BioBetter, a company that uses tobacco plants to stimulate the mass production of cultivated meat, has opened its first-ever facility in northern Israel, reports nocamel.
BioBetter grows tobacco plants and uses proteins from them, specifically insulin, transferrin, and the growth factor FGF2 – compounds that are necessary to make cultivated meat commercially viable. The pilot plant can process 100kg of these tobacco plant-derived “growth factors”.
These growth factors play a key role in forming authentic and well-structured muscle tissue in cultivated meat. “Cultivated meat is still very expensive in comparison to conventional meat and the key is to reduce the growth medium costs to a minimum,” said Dr. Amit Yaari, CEO of BioBetter. “Our target is to reduce the production cost of growth factors, including insulin, a key part of the growth medium, to USD 1 per gram which is a 100-fold less than the going rate today.”
According to the report, the company is currently in the stages of obtaining approval from the Israeli Ministry of Health for food manufacturing licensing.

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