Rehovot, Israel — Aleph Farms, Ltd., the leader in growing quality steaks directly from non-GMO cells, isolated from a living animal – is taking a bold new step toward accelerating extraterrestrial food production, which has been a main barrier for long-term space missions. The company announces the launch of its ‘Aleph Zero’ program. This project will forward its vision for advancing food security by producing fresh quality meat anywhere, independent of climate change and of availability of local natural resources.
The core mission of the new initiative is centered on introducing new capabilities for locally producing fresh, quality meat even in the most harsh and remote extraterrestrial environments, such as space.
To the achieve this goal, Aleph Farms is securing strategic partnerships with technology companies and space agencies for long term collaborative research and development contracts that will ensure the integration of Aleph Farms’ innovations into leading space programs. These programs will leverage the company’s deep-rooted know-how in cell biology, tissue engineering, and food science to establish BioFarms™ in extraterrestrial environments, enabling the company to eventually apply the lessons learned in space to earthbound sites.
“‘Aleph Zero’ represents the mathematical symbol of the smallest infinite number, and how Aleph Farms brings space infinity closer by supporting deep-space exploration and colonization of new planets. The term also represents the company’s vision for producing meat with near-zero natural resources,” explains Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms
Out of this world meat cultivation
This program follows the success of the company’s first experiment of producing meat on the International Space Station a year ago, in collaboration with 3D Bioprinting Solutions. This proof-of-concept marked a historic milestone in sustainable food production, resulting in new capacities to cultivate real meat directly from various types of cow cells, under micro-gravity and far from any natural resources.
“The constraints imposed by deep-space-exploration — the cold, thin environment and the circular approach — force us to tighten the efficiency of our meat production process to much higher sustainability standards,” notes Toubia. “The program ‘Aleph Zero’ reflects our mission of producing quality, delicious meat locally where people live and consume it, even in the most remote places on Earth like the Sahara Desert or Antarctica, providing unconditional access to high-quality nutrition to anyone, anytime, anywhere,” adds Toubia. “When people will live on the Moon or Mars, Aleph Farms will be there as well.”
About Aleph Farms:
Aleph Farms is a food company that paves a new way forward as a leader of the global sustainable food ecosystem, working passionately to grow delicious, real beef steaks from non-genetically engineered cells, isolated from a living animal – using a fraction of the resources required for raising an entire animal for meat, and without antibiotics. In May 2019, the company raised a US $12M Series-A investment round participated by strategic partners and venture capital. Aleph Farms was co-founded with The Kitchen Hub of the Strauss Group and with Professor Shulamit Levenberg of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
As the company establishes its operations for Earth’s mass-market together with agri-food partners in Europe, Asia and Latin America, it will be transitioning its products to pilot production next year (2021) and start building its first BioFarm™. The company’s pilot commercial launch is planned by the end of 2022.
Aleph Farms is backed by some of the world’s most innovative food producers, such as Cargill, Migros, and the Strauss Group. It has recently received top accolades for its contribution to the global sustainability movement from the World Economic Forum, UNESCO, Netexplo Forum and EIT Food.
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