In Israel, Pharma-Food Tech Collab Looks to Corner Cultured Meat Market

A unique new partnership between two Israeli companies aims to beef up the alternative protein industry as soon as next year.

This week, Israeli biotechnology firm Pluristem Therapeutics and Israel’s largest food producer Tnuva Group announced an innovative collaboration to develop, manufacture, and commercialize cultured cell-based meat products for the food industry. The new venture will be funded by $7.5 million from Tnuva with the option to invest an additional $7.5 million over a 12-month period following the closing, according to a press release.

The newly formed company will receive exclusive rights to Pluristem’s proprietary cell production technology while Tnuva—which was founded 96 years ago—will have priority in marketing the products in Israel, the announcement said. The company plans to present a technology proof of concept in 2022, and launch its first raw cultured meat product in 2023.

“Just as Tnuva made the field of alternative proteins accessible to every Israeli home, we intend to make cultured food products available to all,” said Eyal Malis, CEO of the Tnuva Group, in an official statement. “The collaboration between two pioneers in their fields, each of which with proven experience and tremendous abilities, can create a better future for the food industry.”

Pluristem CEO and President Yaky Yanay said the company spent the past year bolstering its technology through other strategic partnerships.

“We believe that Tnuva’s and Pluristem’s vast experience will support fast and effective development of large-scale cultured meat products, relying on our existing infrastructures and talented teams,” he said. “This collaboration is the first showcase of Pluristem’s intention to expand its business to verticals that need superior cell expansion proprietary technologies.”

The execution of such a project will rely on Pluristem’s “industry-leading capacity to design, develop, and manufacture cells for commercial use,” according to the release. The Haifa-based pharma company has also developed a proprietary 3D platform that can, in a cost-effective manner, produce high-quality cells that are consistent batch after batch.

“We chose to collaborate with Pluristem because we believe it owns one of the most advanced cell production technologies in the world,” said Haim Gavrieli, Chairman of Tnuva Group. “We expect the collaboration between the companies to revolutionize the cultured food industry and develop the next generation of alternative proteins.”

According to analysts from Barclays, the market for alternative meat is growing rapidly and is estimated to become a $140 billion market by 2030. This economic opportunity, however, hasn’t curbed debate in Israel around whether or not lab-grown meat is kosher.

Traditionally, meat is considered kosher only if it meets a set of guidelines, such as the type of animal and if it’s slaughtered in accordance with strict traditional regulations. Meanwhile, cultured meat represents a bit of a gray area in the realm of religious dietary laws—though no slaughtering is involved, cultured protein is grown from animal cells and is structurally identical to meat from livestock.

Without any precedent in this area, rabbis have yet to arrive at a consensus on the issue of lab-grown meat.

Without any precedent in this area, rabbis have yet to arrive at a consensus on the issue of lab-grown meat. Jewish authorities have expressed qualms over the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS), taken from cow fetuses, to create animal cells. Companies like Future Meat Technologies, which is located in Rehovot, Israel, are aiming to address these concerns by using only cells from ritually slaughtered animals.

Yet another positive sign for these new developments came in 2018 when the Orthodox Union, the largest Kosher certification and supervision agency in the world, touted the benefits of “clean meat” such as significantly lowering the cost of kosher meat and reducing carbon emissions that result from cattle farming.

“If [companies] produce meat synthetically, so to speak, we’d accept 100% of the meat as kosher,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the Orthodox Union Kosher Division, at the time.

Muslim authorities too have divergent views on the matter. Last September, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, drew a definitive line on the issue with a statement that labeled cultured meat as not halal. Meanwhile, leaders like Muhammad Taqi Usmani, an Islamic law expert in Pakistan, said lab-grown meat could be permissible if the cells used to create it come from animals slaughted in line with Sharia standards.

As part of the recent Pluristem-Tnuva collaboration, the companies may also establish separate ventures with the goal of creating cultured dairy and cultured fish products.