REHOVOT, ISRAEL — Tech food company Steakholder Foods Ltd., formerly known as MeaTech 3D Ltd., announced the beginning stages of development of cultured pork products from a line of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) porcine cells.

“We are very excited to be adding porcine to our portfolio of species,” said Arik Kaufman, chief executive officer and founder of Steakholder Foods. “Pork has tremendous market potential being that it is widely recognized as the most popular meat in the world.”

Steakholder Foods said it partnered with an iPS cell line provider, which the company expects will help reduce the development timeline for structured pork products.

By reprogramming sampled cells back into an embryonic-like pluripotent state, the new stem cell line is formed. The method enables one cell bank to become a highly scalable source for developing any type of muscle or fat cells for cultured meat production, Steakholder Foods said.

This venture into the pork category adds to Steakholder Foods’ current development of cultured beef, chicken and seafood.