Israeli food company Soglowek is best known for its meat products. But in 2018, the company made a surprising announcement — it would be donating some of its products to clean meat startup SuperMeat.
Although it is primarily a meat company, Soglowek launched a vegetarian line called Zoglo’s back in 1987. Most of the products contained egg, and so were not vegan.
Then, in 2018, Soglowek introduced a fully plant-based line under the Zoglo’s brand. At the same time, it made the surprising announcement that 20 percent of profits from the line would be donated to SuperMeat, an Israeli company working on lab-grown meat. SuperMeat’s logo would even appear on the product packaging.
While the news is surprising, Soglowek isn’t the first meat company to invest in alt-meat products. US meat producer Tyson Foods has now launched multiple plant-based products, while Canadian company Maple Leaf Foods has also established a plant-based brand.
“I was born to a family of butchers, spending time in slaughterhouses since the age of 5,” Soglowek CEO Eli Soglowek told GFI. “Despite that, I love dogs, horses, and also cows very much and would like to transition to eating cultured meat that is produced by machines using stem cells taken from real animals without causing harm to the animals and without polluting the planet. I would like to invest time and money to do to the meat industry what Elon Musk is doing to the automobile industry.”
