Israel startup Redefine Meat will begin offering 3D-printed plant-based “meat” products at select high-end restaurants in Europe, the company announced on Tuesday, also unveiling what it called “the world’s first” whole cuts that resemble lamb and beef cuts (Time of Israel, 2021).

In doing so, the company claimed to have “cracked the holy grail of the alternative meat industry,” which is largely producing minced products that often lack the fibrous texture found in animal meat.

Redefine Meat’s range of products, called New Meat, now includes the whole cuts, plus burgers, sausages, lamb kebabs, and ground beef as it hopes to become “the world’s largest meat company by offering every single cut that a cow does.” Dishes made with the products will become available in restaurants such as Marco Pierre White’s Steak Houses in the UK, a chain of 22 eateries established by celebrity chef Marco Pierre White, and Michelin-starred restaurants Ron Gastrobar in the Netherlands by Dutch chef and TV personality Ron Blaauw.

In Israel, dishes with Redefine Meat’s products are sold in some 150 restaurants and establishments, according to the company, including Coffee Bar and Hotel Montefiore in Tel Aviv.

The company plans to build five factories across Israel, Europe, the United States, and Asia in the coming few years. As technology advances and improves the taste and variety of alternative meats, sales in the sector could reach $140 billion by 2029, about 10% of the world meat market, Barclays estimates.

Competition is already high, with players including California's Beyond Meat (BYND.O), Impossible Foods, and Spain's Novameat. Redefine Meat previously announced it had secured $35 million in funds and said it has raised a greater amount but would not disclose how much.

"We raised the largest amount by far that an Israeli alternative meat company has ever raised," Ben-Shitrit said. For perspective, earlier this year, Israel's Aleph Farms, which is developing a method to cultivate meat in the lab from cow cells, raised $105 million.

What’s driving the plant-based boom?

Plant-based food has taken the market by storm. In the last five years, veganism has gone mainstream, with two percent of people actively describing themselves as a vegan.

2020 was the year everyone discovered plant-based, with new products appearing across the market, from bakery and pastries to pizza, lattes, and even dirty burgers. The end of the year saw McDonald’s giving veganism perhaps the ultimate green flag with the launch of the McPlant menu. Analysts now predict the plant-based food market to grow by 11.9 percent by 2027 and have valued it at $74.2 billion.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact and put what was already a buoyant market into overdrive.

At the start of 2018, Tesco rolled out its Wicked Kitchen vegan meals across 600 of its stores and sold more than 2.5 million units in the first 20-week period ending in May 2018 — more than double its sales projections. Ocado and Waitrose also reported similar success with sales of their vegan and vegetarian categories booming, a clear indication of demand.

As a nation, the UK started to introduce more vegetables into its diets and eat less meat. Google searches for ‘vegan’ rose by 700 percent in four years and campaigns, such as the Vegetarian Society’s Meat-Free Monday, also helped cement the idea of not eating meat every day. At the same time, the flexitarian diet grew in popularity, driven by health and environmental influences; today, 60 percent of people consider themselves flexitarian.