Plant-based meat substitutes are intended to be very similar to real meat. The start-up Jet-Eat from Tel Aviv wants to make this possible with new 3D-printing technology. It aims to develop a printer that can produce vegan meat substitutes with the shape, texture and taste of steak.
“It takes 20,000 litres of water and over 20 kg of cattle feed to produce 1 kg of meat, which is simply inefficient,” says Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, founder of Jet-Eat. To counteract this, he founded the start-up Jet-Eat Printed Food Ltd. in early 2018, with the aim of 3D-printing vegan steaks. The objective is to produce a plant-based meat substitute that has the appearance, texture, taste, and reaction to heat of real beef steak.
With the new 3D-printing technology, the equivalent of the meat from a two-year-old cow will be produced within one day by a printer. The replacement products will be offered to the end consumer at low cost. Ben-Shitrit said, “Our steaks already cost the same as beef products and will become much cheaper in the future.”
3D-printed vegan burgers are already available; find more information in this article.