Novameat is a Spanish food-tech startup that works with plant-based meat products. In 2018, the company created a meat substitute using a 3D printer, whereby the ink is a plant-based paste inserted through the syringes and using AutoCAD software. They were able to make the 3D-printed meat.
They have recently announced that they were able to make the "world's biggest cell-based meat prototype" using a 3D printer. FoodNavigator interviewed Novameat's founder and CEO Giuseppe Scionti who said that the company's ability to 3D print whole cut meats could be a gamechanger to address the unsustainable meat industry.
The Largest Whole Cut Cultivated Meat Prototype in the World
When the world was in lockdown, countless food players have been put on a halt. But not the Barcelona-based food tech Novameat because they seemed to be as busy as they as ever.
After securing an investment of more than $300,000 (€ 250,000) from the Spanish government, Novameat partnered with Michelin-starred restaurant Disfrutar, they went on t make the largest whole cut cultivated meat prototype in the world using a patented microextrusion technology to achieve the easy structure of the 3D-printed meat.
"Our biggest cell-based meat prototypes - or you can call them hybrid meat analogs, as we mix mammalian adipose cells with a biocompatible plant-based scaffold - score at 22500mm³ in volume," Novameat founder and CEO Scionti told the FoodNavigator.
He added that he and his company are looking forward to more innovations in the coming months as their technology has unlocked a novel whole cut market that could solve the meat industry's problem by producing alternative options for meat sources.
Scionti noted that the 3D-printed meat they produced has similar features to the real cut of meat. Its color matches the real meat, while the external and internal components look like the fiber found in beef.
The cell-based prototype meat is so big that it even surpasses that of the Korean genetic research firm Eone Diagnomics Genome Center's (EDGC) efforts. Scionti said that the firm's meat is smaller by 5,500 cubic millimeters than the cell-based meat of Novameat.
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Novameat Adapts Hybrid Approach Towards Producing Alternative Meat
Green Queen reported that Novameat has decided that it will take a hybrid approach in creating alternative proteins to have the most impact against the unsustainable meat supply chain. They plan to use both plant-based and cell-based technology to overcome hurdles along the way.
Scionti explained that there are a few technological limitations that are yet to be solved for cell-based meat to compete on the price with conventional meat.
One of the hurdles is finding alternatives for animal-based cell media and fetal bovine serum (FVS). He said that they need to find more affordable scaffolds like the Seoul-based DaNAGreen, or the Matrix Meats in Ohio, Cass Materials in Perth, and Tiamat Sciences in Brussels.
Furthermore, he believes that plant-based meat, like burgers and sausages, has yet to provide alternatives to whole cuts that taste like meat and has the same texture compared to real animal meats.
Other startups are also following the cell-based meats approach to launch products that both incorporate plant and cell-based ingredients to speed up commercialization.
These days, many startups are also developing prototypes of realistic cultivated cuts of meat that can replicate the real animal meat's muscle structures and fat tissues. That means Novameat is not alone in the race despite being the first to debut their large chunk of meat.
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