Animal-derived or plant-based meat: Can you guess which is which?

Berlin, January 11, 2023: Food tech startup Project Eaden today unveiled their innovative fiber technology to produce ultra-realistic plant-based meat. It exactly recreates the texture and appearance of animal meat and is also scalable, enabling the production of large quantities at low cost.

"Both plant and muscle fibers are versatile building blocks with fascinating material properties, which is why so many of today’s high-tech materials are natural fiber-inspired. For example, we use carbon fiber for rockets and satellites, and biomaterial-based implants for humans. Now, for the first time, we’re replicating meat, fiber by fiber, using proven and easily scalable textile industry technologies," explained co-founder and materials scientist Dr. David Schmelzeisen, who has been working on new textile technologies since gaining his PhD from RWTH Aachen University.

**The technology developed by Project Eaden is similar to the fiber spinning processes used for the production of the synthetic fibers that have already revolutionized the textiles, aerospace and IT industries. Fiber spinning has been optimized over decades for low-cost, high-performance and flexible use.

Today’s fibers can be designed very precisely in terms of technical properties such as elasticity, water binding ability and strength. Project Eaden has built on this development by adapting super-efficient fiber technology to manufacture food products from pea protein and other edible protein fibers. The new technology is capable of producing incredibly fine organic fibers that are just 100 micrometers thick. These ultra-thin fibers are then bundled into strands similar to those found in real muscle. In combination with vegetable fats, the result is marbled plant-based meat that is nearly identical to its animal-derived counterpart. The first product to be developed is a plant-based beef steak.

"Our ultimate goal is to offer consumers a product that eliminates every single reason there is to eat animals. We intend to fully recreate and even improve on the sensory profile and the overall pleasure people experience when they eat meat," said Project Eaden co-founder Jan Wilmking, who brings extensive experience in scaling new business models and accessing capital markets from Zalando and McKinsey.

Meat, especially beef, has a particularly negative impact on the climate. Burger patties made from plant-based proteins reduce land use by around 95%, water use by 95%, and greenhouse gas emissions by 85% compared to the beef-based originals. That's why research into alternatives has been going on for several decades. Recreating beef, especially steak, is regarded as the ultimate challenge. Plant-based meat production technologies have yet to yield a product that wins mass acceptance among consumers in terms of flavor, price, and scalability.

"A delicious plant-based steak isn’t only associated with benefits for the consumer market, but also for the planet because livestock are responsible for 6% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The ‘carbon hoofprint’ is just as large as the carbon footprint of the entire global transport sector – road, air and sea combined," explained co-founder Hubertus Bessau, who also co-founded mymuesli, one of Germany’s first digital food tech startups.

History of fiber spinning technology Some of the very first tools in the history of mankind were fiber spinning implements. Around 5000 years ago the Egyptians used primitive hand spindles to create yarns from flax plant fibers. With the invention of the spinning wheel in the early Middle Ages it became possible to process plant fibers faster and produce more stable threads and yarns. In 1665, Robert Hooke documented the idea of making artificial threads from a viscous mass.

It took until the end of the 19th century before plant materials could be chemically treated, dissolved and spun into ‘artificial silk’. The 1930s and 1940s saw the first successful spinning of fully synthetic fibers. This breakthrough gave rise to the nylon stocking and polyester yarn and it revolutionized the textile industry. Now Project Eaden is adapting textile technologies to revolutionize the food industry.

About Project Eaden Project Eaden is a Berlin-based food-tech company that envisions making saving our planet a pleasure. To accomplish this, Project Eaden’s in-house R&D team develops innovative, proprietary manufacturing technologies for delicious, sustainable food. The first product is an ultra-realistic plant-based steak that will be launched in 2023.

Materials scientist Dr. David Schmelzeisen, mymuesli founder Hubertus Bessau and ex-Zalando manager Jan Wilmking founded Project Eaden in early 2022. The team has raised €10.1m in seed funding from investors such as Creandum, Magnetic, Atlantic Food Labs, Shio Capital, Trellis Road, and top-tier angel investors.

For further information please contact:
[email protected] +49 (0) 179 746 0625

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