Israel: SuperMeat secures partnership deal with Ajinomoto Partners

Tel Aviv-headquartered SuperMeat, a foodtech company offering cultivated meat, is partnering with Japanese multinational food and biotechnology corporation Ajinomoto Co to establish a commercially viable supply chain platform for the cultivated meat industry.

The partnership aims to combine SuperMeat’s technologies and experience in cultivated meat with Ajinomoto Co’s R&D technologies in the biotechnology field and fermentation, to accelerate commercialisation of cultivated meat and encourage consumer and manufacturer acceptance.

As part of the partnership, Ajinomoto Co is investing in SuperMeat as one of its corporate venture capital projects. Ajinomoto Group has offices in 35 countries and regions and sells products in more than 130 countries and regions. In fiscal 2020, sales were ¥1.1 trillion ($10.1 billion).

The partnership will focus on the development of cell growth media and its ingredients applicable to cultivated meat. Cell media, which contains the nutrients needed for animal cell growth, accounts for the majority of cultivated meat production costs. A significant part of these costs are incurred by recombinant proteins and growth factors added to media to help cells grow and differentiate. In order to satisfy the predicted demand for cultivated meat and become cost competitive with traditional meat, further improvements are needed in the supply of growth factors, including the reduction of inefficiencies between supply and demand for growth factors and the introduction of food-grade growth factors.

SuperMeat’s chief executive Ido Savir said: “In the past year, we have made tremendous strides in product development and scale, setting us up for industrial commercialisation. We are thrilled to partner with Ajinomoto, a global leader in food and biotechnology, to bring to market scalable, affordable and delicious cultivated meat products in poultry and beyond.”

Hiroshi Shiragami, executive officer and senior vice-president, chief innovation officer of Ajinomoto Co, commented: “We look forward to partnering with SuperMeat, whose mission and values align closely with our own, to bring the world more viable sustainable options as alternative protein. SuperMeat has an impressive track record of producing high-quality cultivated poultry products that have the potential to impact the global meat supply chain and meet consumer demand.”