I’ve just returned from my weekly foray to the supermarket. There, I saw a miracle – bins full of delicious fresh fruits and vegetables and fresh eggs, all of it produced in Israel.
This, in wartime, even though foreign farm workers have left; many Western Negev and Northern Galilee cities and towns, kibbutzim and moshavim have been evacuated; and many fields, orchards, hothouses, hen houses and dairy farms have been damaged and abandoned, or destroyed by Hamas and Hezbollah rockets.
Yuval Lipkin, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Agriculture, says that Israelis consume 200 million eggs monthly. Some 70% of laying hens are in the Galilee and Golan, now under attack, he explains.
Western Negev farms are the vegetable garden of Israel, claims Amit Yifrach, general secretary of the Moshavim Movement and chairperson of the Israel Farmers Federation. He says that pre-war, “75% of vegetables, 20% of fruit, and 6.5% of dairy products” were produced there.
Today, thanks in part to thousands of volunteers who regularly report to help pick and prune, and thanks to the stubborn resilience of farmers, many of whom refuse to evacuate, and risk their lives to continue to feed us, we Israelis enjoy bountiful fresh food. I purposely buy from supermarkets that favor Israeli produce rather than those that sell cheaper, less tasty imports.
Indeed, a miracle of resilience – one we must not take for granted.
This is not a time for complacency. Israel’s Agriculture Ministry stated on December 10 that “Israeli agriculture is in one of the biggest crises we have known since the establishment of the state” 75 years ago.
I spoke with my Neaman Institute colleague Eyal Shimoni, a veteran foodtech expert, innovator, mentor, entrepreneur, and former senior Strauss manager. I asked him to name some leading innovative technology-intensive start-ups in foodtech and agrotech. (FoodTech is the use of technology to improve and innovate processes related to the production, distribution, and consumption of food. AgroTech refers to technologies applied to agriculture to enhance crop yield, reduce environmental impact, and improve farming practices. Among these technologies are supply chain management; food processing; biotechnology; digital platforms; sustainability solutions; data analytics’ and artificial intelligence.)
In response to my request, Shimoni took the trouble to canvass his knowledgeable acquaintances in this field and came up with a remarkable list (although partial, as there are hundreds of superb food and ag tech start-ups in Israel).
Here it is. It is only a tiny sample of the phenomenal Israeli creativity bubbling in this exciting realm – crucial, if the world is to feed its hungry people in the future.
FOODTECH
Cultivated meat
Aleph Farms was co-founded in 2017 by the Israeli foodtech incubator The Kitchen, of Strauss Group Ltd., and Prof. Shulamit Levenberg, dean of the Technion’s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. Its product offerings include ground meat, beef burger patties, and steaks. The company uses proprietary 3D bioprinting technologies by using fat cells, support cells, muscle cells, and blood vessel cells to develop tissues into meat products.
Another company, Believer Meat, was founded in 2018. It supplies lab-grown meat with a highly sustainable manufacturing model, resulting in 99% less land use and 80% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional meat.
Dairy protein
ReMilk, founded by Aviv Wolf, announced last year that it will open a huge facility for producing cow-free milk in Denmark. [See “Meat or Milk,” Jerusalem Report, Sept. 4.] It makes milk proteins using a yeast fermentation process. The resulting milk proteins are chemically identical to those produced by dairy cows but are free of lactose, cholesterol, growth hormones, and antibiotics that often occur in dairy cows.
ImaginDairy was founded by Eyal Afergan, Arie Abo, and Prof. Tamir Tuller. Its dairy proteins possess the same flavor, functionality, experience, mouthfeel, and nutrition as the cow-required dairy. Its animal-free dairy products are also lactose-free, growth hormone-free, and cholesterol-free. French dairy giant Danone has made a strategic investment in the compamy.
SweetTech
Amai, which means “sweet” in Japanese, was founded in 2016 by Ilan Samish, who serves as its CEO. Amai develops sweet protein, inspired by nature, built with biology through a natural fermentation process. It is the sweetest protein in the world, which is also thermostable (resistant to heat) and enables significant sugar reduction without affecting taste. Other alternative designer proteins in the pipeline include meat, milk, and plant proteins.
