Vegan ‘steaks’ are made with a 3-D printer and they look like real beef

When following a vegan diet, steak is usually not on the menu. However, an Israeli startup, Redefine Meat, has come up with an alternative meat product that’s meant to replicate the taste and texture of a real steak. Redefine Meat’s Alt-Steak is made with a 3D printer, and it can go from there straight onto the grill.

“The importance of using precision 3D printing technology to achieve texture, color and flavor — and the combinations between them — cannot be overstated,” Redefine Meat CEO Eshchar Ben Shitrit said in a press release. “By using separate formulations for muscle, fat and blood, we can focus on each individual aspect of creating the perfect Alt-Steak product. This is unique to our 3D printing technology and lets us achieve unprecedented control of what happens inside the matrix of alt-meat.”

Impossible Burgers and Beyond Burgers have gained market share as the demand for tasty plant-based, eco-friendly meat alternatives rises. Now, with the success of vegan products that mimic ground beef established, creating a steak alternative that can compete with the texture and taste of a real steak has become the next challenge.

Redefine’s Alt-Steak products are being tested at a number of restaurants, and the company hopes to ramp up production of its printers and alt-meat products for market distribution in 2021.

Redefine Meat says its product has a 95% lower environmental impact than traditional animal meat, and that it’s cholesterol-free and affordable. Their 3D printers produce up to 13 pounds of meat per hour. In 2021, they plan to introduce new printers capable of printing 44 pounds per hour.

Alt-Steak’s full recipe is secret, but they say it’s made with soy and pea proteins, coconut fat and sunflower oil, among other ingredients. Redefine Meat says all ingredients are completely vegan and plant-based.

Competitor Novameat is also making plant-based proteins with 3D printers. The Barcelona, Spain-based company describes their printer as a “Nespresso for meat substitutes.”

“We are ordering the fibers as if they were muscular fibers, so we are micro-extending these filaments so that the plant-based steak has at the same time the appearance and the texture of an actual beefsteak,” Novameat founder Giuseppe Scionit told Reuters, according to the New York Post.

Novameat hopes to have their plant-based steak available at a top restaurant by the end of the year.