3D ‘Alt-Steak’ printed using plant-based ‘fat, blood and muscle’

LOS ANGELES - A new competitor has entered the increasingly crowded market of alternative meat and plant-based protein products.

Redefine Meat, a food 3D printing company that produces animal-free meat, has announced its first 3D printed plant-based product — the “Alt-Steak.”

Innovated by the company’s 3D meat printing technology, the Alt-Steak is the first line of alternative meat products that claims to retain the texture, flavor and appearance of real beef steak.

"Since day one of the company, we have been working on creating a tasty and affordable plant-based alternative to steaks, one of the most cherished food products and the driver of the entire meat industry," said Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, CEO and Co-Founder of Redefine Meat. "To enable mass adoption, we knew that creating an alternative meat product that was both high in quality and nutritional composition would require new technologies and production processes never seen before in the food industry."

The company highlighted the importance of using precise 3D printing technology in order to achieve the flavor, texture and even color of the meat substitute.

Layer by layer, the 3D food printers created the Alt-Steak products using Alt-Muscle, Alt-Fat and Alt-Blood plant-based formulas. By using separate formulations for the muscle, fat and blood, Redefine Meat has control over the composition of the alternative meat, according to the company.

“Today's announcement marks the start of a new era in alternative meat – the Alt-Steak era – driven by production processes that will accelerate the development of a wide range of alt-meat whole muscle products and create a sustainable alternative to raising and eating animals," Ben-Shitrit said.

Redefine Meat aims to use technology to combine 3D meat modeling, food formulations and food printing technology to present a “new category of complex-matrix ‘meat’” that is both affordable and tasty.

The Israel-based startup will begin market testing at select high-end restaurants later this year before distributing its industrial-scale 3D printers to meat manufacturers in 2021.