Aleph Farms

Aleph Farms offers cultured meat based on a proprietary 3D technology and the four core cell types of farmed beef, including vascular and connective tissues, to recreate a real food experience. This meat is produced using real beef cells without any need to slaughter animals, in an earth-friendly process. Cellular agriculture is the technology best suited to diversify production of animal proteins. A decrease in the number of cows also creates new opportunities for locations where climate conditions and lack of natural resources impede large-scale conventional cattle farming. For cellular agriculture to achieve long-term growth and success, its first applications should be well-positioned to maximise both climate impact and market impact.

Competences & Capabilities

• As global demand for animal proteins continues to climb, complementary methods of production – alongside sustainable methods of conventional production – can relieve the growing tension between scale and sustainability. In the face of climate change, resource scarcity and a rising human population, cellular agriculture is the technology best suited to diversify production of animal proteins. This technology is a subset of animal agriculture, a tradition dating back millennia to when people first replicated animal growth and reproduction under controlled conditions. Cellular agriculture continues this same practice at the level of individual cells.
• Instead of domesticating an entire animal by nurturing it in a pasture, cellular agriculture involves domesticating animal cells by nurturing them in a cultivator. Production can take place geographically close to consumption, including places where raising large numbers of whole animals is not feasible. This enables short and predictable value chains, reducing pressure on current methods of production and lessening their susceptibility to shocks. Both supply and prices become more stable, further enhancing food security.
  
• A decrease in the number of cows also creates new opportunities for locations where climate conditions and lack of natural resources impede large-scale conventional cattle farming. Cultivated beef production is decentralised and takes place in closed systems. This is key for countries and communities around the world looking to establish their own food sovereignty, especially as climate conditions become more extreme and premiums on land and other resources become more pronounced. Moreover, requiring less space and fewer resources means less of a need to infringe on natural ecosystems to acquire land and resources.
• Maintaining these ecosystems protects biodiversity, which is existential for human survival.
• For cellular agriculture to achieve long-term growth and success, its first applications should be well-positioned to maximise both climate impact and market impact. In this regard, protein and fat products grown from cow cells fit the bill.
• Cattle have the highest environmental footprint across all of animal agriculture. Cultivated beef can mitigate a lot of this footprint by enabling fewer and better managed cows. For instance, cows are the biggest contributor to livestock-induced methane emissions, which account for 37% of all anthropogenic emissions of this greenhouse gas. Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of CO2 over its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Cutting these emissions is the fastest way to slow down and reverse global warming, and fewer cows is the most direct way to achieve this.
• A decrease in the number of cows also creates new opportunities for locations where climate conditions and lack of natural resources impede large-scale conventional cattle farming. Cultivated beef production is decentralised and takes place in closed systems. This is key for countries and communities around the world looking to establish their own food sovereignty, especially as climate conditions become more extreme and premiums on land and other resources become more pronounced. Moreover, requiring less space and fewer resources means less of a need to infringe on natural ecosystems to acquire land and resources. Maintaining these ecosystems protects biodiversity, which is existential for human survival.