An Israeli startup has developed an egg alternative from discarded vegetable cooking water that tastes like the real thing, and is even creating an artificial shell to give cooks a true culinary eggs-perience.
Fabumin makes its egg substitute at legume processing factories, using wastewater known as aquafaba. This wastewater, the company’s CEO and co-founder Adi Yehezkeli tells NoCamels, amounts to millions of cubic meters that would otherwise go down the drain.
The aquafaba is distilled into a mud-like substance that is then dried into a powder for use in the food industry. And that powder, Yehezkeli says, even foams, binds and emulsifies better than the original eggs themselves.
The process for creating the powder is done on-site at the legume plants, she explains. The plant operator acquires the technology from Faubmin and installs it in the pots used to cook the legumes.
Not only does the Fabumin proprietary technology extract the “mud” from the wastewater but it also purifies the cooking water as it does so, recycling the vast majority of it and returning it to the plant at no charge.
“The first part of the technology is evaporation,” Yehezkeli says. “We evaporate 80 percent of the wastewater, cool the steam and return the water to the factory as distilled water for free for reuse.”
The remaining 20 percent becomes the mud, which Yehekzeli likens to tomato puree. The mud is also dried and powdered at the plant and then sold to Fabumin’s clients, almost exclusively in the food industry.
In fact, Yehekzeli says, Fabumin’s international patent covers four-fifths of the global market and the technology has already attracted interest from some of the world’s biggest food conglomerates.
“We have traction [with] 15 different companies,” she says. “Food companies like Grupo Bimbo, Haagen Daaz, CSM – they’re all testing our powder.”
There is no difference in taste or texture between the foods made with real egg and those made from the powder, Yehezkeli insists. In a blind test, she says, people were unable to tell the difference between the two.
The company is also working on a scheme to create an actual eggshell, to create the actual impression of a real egg.
“It’s a whole plant-based egg,” says Yehezkeli. “You can actually take your egg and crack it into a pan.”
The Tel Aviv-based company, which was created in 2020, is also about to sign its first agreement with a legume factory in Europe to use its dried wastewater to create the egg alternative.
Yehezkeli says that although the aquafaba is a vegan-friendly egg alternative, the Fabumin product is aimed at the entire food industry, and not just those who refrain from consuming dairy.
“We’re not aiming for the vegan market,” she says. “It’s too small and it’s crowded.”
Instead, the objective is to help food manufacturers to replace the egg components within all of their original recipes, something which Yehezkeli argues has several advantages.
Firstly, she says, egg production lines are always in jeopardy of contamination from salmonella found in the bird feces that sometimes remains on egg shells after washing.
The US Centers for Disease Control actually estimates that 1 out of every 20,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella which can cause diarrhea, abdominal pain and vomiting. And with an estimated 1 trillion eggs laid every year, that is no small number.
Salmonella contamination can be disastrous for food companies, triggering costly recalls and decontamination processes as well as harming public trust in their products.
Yehezkeli gives the example of Israel’s top chocolate maker Elite, which in early 2022 recalled its entire confectionary line after salmonella was detected at its factory in the north of Israel. It took months before Elite confectionary was reintroduced to Israeli stores.
Alongside salmonella, Yehezkeli says the egg industry is also directly impacted by diseases like avian flu and by conflicts, highlighting the ongoing shelling by Lebanese terror group Hezbollah has put an end to egg production in parts of northern Israel.
Both of these factors have caused the price of eggs to rise both for the food production companies and, ultimately, the consumer.
“We can save the food manufacturers money, because they can replace [real egg] with our product, which has a stable price,” she says.
In fact, Yehezkeli points out, food production companies already use egg powder in most of their goods, including cakes and other sweet treats, and increasing the proportion will only make the products cheaper and more appealing to consumers who would otherwise be deterred by the egg content.
“This is what we are doing,” she says. “We are helping them to change to our raw material, [so] that they can reduce the cost of their ingredients and also address new markets for people who are allergic to eggs.”
Fabumin has received significant support from the Cartier Women’s Initiative (CWI), an international program dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs.
The support came in the shape of a $30,000 grant, a stand at the largest tech exhibition in Paris for two years, mentorship and the chance to pitch the company to hundreds of people.
And Fabumin even credits CWI with helping to reach its first agreement with the legume factory in Europe.
“We have excellent networking in Europe, where we will start our first international phase,” Yehezkeli says.
Fabumin was part of an innovation lab opened in Israel by New York-based International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), which sells food, scents and more around the world. And, Yehezkeli says, through IFF the company received funding from the Israel Innovation Authority, the branch of the government dedicated to advancing the national high-tech sector.
Funding from the IIA has allowed the company to create what a pilot to produce kilos of the egg alternative powder.
Yehezkeli says that while aquafaba was not unknown as an egg substitute in the vegan world, making into a powder for mass food production is what sets Fabumin apart from other companies.
“We’re enabling industrial use with a long shelf life, small storage and there is no problem working with it,” she says. “This is our vision.”
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