Israeli food tech pioneer Aleph Farms has struck a deal to produce its cultivated meat in Europe, setting up at The Cultured Hub facility in Kemptthal.
As it awaits regulatory approval in Switzerland, Aleph Farms has chosen the canton of Zurich as the European production hub for its cultivated beef.
The Israeli startup has teamed up with The Cultured Hub, a biotech facility situated in The Valley in Kemptthal, opened last year by retail giant Migros, flavour specialist Givaudan, and equipment manufacturer Bühler Group.
The move is part of Aleph Farms’s localised production strategy, and marks a key milestone for its international expansion. It’s also an extension of the firm’s six-year-long strategic partnership with Migros, which supported the firm’s regulatory application to the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office in 2023.
“Our collaboration with The Cultured Hub builds on years of joint work to advance the regulatory and operational readiness of cultivated meat in Switzerland,” said Aleph Farms co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia.
How Aleph Farms is charting its global footprint
Aleph Farms’s signature offering is the Petit Steak, a hybrid meat product combining non-modified, non-immortalised cells of a premium Black Angus cow with a plant protein matrix made of soy and wheat.
The firm has already received regulatory clearance in Israel, though this was contingent on the company clearing a Good Manufacturing Practices inspection for its production facility, on which there has been no public update yet.
Additionally, it has filed for approval in Singapore, the UK, Thailand, and Switzerland, and is engaged in advanced pre-submission consultations in countries including the US. It plans to eventually expand into Japan, South Korea, Australia, China, and Hong Kong too.
This strategy would give way to a complex supply chain, so setting up facilities in local hotspots would help Aleph Farms streamline its manufacturing and distribution. It currently operates a 65,000 sq ft plant in Rehovot, Israel (with a capacity to initially produce 10 tonnes of cultivated steak annually), and has acquired another factory in Modi’in.
Elsewhere, the startup has signed a co-manufacturing deal with Singapore’s ESCO Aster (the first approved cultivated meat facility globally), and is building a factory in Thailand with biotech firms BBGI and Fermbox Bio.
The Swiss facility is an extension of this approach, and will allow Aleph Farms to create a long-term partnership framework for production in the canton of Zurich, with the potential for future expansion into other European markets.
Aleph Farms will prepare for commercial launch with Swiss facility
Opened in December, The Cultured Hub aims to speed up the development and commercialisation of cellular agriculture products. It’s equipped with advanced production development labs, as well as cell culture and fermentation capabilities and equipment.
The hub can host three companies at a time, which can work simultaneously in fully separated suites. Producers can scale up from small lab experiments to 1,000-litre pilot operations without investing in expensive assets or diluting equity. This helps accelerate market entry by saving time and resources, and allowing the entities to focus on creating the optimal food products at competitive costs.
“We believe the future of food depends on cross-industry collaboration to create impact at scale,” said Fabio Campanile, chairman of The Cultured Hub and head of science and tech at Givaudan. “We are confident that we can provide the infrastructure, services, and networks needed to bring great new products to market by combining Aleph’s innovation and expertise with our platform.”
The establishment of Aleph Farms’s Swiss operations is supported by the regional administration. “The company strengthens Zurich’s position as a hub for innovation and brings fresh momentum to the growing Zurich food ecosystem, which includes the Food Hub in Wädenswil and nearly 11,000 businesses across the canton,” said Carmen Walker Späh, the canton’s economic affairs councillor.
According to Aleph Farms, the collaboration supports the startup’s goal of decentralising production and boosting Switzerland’s domestic meat supply – currently, 20% of its beef is imported. It will further help the startup prepare for its commercial launch through relevant distribution channels, once it’s cleared to sell.
“This partnership allows us to execute our global strategy in the best possible way – one that is both capital-efficient and deeply embedded in the local market,” said Toubia.
It comes months after the firm secured $29M in the first closing of a larger funding round, taking its total investment to nearly $150M. And last week, an independent analysis showed that Aleph Farms’s steak could be produced at $6.45 per lb and sold in wholesale for $12.25, generating annual net profits of $78.5M. With further process enhancement, the cost of goods sold could fall to just $4.08 per lb.
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