$1B Funds For Alternative Protein In Israel

Israel’s alternative protein industry attracted over $1 billion of investment in the last two years, second only to the USA, according to a new report.

While Israeli tech overall experienced a 42 percent decrease between 2021 and 2022, investments in food tech companies fell by just 18 percent, according to The Good Food Institute (GFI) Israel.

Sixty per cent of all the funds invested in food tech in 2022, went towards developing plant-based alternatives to meat, poultry, fish, seafood, milk and eggs.

And 12 startups were founded or entered the alternative protein space within the last year: four were cultivated, four were plant-based, and four were fermentation-derived. 

The Israeli government is also supporting the growth of alternative proteins. The Israel Innovation Authority invested $12 million in alternative protein startups in 2022 alone, compared with $35 million from 2018-2022. It supports them at every stage of development, from R&D, to product development, to production. 

And Israel is accelerating its efforts to research alternative proteins. In 2022, the Technion, in Haifa, announced the establishment of the world’s first multidisciplinary research center for alternative proteins, with a five-year budget of $20 million.

Together with three other Israeli academic institutions (Tel-Hai College, Tel Aviv University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) it also opened alternative protein courses covering both their scientific and industrial aspects..

“2022 brought immense challenges, from failures in global food supply, to macroeconomic declines and geopolitical tensions,” said Nir Goldstein, CEO of GFI Israel.

“Yet the threat to our climate persists, and it is clear – we can’t reach net zero emissions and create resilient food systems without shifting away from industrial animal farming. Alternative proteins are the only scalable solution, and the Israeli ecosystem is paving the way.”