Aleph Farms’ cultivated meat moves into Southeast Asia with production plant in Thailand

23 Feb 2024 --- In an advancement for cultured meat, Aleph Farms has joined forces with biotech firm BBGI and synbio researcher and manufacturer Fermbox Bio to initiate Thailand’s first plant for cultivated meat production.

The move will help the company expand its production capabilities in Southeast Asia (SEA), which it says needs a stable long-term supply of high-quality animal-based nutrition through cell-based meat to complement sustainable traditional agricultural practices.

Food Ingredients First catches up with Didier Toubia, CEO and co-founder of Aleph Farms, to navigate the evolving cultivated meat space, the hurdles formulators face and how they can trim production costs.

“Our immediate focus is on APAC and EMEA, which show clear signs of being the largest markets for cultivated meat. Both regions face food security challenges, witness increasing demand for animal products (market potential) and support cellular agriculture through policy. At Aleph Farms, we see SEA as a strategic region full of high-growth markets.”

“This progression facilitates our overarching mission: To ensure food security through an equitable and inclusive transition to sustainable, resilient food systems.”

Demand for animal-based proteins and fats is rising worldwide, calling for alternative methods of meat production.Toubia views this move as a prudent and capital-efficient scale-up enabling Aleph Farms to navigate infrastructure investments thoughtfully, allowing sustainable penetration into key regions.

Fermbox Bio will design, build and operate the proposed facility and facilitate innovation in plant design, energy management, equipment design, cell harvest, media recycling and waste management. 

BBGI will leverage its expertise in large-scale manufacturing facilities to ensure the efficient market entry of the innovations.

Balancing scale and sustainability
Demand for animal-based proteins and fats is rising worldwide, specifically across Asia. Hostile climate conditions and land shortages demand a food system overhaul and threaten to make food sovereignty more elusive. The impacts are even driving companies to incentivize farmers to combat climate change.

“As global demand for animal proteins and fats continues to climb, introducing complementary methods of production — alongside the transition to more sustainable methods of conventional production — can relieve the growing tension between scale and sustainability,” underscores Toubia.

He sees cellular agriculture as a way to help diversify the production of animal proteins and fats as the F&B industry battles climate change, resource scarcity and a rising human population.

“Just as animal agriculture has replicated animal reproduction and growth under controlled conditions for millennia, cellular agriculture continues this same practice at the level of individual cells — the building blocks of animals (and animal meat).”

Cellular agriculture ensures short and predictable value chains, says Toubia (Image credit: Aleph Farms).“Instead of domesticating an entire animal by nurturing it in a feedlot, cellular agriculture involves domesticating animal cells by nurturing them in a cultivator — a tank that emulates the inside of an animal’s body with significantly enhanced resource efficiency and without methane emissions.”

Reducing methane emissions from livestock is something the F&B industry is trying to tackle through technology and methane-busting feed additives.

Reducing supply chain shocks
Cultivated meat production enhances food security by maintaining supply and stabilizing prices, notes Toubia.

“Production takes weeks instead of months or years and happens in closed systems geographically close to consumption, including places where raising large numbers of animals is not feasible.”

This, in turn, leads to decentralized, short and predictable value chains, which he says “reduces pressure on current methods of production” and lessens animal agriculture’s overall susceptibility to supply chain shocks, such as wars, extreme weather events, animal disease outbreaks and global health crises. 

Tackling production costs
Toubia flags two critical challenges in reaching cellular agriculture’s full potential — at-scale production costs and developing the right products to meet consumer acceptance.

“The more that people come to understand what cultivated meat entails and doesn’t entail, the more they see it as a safe source of high-quality protein.”

“For widespread consumer adoption, companies need to produce enough cultivated meat in a cost-efficient way to satisfy demand and curiosity,” he asserts. 

The company recently allied with Enzymit to use AI for developing insulin substituents for cultivated meat (Image credit: Aleph Farms).He continues that Aleph Farms follows a “multifaceted approach” to overcoming at-scale production costs.

“We establish strategic supply chain agreements that help keep raw material costs in check. Recently, we announced the latest such agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific for the production of growth media at a quantity, quality and cost that match both our scale-up and cost reduction strategy.”

He further tells us about the company’s inclusive leadership model that supports cultivated meat producers, allowing them to “access affordable proteins” and avoid resorting to fetal bovine serum or animal-derived ingredients. 

“This inclusive approach lowers raw material costs and drives economies of scale for the cultivated meat space at large,” he underscores.

Aleph Farms is also targeting the efficient formulation of cell-based meat. Last year, the business leveraged AI and deep learning capabilities to develop insulin alternatives for reducing cultured meat production time.

A just transition
For cellular agriculture to achieve scale and impact, Aleph Farms is striving to build an ecosystem that can lead an inclusive and just transition to more sustainable and equitable food systems. 

“This means working together and alongside innovators, international bodies, national governments, regulatory agencies, food incumbents and livestock farmers.”

The recent regulatory approval of the company’s cultivated beef product permitted it to produce and market the product in Israel, subject to specific directions for labeling and marketing provided by the Israel Ministry of Health and the completion of the pilot plant’s Good Manufacturing Practices inspection.

Singapore recently declared cell-based meat Halal for Muslim consumption.“Once these requirements are fulfilled, we will introduce Aleph Cuts to diners, offering exclusive tasting experiences curated in collaboration with select partners,” he concludes.

Regulatory landscape 
Cultivated meat has gathered pace worldwide, with market approvals in Singapore, the US and Israel, prompting governments to set up policies for incubating the new food tech sector.

Religious authorities are also warming up to the space, with recent Halal and Kosher approvals in Singapore and Israel respectively.

Alt-meat has also urged researchers to investigate its impact on farmers, revealing a mixed bag of perspectives on cultured meat. While some cite concerns over the lack of information about the technology, others view the innovations not as a competition but as a “premium” for pasture-reared meat.

By Insha Naureen