precise dispersal of single grams or parts of grams of pollen per tree.
For pistachios, which rely on overlap between male and female flowering, with insufficient chilling, male and female trees will not bloom together, which results in deficient pollination and a reduction in yields, said Edete.
"Collecting pollen the previous year and preserving it for application the next overcomes the desynchronization between male and female flowering."
Following successful trials in Israel, Australia, and the US, Edete started commercializing its technology with pistachios in Bakersfield, California, this year.
Wonder Veggies is developing a platform technology and seed coating designed for growing vegetables and fruits containing probiotics – live microorganisms that confer a health benefit, said co-founder Danny Weiss. “Our technology is basically about allowing probiotics to penetrate the seed and grow inside vegetables or fruits, which also contain fibers, so you have a powerful synbiotic effect.”
Zero Egg - a startup hoping to crack the US market with the launch of plant-based egg alternatives for foodservice operators and CPG manufacturers – has developed a patent-pending blend of plant proteins (soy, potato, pea, chickpea) it claims blows rivals out of the water in terms of taste, versatility and affordability.
The first Zero Egg branded b2b products – which are co-manufactured in the US – are initially targeting the foodservice market, said CEO Liron Nimrodi, although the firm has also struck co-branding deals with plant-based meat CPG brands such as Alpha Foods and plans a move into retail in due course.
“We have a liquid product that’s really versatile and works in everything from scrambles to baked goods and desserts; and we have ready-to-eat frozen patties and scrambles that are perfect for QSRs to make burritos and breakfast sandwiches. We have amazing versatility and a very clean taste.
“We have 51 colleges and universities that work with us including Harvard, and we’re also closing a licensing agreement with Japan, so we are going to start selling in Japan next year with our strategic partner,” said Nimrodi, who said demand for plant-based eggs was not just about tapping into the plant-based trend, but about avoiding allergens and food safety issues such as salmonella, and ensuring consistency of price and supply, given that conventional egg prices are notoriously volatile thanks to regular bouts of avian flu and other disruptions.
While plant-based meat is not setting the world on fire in some parts of the US retail market right now, she acknowledged, “the plant-based egg category is really fast growing,” and although investors are “more cautious” today, “they see the potential is there, that the market is growing.”
Mush Foods - launched by former Unilever executive Shalom Daniel – grows mushroom mycelia in a ‘semi-solid’ fermentation process that it plans to sell business to business.
“The whole idea is to get to the big meat players first," said Daniel. "Our product is specifically made and produced in order to mix together with animal meat so you get some environmental and health benefit at scale.”
He added: “What's the benefit in eating [pure-play] plant-based meat alternatives today? Are they tastier than meat? No. Are they cheaper than meat? No. Are they even healthier than meat? Not necessarily. We're trying to bring a consumer benefit to meat products [to create hybrid products containing conventional meat and mycelia] so you get your fiber and nutrients and cut cholesterol, saturated fat anyway, and calories.”
On the regulatory front, Mush is going through the GRAS process, but says things are relatively straightforward as it is only using “edible mushroom strains,” said Daniel, who said his approach was similar to that of US company MyForest Foods.
“They use woodchips, but for our substrate, we're using upcycled food waste from industry corn, soy, coffee."
As for scale up, he said, “We're about to close our seed round in order to build a bigger facility in the United States, probably in the northeast.”
Asked whether he was interested in producing fungi-based whole cuts like Meati Foods, he said: “It’s a very good product but I think it’s a very small market.”
Eggmented Reality is a precision fermentation company identifying proteins that can deliver specific functionality such as gelation or binding, and then producing them in host microorganisms, said CEO and co-founder Jonathan Rathauser.
“Food manufacturers have challenges in delivering the functionality that they're used to without animal proteins, whether that's gelling, binding, foaming or stretching, and we’re using bioinformatics to search for functionality, so we'll take the genetic code from anywhere insert it into our host microorganisms, and produce a protein with that functionality.
“Our first product is an egg and methylcellulose functional alternative. We were established in February of this year, and since then, we've already demonstrated improved functionality including irreversible gelation."
He added: “We're speaking with bakers who need a better gelling and foaming ability and we're speaking with meatball makers, the gold standard of gelation and binding, but everyone wants to get rid of methylcellulose.
“Fermentation is an expensive technology, so our strategy is not to compete one to one on commodities. We are pursuing superior functionality so we can use less of an ingredient to achieve functional parity, enabling premium positioning or cost competitiveness.”
Ask about labeling and regulatory issues and whether the firm is looking at new to the world proteins, he said: “Our current strategy is to focus only on naturally occurring proteins that are known to the food system, at least for our first few products.”
So how will the first product - the methylcellulose replacer – be labeled?
“The protein itself would be listed although we’re not talking about what it is [yet]," he said. "But it’s a vegan, non genetically modified ingredient.”
Steakholder Foods (formerly MeaTech) has facilities in Israel and Belgium and recently held its first US tasting event at San Francisco’s Gallery 308. The firm – which works with a variety of cell lines (bovine, porcine, avian etc) is initially planning to launch with hybrid processed meat products combining animal cell biomass and textured plant proteins.
However, it is also developing 3D bioprinting technology whereby it prints its mesenchymal stem cells with an edible bio-ink and then incubates them so that they further differentiate and mature into structured ‘whole cut’ steaks over a two-week period that can be personalized for fat percentage, size and thickness. Image credit: Steakholder Foods