As food companies work towards revolutionizing the food industry, a food startup based in Israel, Meat-Tech 3D Ltd has ventured into 3D bioprinting. The company recently reported a major step towards achieving its vision of bringing slaughter-free meat to people’s plates. Using 3D, they successfully printed thin uniform meat tissue using stem cells.
This ranks as one of the company’s most important accomplishment so far and its sets the growing company on the path to attaining their multi-layer master plan for coming up with an industrial process for 3D printing and developing edible beef without killing animals. Dubbed ‘”project Carpaccio”, this experiment brings to awareness how Meat-Tech’s 3D printing procedures were able to successfully produce a thin layer of multiple cells that ended up merging to form tissues with fat and muscle.
According to Steven H. Lavin, Meat-Tech’s chairman, achievement of this important milestone at an earlier date that planned for is a major technological bonus for Meat-Tech and it brings them nearer to coming up with technology for producing slaughter-free meat -growing plants using printing technology. It’s also testament to the company’s capacity to print fat and muscle cells that produce tissue.
This lab produced carpaccio -like meat demonstrates Meat-Tech’s capability to separate stem cells into fat and muscle cells which finally allows for the breakdown of muscle fibers and fat tissues as it happens in real animals. This experiment also displays the startup’s bio-ink materials used on cells for making the tissue-like formation. Meat-Tech’s 3D bioprinting has the ability to organize cells with a rather high degree of accuracy and in a manner that fosters the cells to stick and merge together.
Several other companies just like Meat-Tech have come out to experiment with bioprinting technologies for the production of lab-grown edible meat that is slaughter-free. In Israel for instance, SavorEat and Aleph farms are experimenting with bioprinting. SavorEat has raised $3 million through funding plus a possibility for an additional $1 million investment for this technological advancement while Aleph Farms has plans to experiment with bioprinting of meat in space.
