When Christophe Chantre and fellow scientists at Harvard Universitypublished a paper关于在2019年使用明胶创建基于细胞的肉的脚手架时，它立即引起了很多关注。
它产生了周到的讨论在该行业内，关于需要可食用和不可见作的结构的需求，在该结构中种植了培养肉的细胞。Chantre发现自己打了一些意外的电话。While the research solely dealt with cell-based meat, he was hearing from plant-based meat makers — both at startups and Big Food. These companies wanted to know if something similar could be done for plant-based meat, since attempts to make something more structural for plant-based whole cuts had failed.
"We thought it was potentially possible, but I think getting all this interest from these billion-dollar companies as opposed to a cash-constrained startup was very exciting for us," Chantre said. "And we decided essentially to slightly pivot to first focus on plant based."
With that pivot, Tender was born. Chantre became CEO and his research partners Grant Gonzalez, Kevin Kit Parker and Luke MacQueen also took founding positions.
从那时起，该公司一直专注于完善其技术，在行业推销活动中获得曝光并筹集资金。今天，招标宣布关闭了由Lowercarbon Capital领导的1200万美元种子回合。其他投资者包括其预种植的圆形领导人Rhapsody Venture Partners，女演员Natalie Portman，Safar Partners，Bread and Butter Ventures，MCJ Collective和Unovis。
解决问题的问题
As Chantre started the company and refocused its aims, he clearly knew the problem he was trying to solve.
他不知道是如何解决的。毕竟，基于细胞的肉类和植物性肉是两种截然不同的东西。虽然基于细胞的肉是由生物反应器中的活细胞生长而形成的，但植物性肉通常始于挤出的植物蛋白。挤压是将成分改革为不同形状和纹理的过程，是首次在1930年代发明一般来说，已经广泛用于食品加工。尽管挤出已经经历了重大的技术改进，尤其是plant-based meat space has taken off，该过程仍然会导致物理成分。
Chantresaid he and his team spent about a year looking for solutions. They developed a process similar to the one they had used to create cell-based meat scaffolding out of gelatin.
"Essentially, we've developed fiber manufacturing platforms," Chantre said. "They kind of look like a cotton candy machine, and so they allow us to create fibers."
嫩的是服用植物蛋白混合物，包括大豆蛋白，饮食纤维或其他碳水化合物，并将其混合成溶液。然后，该溶液以快速的速度旋转到宽度纤维中。然后将这些纤维像纤维组织一样组织起来，可以在其中添加脂肪和调味料。他说，基本上，该公司正在制作其为脚手架创建的相同类型的纤维，但将它们用作肌肉纤维而不是增长结构。
这项技术的最终结果是整个削减的行为比市场上的其他人更像肉。招标有一个视频，它很容易地分享了某人将手指挖入该公司创建的植物性猪肉嫩的视频，对逼真的纤维感到惊讶。
嫩产生的原型与当今市场上的一些下一代全切植物肉相似，但并非完全相同。目前来自Morningstar Farms市场上的产品，Ozo and Gardein使用高动力挤出。
Other manufacturers' product "resembles a dense protein kind of slab," Chantre said. "...Muscle or meat, it's independent fibers, muscle fibers that are kind of bundled together. Whereas there [in other manufacturers' products], it's kind of the opposite. You have like a chunk of of pea protein that has some kind of striations in it, and maybe when you peel it apart, that does look a little bit fibrous. It's not enough, honestly."
The road to products
While Tender has been actively showing off its technology atpitch events at major industry conferences, the company currently has no partnerships with Big Food or any other plant-based companies.
Chantre说：“我们意识到，在这一点上首先要启动产品可能更容易。要获得一些消费者的反馈和几件事需要改进。”“……我认为我们意识到[其他公司]不会为我们做这项工作。他们有兴趣 - 我们已经与所有这些公司进行了交谈 - 但他们有点想看到您扩展并拥有一些在进行有意义的讨论之前，消费者的牵引力。”
Chantre said Tender is looking at a few pilot tests in restaurants at the end of this year, and a more formalized launch in 2023.The company's current capacity is several pounds per hour, he said, but it is only working in R&D-sized facilities at this point.
Plant-based is an exciting area in which to work, with much faster product development and iteration,Chantre说过。没有等待细胞生长的等待，以了解特定溶液的起作用程度。科学设备也更便宜 - 不需要生物反应器，培养基或细胞。Chantre将在植物性肉类工作的工作描述为材料科学问题，在这种问题上，挑战与哪种输入和成分有关，导致最佳输出。
"We make solutions in the morning, and we're making products in the afternoon, and we can just taste it in the evening, and then we can start over the next day."
However, Chantre said, he is willing for the company to eventually pivot back to the cell-based meat segment. Tender has received a$256,000 grant from the National Science Foundationto develop gelatin scaffolding for cell-based meat. Chantre said mastering the concept of fiber creation can make it easy for the company to do both somewhere down the line.
Chantre说：“这只是改变纤维尺寸的问题。”“因此，如果我们想为基于细胞的脚手架做一个脚手架，我们只会使较小的纤维和细胞生长。如果我们想进行植物性纤维，我们只会使纤维的大小如实际的肌肉纤维的大小。”
更正：与市场上的其他基于植物的整体削减相比，本文的先前版本提供了对招标最终产品的错误描述。
