But this isn’t about boosting fruit and vegetable harvests without planting a single seed.

Here, as well as reducing waste, the aim is to supply the booming nutraceutical industry, which involves extracting substances from food sources to create products promising health benefits.

Whether using beef stem cells to cultivate steak, oyster tissue to create new mollusks or even mammary gland cells to make breast milk, in vitro food technology has come a long way since the very first lab-grown burger was eaten in 2013 in London.

For nearly a decade, cultured food techniques – which involve feeding a cell with carbohydrates, lipids and amino acids to multiply it – are seeking to provide solutions to environmental problems.

Some start-ups in the field cite the meat industry’s carbon footprint as a reason for their activity. Others warn of the high environmental impact of some of our day-to-day foods, and the need to provide alternatives.

Take, for example, the lab-grown coffee developed by a team of Finnish scientists, of the Finnish confectionery brand Fazer’s cell-cultured cocoa.

In Israel, labs have even cultivated yeasts, like those used by bakers, in order to extract natural colorants, rejected by the cells during the fermentation process, to provide alternatives to synthetic additives.

But some of our daily staples, including vegetables, haven’t yet extensively served as the guinea pigs of lab-cultured food projects.

Founded at the very beginning of the year, the Novella start-up is a newcomer to the Israeli food tech scene, which has already made a name for itself in the field of plant-based protein alternatives, with $160 million invested in this type of business in the first half of 2022 alone, according to a report from the Good Food Institute.

While vertical vegetable production systems have been providing a solution to feeding growing urban populations without currently expanding farmland, Novella’s business is seeking to reduce the waste generated by agriculture destined for purposes other than food.

Here, it is no longer a question of growing a whole plant to extract certain nutrients, but of cultivating tissue precisely from the part of the plant that is of interest, be it the leaves, stems or fruit, for example.

Focusing first on kale

The objective is not to propose an alternative way of harvesting fruit and vegetables, but rather to bring a new solution to the nutraceutical industry, which harnesses the properties of food to prevent certain infections or promote well-being.

This department includes products like food supplements, as well as so-called functional drinks.

Boosted by the pandemic, which led many consumers to try to ward off infections or viruses by taking vitamin supplements, this market is now booming.

According to a report by Global Market Insights, it will generate record sales of nearly US$400 billion worldwide by 2021. And its annual growth is estimated at 5.2% by 2030, driven by, among other things, the rise in metabolic syndrome.

This is a cluster of conditions relating to blood pressure, blood sugar, excess body fat and abnormal cholesterol levels. The syndrome increases a person’s risk for heart attack and stroke or of developing type 2 diabetes.

The Israeli company has chosen kale as its starting point, given the plant’s popularity due to its high antioxidant and vitamin content.

The whole process takes place in a bioreactor, allowing the cells to multiply. In the end, a powder is obtained, containing plant tissues rich in nutrients.

The researchers are focusing in particular extracting vitamin K from the famous detox vegetable, and are also exploring harnessing its content in carotenoids, antioxidants that can lower the risk of macular degeneration.