For those out there who love a good barbecue but have an animal cruelty conscience about it, listen up because I’ve got a solution for you and it’s printable. Israeli based startup MeaTech 3D announced a major milestone, as its scientist were successful in printing a uniform, thin, slaughter-free meat tissue produced from stem cells. The groundbreaking breakthrough further increases the feasibility of MeaTech's technologies.

The Israeli bioprinting foodtech company set on a multi-year mission to develop an industrial growing and producing process of beef cuts without the gnawing guilt of animal cruelty hiding behind every bite. By integrating the process with special 3D digital printing technologies, the company was able to construct tissue, followed by a cell-growth process. The scientists were then successful in printing different types of cells that coalesced into a single fat and muscle tissue grown in Meat-Tech's laboratory.

This showed that the experiment, dubbed “Project Carpaccio” because the stem-cell-produced cut looked like the Italian sliced meat delicacy, was a major milestone towards conquering the challenges of the company’s mission

Steven H. Lavin, MeaTech Chairman noted that “completing this significant milestone earlier than anticipated is a significant technological achievement for MeaTech, bringing it one step closer to developing technology to build slaughter-free meat-growing plants combined with printing technology, and demonstrating the company's ability to print fat and muscle cells to build tissue."

The successful experiment proposes that MeaTech’s technology can successfully sort stem cells into muscle and fat cells, which further allows the synthesis of muscle and fat tissue, as well as successfully producing specialized bio-ink designed to print fat and muscles, and the formation of printed tissue containing coalesced fat and muscle cells.

The experiment demonstrated that MeaTech's digital bioprinter has high efficacy in arranging cells in space as planned, with coalescence observed both between different cells and between cells and their environment, both of which are essential for tissue formation.

MeaTech was founded in 2018 by CEO Sharon Fima, and is based out of one of Israel’s tech hubs south of Tel Aviv. The milestone was set as a prime goal as part of the company’s January 2020 merger with Ophectra Real Estate and Investments Ltd. Furthermore, the achievement also got MeaTech’s shareholders smiling as their vested options were triggered as part of the merger, and following the success of the experiment.