How Unlikely Food Innovators Are Making Cheese and Meat Veggie-Friendly

 I have absolutely nothing to say whatsoever, and yet I will make it seem like I do B2B Services and operating excellence. A headcount that you need to be considered a disrupt on your marketplace is an ownership stake in an underlying network. It had a very leveraged effect. 

Welcome to the Dejargonizer.

I'm your host, Amir Mizroch in this podcast, I speak to startup founders. I subject myself to their tech jargon to try and decipher what their company really does. I do this to find out if there's a bigger story there that matters to broader audiences like you. 

Amir Mizroch: Today, we're speaking with the team behind Alfred's Food a, food Technology Company, taking a novel approach to trying to tackle problems with our food industry and our, our food systems. What they're doing is adapting film coating technology taken from the pharmaceutical industry.

That could potentially  overcome the key barriers that have limited alternative proteins to niche market status. What makes Alfred's approach intriguing is that it doesn't require novel ingredients or major regulatory breakthroughs. potentially allowing for the rapid scaling and market entry of alternative proteins that taste good and feel like the real thing.

Does that broadly sound okay for a very broad audience before we jump into specifics?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: I think it sounds brilliant.

Amir Mizroch: Great. let's do just a quick round of introductions. Gofna. Will you, will you kick us off?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Sure. I am Gofna I'm CEO Alfred's Food Tech. My background is from food industry. I spent most of my career with Nestle. leading different units in Israel, outside of Israel, outside of R&D I was also in operations. Among of other jobs factory manager. And my last job in Nestle was open innovation manager. This is where I was in contact with a lot of mostly Israeli companies, mostly of course in food tech

 this is where I first met Alfreds, almost in day one. And I got to know the company the great team and the great technology. And when I was asked to join, I was very happy to do that.

Amir Mizroch: Everyone's heard of Nestle, but can you just give us a, profile of Nestle? It's one of the world's biggest food companies, right?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: the biggest center in Switzerland and the company that came up with many, many food categories over the years. Nestle was founded 150 years ago, and since then is leading different categories such as infant nutrition culinary products, coffee, of course of breakfast cereals, many other food categories 

Amir Mizroch: And you worked for a while in, in the part of Nestle that did the cereals, and then you moved up into kind of the food innovation part of it, right?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: I was in all kind of categories. I started with Nestle ice cream, actually, I moved into Cereal Technologies in Israel, outside of Israel. I went back into factory management of  actually chilled salads as a category. And when I was leading open innovation, it was really coming across all kind of innovative technologies that are developed outside of the company. And then the connection of those companies to Nestle for various collaboration projects.

Amir Mizroch: Amazing. Thank you Marina. Give us a quick intro .
  

Marina Kirjner Matana: I'm marina. I'm the CTO of Alfreds, my background, I work at the two biggest pharmaceutical company in Israel, Teva, and also the Dexcel Pharma. Mainly with r and d, various management research and development roles. And in the Dexcel pharma, I transfer the product that I developed to production. So everything happened from the development till the launch of the product. 

Amir Mizroch: amazing. I think I'd like to start Gofna with you. If you could just give us, um, why do we need innovation here? what is the real big step back problem if you're looking at this from, 50,000 feet up in the air and you're looking at the food system, the food industry,  the planet, like, what is the big picture problem that you're trying to solve?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: in the last more or less 10 years there was an understanding that the food system has various aspects of impact that need to be addressed in different ways. To start with, it was really the concern about global warming and the understanding that the food industry has a, a major effect on global warming mostly raising, uh, raising cows. That is where there is a strong impact on global warming. But then there is also a growing concern about the availability of nutrients, mostly of protein, because on the one hand, you need to feed more people. On the other hand there is an increase in the consumption of the animal-based proteins. So it's really about global warming. It's about concerns of food scarcity and, you know, it hasn't gone away the consideration of animal welfare.

So this is something that we always had in mind, and the concern continues to be there. So from all those  perspectives I would say there is an understanding that the food system has to introduce changes that will allow all those concerns to be reduced or to be addressed. There is also an understanding that if we shift more to towards plant-based nutrition from relying just on animal proteins, nutrition, then we actually address all those concerns together. 

Amir Mizroch: Okay, so the big picture problem is that the way that we farm, the way that we produce food is on the one hand quite dangerous to the climate the soil, it's also not producing enough protein for a growing global population. And then part of the answer is to replace a lot of that animal protein with plant-based protein.

Does that sound about right?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Yes, absolutely.

Amir Mizroch: And it seems that one of the fundamental barriers that have prevented more plant-based proteins from, you know,  appearing in the supermarket shelves and restaurants is I guess taste, texture. It just hasn't really achieved that breakthrough. Is that, is that accurate?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: I would say that the biggest barrier we see. Is the consumer's willingness to adapt and to continue consuming those products because products have been out there for a long time, and we do see different trends and consumers willing to try. And every time, you know, new products come up, we have seen consumers, trying the different plant-based products.

But at a certain moment repeat consumption is not really out there. And the level of people actually combining plant-based nutrition into their diets hasn't gone, significantly higher. And this is where we want to bring the change. This is where we want to actually increase the consumption for consumers to try new products and adapt them and continue to consume them, and gradually to be able to  reduce the consumption of animal-based proteins.

Amir Mizroch: Got it. 

I guess an example of what you're talking about, about how plant based proteins haven't really quite hit the mainstream, taken over. Is this data point that plant-based milk has captured around 20% market share in some regions, not all of them. While plant-based cheese sits at around just 2%.

Amir Mizroch: Can you kind of just explain, , where we are in that journey? What's happening there? Because 20% plant-based milk seems okay, but there's still 80% there isn't, and cheese doesn't seem to cut it at all.

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Right. So, you know, the driving force is always the consumer. We are looking to what resonates with the consumers what concerns consumers have and then what are the considerations that are super important for the consumer? The starting point is always taste and texture. This has to be addressed from the consumers. We need to tick that box without any compromise. And the eat experience is something, very complex. It's really all about the  entire, you know, how you anticipate the product to taste.

What does it taste like from the first bite to the last bite? What is the taste that you have remaining with you, when you think about what you just ate how does it last with you? all those, , considerations of the taste and texture experience are super important to the consumers and have to be very satisfying. Then there is the nutritional consideration, which is also important for the consumer. It's a complex topic. Again, there isn't just one box in nutrition, but the overall understanding of the consumer is that it has to be good for the body. Something that I would like to eat, that I feel that I'm doing good for myself. And then there is other considerations, such as cost, which is super important. It has to be competitive I would say There is a certain margin consumer is uh, agreeing to pay especially when the other considerations are well met. Uh, but there is a limit to that. And this has to be taken into a very strong consideration. And, Food familiarity is important, , the more it's something that I  recognize as something that I know that I love that I grew up with, you know, that resonates sometimes with my childhood. This is where my willingness to try and to continue consuming this product goes higher. So when you talked about milk, I think plant-based milk really answers all those considerations from the consumers. This is why indeed the level of penetration, of, of adoption is very, very high many, many markets . And this is why some other categories just do not yet get to this level. Oftentimes it's a taste and texture that need to be sharpened and, and upgraded. And then the nutritional consideration behind the products have to be considered. uh, and of course the other concerns that I mentioned.

Amir Mizroch: Right. Great. What I think I'd like to do now that we've kind of looked at just the overview is going a little bit more specific into Alfred's and in kind of two steps. Gofna if you could give us a picture of what Alfred's is doing. And then  Marina, maybe you could take us into the box, walk us into the machine, what happens when, when you turn the switch on.

Gofna Liss-Rubin: What we are doing is to use existing ingredients, but arrange them in a different way. So we end up with different products coming out of our process. it's important to mention that it's a technology platform. It can create the taste and textures that we aspire to deliver very close to the origin. A unique feature in our technology, is the fact that the technology covers, disguises any off notes, that allows us to add a high percentages of plant-based proteins without sensing any of the typical notes that are part of those ingredients. So in a nutshell, what we can do is to deliver on the taste and texture very close to the original products, very high qualities like the consumers expect it to be. And to add into our products the high percentages of proteins, which are what we believe is super  important when we talk about the nutritional considerations of our consumers. This, I would say highlights the unique selling propositions of the products that we can make thanks to our technology.

Our first prototypes are hard cheeses and cold cuts, but as I said, it's a platform. There is room for innovation in many, many different directions with our technology.

Amir Mizroch: Okay, so this being the Dejargonizer, the show is the Dejargonizer there were a couple of jargon words there that Marina, hopefully you can help us. So the one obviously is platform. Platform could mean so many things. 

And then notes, off notes? marina take us into how Alfred does what it does, maybe with a, an actual example of something that, you know, you produce, you put in ingredients, what are they, what happens? How does it work?

Marina Kirjner Matana: we use technology that's called film coating and drying. It's a roll to roll technology also used in other industries such as  pharmaceutical to produce nicotine patches. It also used in textile to coat materials and different fabrics and even in a electronic world for coating of batteries. So the technology is well known as a technological principle, but no one used it in the alternative protein space. we actually brought this technology to this space and we saw that it can solve a lot of different 

uh, 

problems that exist in this space of off notes, textures and others. And what we actually do,

um, 

Amir Mizroch: I'm sorry. Can, can you just tell me what off notes are?

Marina Kirjner Matana: yeah, of course. So usually plant-based protein, such as pea protein, soy protein, they have a very specific taste, taste, bean-y taste, taste of peas, taste of soy. And we don't want to eat cheese with a taste of beans. We want to eat cheese with a taste of  cheese, with a specific aroma and taste.

So we don't want this off notes or off taste. We want the original taste. So this is the off notes, the taste that you don't want to feel. what we actually do, we take all the materials that we need for the final product, such as proteins. It can be pea but other proteins as well. Fats different flavor additives and also color additives. And we have additional functional ingredients. We mix them together for a preparation of emulsion, with the standard processes using different mixers and homoganizers, eh, and then we pump this emulsion into the machine. And this is our special and unique technology, the film coating machine. in the machine we coat all the materials on hot plate. The plate is going through a line of  ovens and dry some of the water. In our case is different from others because usually you produce cold cuts or cheese by producing blocks. In our case, we produce a film imagine a, a long carpet or towel that's going out of the machine, and then we just have to cut it to the final shape and not to slice it as usually and to pack it. Of course. Very important to emphasize that our product are very physically stable. We can froze them and defrost them and we don't have any bad effect on the texture. 

Amir Mizroch: So it sounds like you have a recipe for plant-based cheese, that you can put in peas or other plant-based nutrients and proteins. Including a whole bunch of other additives, homogenizers, and it, it goes through the system and comes out. I'd like to just take a little detour  here if I may, one of the ideas and central concepts behind alternative proteins is that it's healthy for the planet, healthier for the consumer, for the human.

But I did hear you talk about additives, color additives flavor additives homogenizers, I guess there's trade offs here, right? Is it really a healthier alternative if you're using all these other chemicals? 

Marina Kirjner Matana: So actually I really believe that those products are healthy. I will compare them to plant-based alternatives that we have currently on the market. So usually the plant-based cheese is produced with the starch and the coconut oil. So there is no protein there. There is a, a very high amount of saturated fat. Also colors and flavor additives. So if I will compare our products to those options I can say that we have  18% of plant-based protein. So, it's very, very important in comparison to our compared

18%. 

Yeah, one 8% of plant-based protein, which is almost as the animal-based product.

And it's very, very important to the consumer. We have less saturated fat because we can use also liquid fats and solid fats. in addition, the colors and the flavor additives that we usually use are natural. Like, 

uh, 

betacaritine or beetroot colors. So I believe those materials are not problematic for the consumer. But the added value of the protein is very, very important. And people look for a protein in their food

Amir Mizroch: Got it. let's uh, go back from that detour. Gofna you've worked in food manufacturing. could you describe kind of your standard, food factory. Right? The kind of machines and the kind of processes that work there. And then Marina,  could you maybe compare that and contrast that with Alfred's food factory, like how you're building that?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Yeah, I, I think it's a very important notion, Amir. I actually really connect to that because, indeed with a lot of existing processes in the food manufacturing, all the principles that Marina mentioned before, which are mixing of ingredients or shaping, the, the material into the final product that you want or stabilizing that or drying that or packaging. All those are existing processes in the food industry. So where, what is indeed, I think very unique about Alfreds is that we are using existing principles and when we go into high scale manufacturing, we can either rely on some processes and machinery that is existing in factories in which we will produce. Or it can be easily implemented because it does not require, uh, manufacturing principles that have not been there yet in food and therefore need many years different regulatory hurdles or very  high levels of, of investments to go into high scale manufacturing. The fact that Alfred is using technology that is actually used in many industries, you know, we have experimented that in different occasions and we have also been witness of that work, in other industries to know that it is something that is easy to implement and to scale up and is not going to be a huge challenge for the industry to adapt. I think that is one of the key I would say features of the technology of Alfred, the ability to very quickly implement that in the food industry and scale it up to high levels, as the products get into the market.

Amir Mizroch: does that mean, I'm just trying to distill it. Does that mean that Alfreds can use or does use the same kind of food manufacturing machinery and processes that the traditional food industry uses?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Yes, definitely the same principles in some cases, like mixing. It's exactly even the same machinery that exists in many  industries. And even when you talk about the unique part of our technology, it's still machinery that is in use, either in other closed industries like pharma or even in the food industry, but need to be adapted and made fit to produce really our final products.

Amir Mizroch: So you're not reinventing food manufacturing. Like, let's say I've seen technology companies, food technology companies that are completely reinventing things like they're taking animal cells and growing meat you know, in a lab. Right. Or they're taking proteins from the wild and creating new food powders from them, to put into other food.

Can you just describe for the audience, the two poles right there is the traditional food industry manufacturing, and then there's a way out, far out food tech, reinventing food industry and maybe position Alfred's in that 

Gofna Liss-Rubin: let me try and describe it like that, and then Marina can of course  elaborate on that. We usually look at three families of of, technology areas. Okay. One would be the application of plant-based ingredients like we are doing. And that can be either developing new plant-based ingredients per se, like new plant-based proteins that have not been used in the industry or new ways to produce the final products.

But relying, on close by principles, this is where we are. You have said you know, that it means that we are not reinventing, I think we are reinventing in the final product because coming up with product like ours that are. One step, I would say ahead in terms of how similar it is to the original product and how well it answers the consumer's needs on the taste and texture and the ability to add a protein. I think we are delivering a reinvention in the product delivery, but from the industry perspective it does mean that it's not that complicated in the end and therefore it can happen quickly and to high  scales. this is one area. It's processing plant-based ingredients or coming up with new plant-based ingredients. Then we're talking about an industry of precision fermentation. This is where many different companies and technologies are actually using microorganisms and modifying, if you want the microorganisms mm-hmm. To produce. What you want the final product.

So if you want to mimic the protein that is produced from cows, you could teach microorganisms to produce the same type of protein. And then you can finally get this protein and use it in different food applications. And precision fermentation, indeed, is a very advanced technology and is now being developed by many different companies. 

And the last one I would say know, when you look at those categories is indeed cellular agriculture. When you actually produce meat or tissue or, you know, different tissues in a lab and then maybe in a manufacturing area. And this an even more advanced technology, I would say from the level of complexity and there is  companies indeed, that are active in this area.

Amir Mizroch: Marina, could you unpack all of that into, an example of how Alfred's makes its cheese, for instance, right? Everything from the ingredients that you're using to the process without, you know, divulging all your ip, and then how do you actually, mimic the taste and texture of the cheese that you're producing?

Marina Kirjner Matana: So in the beginning when we want to plan the product itself, we usually took nutritional values from the animal based cheese.

Of course, we look on the protein content, the fat content the carbohydrates content. And we want to be, similar as much as possible, want to mimic that the ingredients. So we start with the formulation that will give us the, the chance to mimic it. We take a plant-based protein in the correct amount the fat the flavors, the colors of course, to reach our target I will give an example in the plant-based  cheese we use Beta carotene and in standard plant-based cheese they also use Beta carotene. even in the animal based cheese, they use Anatto yellow color.

So, this is the standard thinking of the animal based and also the regular plant-based cheese. And then we mix all the ingredients and homogenize them to produce a very homogenous emulsion. And it's also similar to the other plant-based cheese producers. But then, the problem of the plant-based which is currently exist in the market, that they actually can't add a lot of protein to their product. And the reason is that they will, have very, very viscous solution or emulsion that is very problematic for the downstream afterwards. It's very viscous. It's very hard to homogenize it with the different flavors and colors. And also  afterwards in the final product you will have a lot of off taste that we mentioned before. In our case, because we use the film coating and drying technology, we evaporate some of the water. our emulsion is much less viscous than of the competitors, so we can homogenize it very, very well. And then to use our special process of film coating and drying 

and, 

get a final product. Additional difference that we have from the standard plant-based cheese is that we don't have any stabilization time that needed. Usually plant-based cheese have to be two, three, months stabilized in the chilled condition.

In our case, the, the product is ready to eat from the machine. And we can save time and energy. So it's very effective. And then we just have a standard cutting for the final shape for  cheese is very, very easy. And packaging as a regular cheese plant-based or animal-based. don't have any problem with stability, shelf life and any other issues.

Amir Mizroch: Amazing. I like that. Let's talk about the market, the business, the consumers, the challenges. I feel like we've, we've done a good job in the what and the how. So, Gofna when we were preparing, you said that Alfred is positioning its approach as integration rather than the replacement of animal proteins.

Which is kind of a more, I guess a middle of the road philosophy. Is that the business strategy here or is that just because of the consumer taste and the way that the food industry is built, or do you see yourself as growing and developing into the kind of more ambitious, changing the food industry?

Later on? Take us into the, the strategy there. 

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Yeah, I believe we're really well posed to make a difference, to make a change. But like you rightly said it's more understanding, you know, the consumer's mindset. And when you look at the, the consumer's uh, aspirations in uh, markets like, you know, different European markets or the United States of course here in Israel we hear that about 50%, sometimes even more of the consumers want to reduce the consumption of animal-based proteins.

They do not necessarily want to replace it all over, but they do want to make a, a reduction in order to be better for the planet, to be better for the animals. From all those considerations, you know, what we are looking to do is actually to answer those needs from the consumers. I think this is the case where we don't want to necessarily educate the consumers to make a huge, huge radical change, but we want to ride on the wave of what the consumers actually wanna do and expect to do. The reasons that consumers are not doing, you know, this reduction to the level that we would like them to do is because  obviously they have not yet met the right products or good enough products to do that. What we bring in is this next generation of products that answer all the different requirements from the consumers. And this is where we will bring this combination of, coming in to the consumer's diet and uh, allowing them to reduce sometimes, you know, the consumption of animal-based products. And integrate that in a simple and and harmonious ways into their daily diets.
  

Amir Mizroch: Can you be a little bit more specific about the kind of, I guess, consumer disappointments or holdbacks with earlier plant-based products?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Yeah, it's always been, you know, the truth of the food industry, that it always starts with taste and texture. You know, we call taste the king and the texture of the queen of the food industry. Those have to be met. There is no compromise on that.

And even if you're willing to maybe sometimes, you know, eat something that you don't think is a 100% meeting your requirements. the next time you will not recon consume  this product. You will not buy it again. And we won't see this adoption that we're looking to see. So taste and texture are always, would drive consumer's decision to start with. But then we've learned that consumers actually are looking for the nutritional considerations. We did talk a lot before about the protein and like Marina emphasized the fact that we're switching to consumption of plant-based products means that, we also expect to see a good level of protein in the product. To make sure that when we replace the animal-based proteins there is a new source of protein in the product. And that is very important to the consumers. Very important in the consumer's decision making. 

Amir Mizroch: Let's talk about the cost because it always seems to me that when you look at at a supermarket, you know, you have your regular chicken, meat, eggs, all that kind of stuff that has a certain price. But then when you try and do something a little bit healthier, it's organic or plant-based, the price can double, triple.

And that is a major  barrier to a lot of people. How does Alfred's look at that whole, that whole problem?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: In Alfred's we're very minded about the cost consideration and where we have to be. We've invested a lot of work to understand, what are the cost targets that we need to address and to make sure that we actually meet those cost targets We really go product by product and understand the sensitivity and the specificity of that food product. You talk about cheese, there is one consideration You talk about very premium, I would say cold cuts, which we can also deliver. There is a different consideration and we really make sure that in each one of those product groups, we actually meet the cost targets and we don't exceed the margin that the consumer is willing to pay. the technology allows us to do that we are really very flexible on the ingredients we use. We can use all types of ingredients.

It's not that we came up, you know, with one novel ingredient that is very expensive and dictating the cost that we have to anticipate from the final product. But we are  able to use all kind of

Amir Mizroch: Like which ones?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: like we can use one type of protein or we can use another type of protein. We can use a protein. When we go into manufacturing in Israel.

Amir Mizroch: Like what?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Like pea it allows us to also meet very nicely all those different considerations, cost included. 

Amir Mizroch: Marina, could you briefly describe How do you go from creating cheese to cold cuts? And just a quick detour. I'm assuming it's completely kosher 'cause there's no meat and there's no milk there. Right. But how do you reconfigure the system to do that?

Marina Kirjner Matana: As Gofna mentioned, we have a platform and not the technology for specific product. 

So actually the production of cheese and cold cuts are not very different from each other. We use a bit different ingredients. we use flavors suitable for cold cuts instead of cheese flavors. We use different colors instead of yellow colors. We use red colors. We use beetroot  and raddish for that. So the composition is a bit different to give us flavors and aroma that needed for cold cuts. And some of the process parameters should be adjusted to reach a different texture of the final product. 

Amir Mizroch: you are already producing cheese, cold cuts. What else is in the pipeline? What other kind of foods are you thinking of? And then, how do you get that into market more?

Marina Kirjner Matana: So of course in addition to cheese and cold cuts, we can produce with the same technology and exactly same machine also whole cuts, different kinds of whole cuts very fibrous that look really, really similar to the real thing. also we can develop

Amir Mizroch: cuts, you mean steaks? 

Marina Kirjner Matana: Yes. I mean, chicken filet, for example, and other options even salmon. But in addition to that, our technology can be also an enabler for other technologies that you mentioned before, such as the culture meat, and also the  precision fermentation, because we can take those cells from the cultured meat section and introduce them to our product, Instead of the flavoring materials. And then we will have a very good effect of texture from our platform and the aroma and the taste from the cultured meat sector, for example. In addition, we can take the recombinant protein produced from the precision fermentation that Gofna mentioned, and use this protein instead of the plant-based protein and produce a very good cheese. 

Amir Mizroch: Both of you come from kind of traditional food and pharma industries Gofna what is the market opportunity here for Alfreds and similar companies? What, is the, the tam, the total addressable market for you guys?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: So we have actually many total addressable markets this is a flexible technology so we can produce and address a variety of food categories. There's still a huge space because even,  milk category, which is maybe the highest, like you said in adoption is still a 20%.

But when you look at categories like meat in general, cold cuts you know, cheese in general, it's still very much blue ocean in many of those categories.

And anytime that companies like ours, we bring in innovation that addresses in a better way, I would say, or more advanced way the consumer requirements then the level of adoption would increase. So total adjustable market is huge. Meat is uh, 1 trillion business and the level of adoption is very low. Cheeses on its own, you know, is a couple of hundreds of billions and then the room to grow in those spaces is huge.

Amir Mizroch: So what are the major challenges that are kind of standing in your way now? The, the things that you're trying to work through, whether it's technological consumer taste, regulatory, just market challenges. Just lay out what the road ahead and what the challenges are there for you.

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Right? We are now an exciting time where we're actually taking our product out from the lab  after a few years of mastering the technology, optimizing the first, product that can come out with the technology. We are now in the phase of scaling up. And commercial manufacturing and taking the product really to the consumers, to the markets. this is super exciting. We have the right team. Besides Marina, of course, we have super gifted people in operations, in manufacturing, in process engineering that really have all the skills needed in order to scale up and take those products to commercial manufacturing. The other focus that we have we haven't mentioned that before, but our commercial strategy is B2B. We can take it to all kind of directions, to bring this next generation food product. And we are looking to collaborate with food companies that already have the reach to the market, that have the brands to reach the consumers, the supply chains, everything that it takes.

And also to companies that have manufacturing capabilities and want to deliver final products based on our technology.

Amir Mizroch: I was gonna ask you about the reaction from the major food  industry players and, and Nestle, right? Your previous employer. Is that, is that door open to Alfred's or is it like, you know, leave us alone. We know what we're doing.
  

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Alfred has been a B2B company almost from day one. We've worked with a lot of industry players and we have developed different products based on different projects with industry players. Of course, I cannot mention any names specifically because this relies, you know, in things that are very confidential.

But we do have a very strong links to many industry players and we're looking now how to even strengthen those collaborations and to take a product to the market with different partners. 

In Israel, Israel is our beta site. This is actually, you know, market where people are very open to plant-based products very open also to innovation, and it's very close to us.

So it's very important for us to scale up our products and test them first, you know, here because it's very accessible to us. But on the same time, we are in different relations with companies  outside of Israel. 

Amir Mizroch: Marina, can you describe what your major technological challenges here to scaling to production and also I guess the platform itself needs to be able to be flexible for different kinds of products. Just take us into the engineering and science of that.

Marina Kirjner Matana: Okay, so scale up. It's always a challenge. A lot of experiments a lot of, of data analysis and a lot of planning. But from the side of the technology, I can't really say that we have major challenges.

I think the same challenge that the every technology has to find the parameters for mixing in bigger scale, parameters for the coating and drying . But I can't see something very challenging that can be an obstacle for us to reach the final target with the good product. Also, shelf life looks very promising. I'm really happy with that. I believe we will go to a  very big scale in the future. I think that our challenges are really, similar to every life science production process.

Amir Mizroch: Interesting. Okay. As we're heading into the last few minutes I'd like to take a minute, Gofna, what's different about Alfred. Alfred's is also in the alternative protein, the plant-based protein industry, but you've mentioned a lot of different things here that it's doing.

Just give us kind of the core difference. What makes Alfreds different?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: It's a great question. I think, you know, it's always a combination of things to start with. I think Alfred did come up with a technology that can and does bring a real difference with the with the products, the quality of the products, and then addressing all the different considerations from the consumers that we've mentioned.

I think the fact that we actually tick all those boxes is super important because all those boxes are important. I think the speed the technology can be implemented is super important because  it's very important for a new company to able to demonstrate it very quickly. Fact that we don't have any regulatory barriers or the availability of the process is unique. And last but definitely not least is really our people. People that first really bring all the different expertise needed to implement a new, to develop and implement a new technology. Marina is a really leading a very unique r and d team that comes with this very unique combination of pharma and food people. And this pharma mindset really allows the innovation to go in a different way than what is traditionally implemented by other companies and brings very unique capabilities. 

Amir Mizroch: What's the next milestone, the upcoming milestone for the company? Are you able to just to give us a quick hint on that.

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Yeah, maybe the biggest one is that we are actually going to be in the retail market in Israel very soon. We're talking about weeks away from now. that is super exciting. You know, I seen in my mind going into supermarket and seeing  Alfred's products on the shelves.

We have to demonstrate, you know, from A to Z that the product can be manufactured, sold be present, get the consumer feedbacks that we're looking to get, we are developing now the partnerships with different commercial companies and going very soon to go into collaboration and sales with those companies as well. In Israel and outside of Israel.

Amir Mizroch: So in a few weeks potentially, if all goes well, I'll be able to go into a supermarket and see Alfred's what? Cheese cold cuts.
  

Gofna Liss-Rubin: Yes. Yes, exactly.

Amir Mizroch: All right. And it will look the same? will the branding and advertising be very kind of, this is plant based. Are you gonna make that a virtue?

Gofna Liss-Rubin: we We are going to highlight that it's plan-based, obviously, because this is what you know, the first consideration is. But we're going to also highlight, uh, the other unique characteristics that we have in the product. The real novelty that we bring, and that together with the final eating experience of the consumer I'm very confident that it'll make a difference.

Amir Mizroch: Brilliant. That sounds great. I personally wish you the best of luck. I think It's just great to  see more. People from the traditional food industry and the life science industry actually getting into into this area. So is there anything that you think that I've missed?

Any kind of, any area that, that you feel like, oh, we should have spoken about that? 

Gofna Liss-Rubin: We really covered it and I wanna thank you for the opportunity, Amir, and for this platform to present and, to explain dejargonize a bit about what's behind the Alfreds. And thank you for for the opportunity. It's great.

Amir Mizroch: Thank you. Thank you both. 

Marina Kirjner Matana: It was a pleasure.​