MeaTech

Steakholder Foods Ltd., formerly known as MeaTech 3D Ltd., is a food technology company that started its journey in 2019 and is headquartered in Rehovot, Israel. The company's founders, Sharon Fima and Arik Kaufman, brought together expertise from different sectors to tackle the challenges of industrial animal agriculture. Fima, with a background in creating complex technological systems as the founder of Nano Dimension, and Kaufman, a life sciences entrepreneur, aimed to develop a sustainable alternative to conventional meat production. Steakholder Foods operates in the burgeoning cultured meat sector, focusing on the development and commercialization of technologies to produce cell-based meat and fish products. The company is not a direct-to-consumer brand but rather a B2B technology provider, supplying its advanced 3D bio-printers and proprietary bio-inks to food processing companies and other third parties. This business model allows it to license its technology, generating revenue without managing a full-scale consumer food production and supply chain. The target clients are meat producers and food companies looking to enter the cultured meat market with products that mimic the taste, texture, and appearance of conventionally farmed meat. The core of the company's offering lies in its 3D bio-printing platform, which is designed for industrial-scale production. This platform uses two types of bio-inks—one for muscle and one for fat—derived from animal stem cells to print structured meat products like steaks and fish fillets with precise fibrous texture. This technology allows for a high degree of customization, enabling producers to control fat-to-muscle ratios and create a variety of marbled meat cuts. A significant milestone was achieved in 2022 when the company successfully printed a 3.67 oz cultivated steak, at the time the largest of its kind. In 2023, the company also unveiled the world's first plant-based 3D-printed eel and started developing 3D-printed shrimp. Keywords: cultured meat, 3D bio-printing, food technology, alternative proteins, cell-based meat, B2B technology, sustainable food, cellular agriculture, cultivated fish, bio-inks