TEL AVIV – Redefine Meat will now begin to market test its plant-based product, Alt-Steak, at premium restaurants later this year. The company created Alt-Steak with patent-pending 3D meat printing technology. The 3D printing allows for large volume production at a cost that enables large-scale market launch.

Redefine collaborated with taste expert Givaudan, butchers, chefs and food technologists to digitally map over 70 sensorial parameters into Alt-Steak products including the texture, juiciness, fat distribution and mouthfeel of premium beef cuts. The proprietary 3D food printers create the products layer by layer using the company’s Alt-Muscle, Alt-Fat and Alt-Blood plant-based formulations. The process of printing with multiple materials gives Redefine Meat the ability to create sustainable, high-protein, no-cholesterol steaks.

“Since day one of the company, we have been working on creating a tasty and affordable plant-based alternative to steaks, one of the most cherished food products and the driver of the entire meat industry,” said Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, chief executive officer and co-founder of Redefine Meat. “To enable mass adoption, we knew that creating an alternative meat product that was both high in quality and nutritional composition would require new technologies and production processes never seen before in the food industry. Today’s announcement marks the start of a new era in alternative meat – the Alt-Steak era – driven by production processes that will accelerate the development of a wide range of alt-meat whole muscle products and create a sustainable alternative to raising and eating animals.

“The importance of using precision 3D printing technology to achieve texture, color and flavor – and the combinations between them – cannot be overstated,” Ben-Shitrit added. “By using separate formulations for muscle, fat and blood, we can focus on each individual aspect of creating the perfect Alt-Steak product. This is unique to our 3D printing technology and lets us achieve unprecedented control of what happens inside the matrix of alt-meat. Collaborating with an industry-leader like Givaudan has led to the creation of an Alt-Steak product that is not only healthy and sustainable, but also offers the satisfying flavors, textures and aromas of eating actual meat.”

A small number of leading chefs and restaurants will test Redefine Meat’s Alt-Steak products later this year. The company will then incorporate the feedback received from the testing and ramp up 3D printing ahead of distribution in 2021.