The first vegetable steak lands in Italian restaurants

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You see it, and it looks like a steak. You cut it, and the fibers separate just like muscle fibers. The blood drips, the flavor is what you expect. Yet this, which looks like a fillet in all respects, is actually made of soy, peas, coconut, cocoa butter, iron, beetroot juice and yeast. It has no cholesterol, it is gluten-free, it is rich in fibre. And the shape was given to him by a 3D printer. Forget the hamburgers and meatballs seen so far in fast food or supermarkets, we are at the 2.0 evolution of vegetable meat. It is the first vegetable steak in the world. And it has just landed in about fifteen Italian restaurants, including five in Milan and two in Rome, including Joe Bastianich’s Smash Burger.

It is produced by an Israeli company, Redefine Meat, which in the town of Rehovot has set up a laboratory with 100 researchers and a small 3D printing shop, even if the bulk of the “printing” takes place in the company’s factory in the Netherlands. Its founder and CEO, Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, is only 38 years old: «When I proposed my project to a group of investors in 2018 – he says – almost everyone laughed at me. At the time there was still not much talk of vegetable meat. But one of them believed in me. So I resigned, added a loan from the Israeli government and off we went.” Today Redefine Meat has 240 employees, invoices “several tens of millions of dollars” and sells its extra-luxury products in three thousand restaurants throughout Europe, some of which are starred. The most receptive markets, at the moment, have proved to be the German and the Dutch ones. It lands in Italy thanks to the partnership with Giraudi Meats, a distributor specializing in high-end cuts of meat. Someone who has Angus steaks and Kobe beef in his portfolio.

Eshchar Ben-Shitrit is vegetarian: «The only time I’ve tasted a rib eye was in Italy, in an inn in Pistoia – he says – I think the secret to achieving such high quality, an experience so similar to meat traditional, lies in the fact that I never wanted to make a product for vegetarians. My target are meat lovers. We want to compete with traditional steaks. In our laboratory we work with butchers and chefs and spend most of our time studying traditional meat». With the substantial difference however, he recalls, that his products are more sustainable, because growing vegetables pollutes less than raising cows.

Redefine Meat doesn’t just make steaks: it makes strips, lamb kebabs, hamburgers, fillets. The most expensive size is sold for 50 dollars a kilo. Many, even for a fine cut: «Our goal today is not to work to lower the price – he says – but rather to further increase the quality of the flavor and texture». And then, for the restaurants to which it is addressed, the price is not a problem. And is synthetic meat, that raised in laboratories starting from an animal cell, part of your next plans? “I believe – he replies – that before the next ten years there may not be a real market for synthetic meat”.