Aleph Farms launches programme to cultivate meat in space

Israel-based start-up Aleph Farms has announced the launch of its new programme, Aleph Zero, as it aims to accelerate extraterrestrial food production.

The new initiative is focused on introducing new capabilities to enable local production of fresh, quality meat anywhere, independent of climate change and availability of local natural resources. 

The Aleph Zero programme will publicly debut today at CMS20 Online (Cultured Meat Symposium), alongside NASA, and follows on from the company’s first successful experiment of cultivating cell-grown meat on the International Space Station a year ago.

As part of the programme, Aleph Farms is partnering with technology companies and space agencies for long term collaborative research and development contracts that the start-up says will ensure the integration of its innovations into leading space programmes.

These programmes will leverage the company’s knowledge in cell biology, tissue engineering and food science to establish BioFarms in extraterrestrial environments. Eventually, Aleph Farms says it will be able to apply the lessons learned in space to earthbound sites.

“The constraints imposed by deep-space-exploration — the cold, thin environment and the circular approach — force us to tighten the efficiency of our meat production process to much higher sustainability standards,” said Didier Toubia, co-founder and CEO of Aleph Farms.

He added: “The programme ‘Aleph Zero’ reflects our mission of producing quality, delicious meat locally where people live and consume it, even in the most remote places on Earth like the Sahara Desert or Antarctica, providing unconditional access to high-quality nutrition to anyone, anytime, anywhere. When people will live on the Moon or Mars, Aleph Farms will be there as well.”