The vegetable meat of the future is printed by an Italian. A visit to the refrigerator department of a supermarket is enough to realize how much the offer of vegetarian alternatives to meat has exploded in recent years.
Italian Tech Week 2021, the 3D printed (and vegetable) steak that arrives in supermarkets in 2022
An empirical observation, however, confirmed by the numbers: according to a research by Barclays Plc, the global vegetable meat market was already worth more than 14 billion dollars in 2019 and it is expected that the turnover could even exceed 140 billion by 2029 .
The school case is that of the American Beyond Meat, which two years ago went public with one of the most successful IPs since the 2008 crisis, in the wake of the popularity of its vegan burgers. And competitor Impossible Foods recently announced the availability of faux chicken nuggets at various major restaurant chains across the United States.
In the rest of the world then the companies that offer every type of product have multiplied: from minced meat to meatballs, through sausages, chicken strips, fish sticks, cold cuts.
As convincing as they are, however, these foods all have a limit: they emulate processed meat products. In fact, so far no one has been able to bring a vegetable chop that can be said to be up to the original in supermarkets. To succeed, in the coming months, it could be one of our compatriots.
«Today the Holy Grail of synthetic meat remains steak, or pork. Whole muscle cuts that convincingly reproduce the fibrous structure of animal meat “, explains Giuseppe Scionti, born in 1986, founder of Novameat, a startup based in Barcelona that works precisely to this goal: to create an alternative meat that imitates and surpasses for quality the finest cuts.
To succeed, Scionti has combined ten years of experience in the tissue engineering sector with his passion for environmental sustainability.
«During my PhD at the University of Granada, after graduating from Milan and a specialization in Sweden, I studied soft tissue 3D printing processes in depth. I realized that the technique could be simplified to create a muscle for food consumption, which does not need to be implanted and activated ».
Succeeding in this feat means redefining the way we produce meat, helping to reduce intensive farming, one of the most harmful human activities for the climate.
Thanks to a printing technique based on microextrusion, Novameat is able to recreate the fibrousness, cut resistance and chewability of animal muscle.
«Our alternative meat is a hybrid between vegetable meats and those made from cell cultivation. We use a technique that combines plant components, to create the protein scaffold, and animal fat cells multiplied in the laboratory starting from a non-invasive biopsy on the original animal ». Having refined the structure of the synthetic muscle, Novameat worked on perfecting the taste. «To define the flavor we have been helped by the chefs of starred restaurants such as El Bulli. Our goal was not to get on par with animal flesh, but to overcome it. From October the El Santuari restaurant in Barcelona will serve our steak alongside the other exotic meats on the menu. The confidence of a chef of this level is the best demonstration of the quality and flavor that we have managed to achieve ».
Collaboration with famous restaurants is a cornerstone of Novameat’s commercial strategy. «We want to follow Tesla’s example. The first steak will be our Roadster: a product for a few, served in places of excellence. It is not an elitist choice: it serves to demonstrate that this is not just fake meat, but an alternative that can compete with the best gourmet cuts ». Novameat’s current version of meat, which restaurants make on-site with a small 3D printer, costs around € 15-20 per kilo The price will drop rapidly in the move to larger-scale production, which Novameat aims to initiate in the next months.
“Over the past three years we have refined the product and created the technology platform. Thanks to new investments we are ready to expand with a pilot factory here in Barcelona. We will produce for restaurants and sector distribution. We have already built a microextrusion machine capable of producing one ton per hour, 1000 times more than benchtop 3D printers ».
The last step, not yet defined, will be large-scale distribution, perhaps with the Novameat brand, perhaps supplying the technology to other manufacturers. “We are not aiming at the strategy that will allow us to make more money, but at the one that will best contribute to the affirmation of alternatives to meat”, concludes Scionti. “I didn’t set up Novameat to sell vegan steaks, but to make my contribution to saving the planet from climate disaster.”
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