For millennia it has been the “land of milk and honey”, at least according to the Book of Exodus.

Despite 2000 years of turbulence, the description still fits Israel today – except now you can find that same milk and honey made entirely without bees or cows, in world-leading food-tech labs.

Taking a tour of the startups that promise food without the eco-cost and ethical issues around intensively farmed animals, the JC discovered brilliantly innovative pioneers who may be feeding the planet in the not-too-distant future.

At Bee-io in Rehovot, amid whirring centrifuges and bubbling test tubes, scientists have found a way to create honey without bees.

Chief executive Ofir Dvash – whose serendipitous name means “golden honey” – and his scientist sister, Efrat Dvash-Riesenfeld, have created a range of products from plant matter that look, smell and taste like honey, offer the same health benefits and, it is claimed, are even genetically identical to the natural form.

Designed for the mass market, their creations are designed to satisfy growing global demand while ensuring the world’s bee population is spared the damage of industrial-scale apiary.

Bee-io hopes its range of honey-based products and flavoured honeys will hit the market in the US and Israel within the next year.

The company is one of dozens of startup incubators at the cutting edge of food science across Israel. In these labs, scientists are devoted to fixing the problem of feeding a growing global population for an affordable amount, without paying the price in carbon emissions produced by livestock or fertiliser.

Backing comes from the Israeli government’s innovation fund in tandem with a flood of money mostly from US venture capital. With the total investment adding up to billions of dollars, food tech in Israeli has attracted more investment than any other country in the world outside of the US.

Across the corridor from Bee-io’s lab is Wilk, a startup working on non-livestock-sourced milk. Engineered from the milk production cells of cows, the dairy alternative is still in its early stages, but Wilk hopes it can not only open up a whole new world of sustainable dairy but even produce human milk by the same method.

Also in Rehovot, Redefine Meat is attempting to appeal to the reluctant vegans with a totally plant-based meat substitute that tastes like meat and recreates the texture of steak. Celebrity chef Marco Pierre White is an ambassador for the company and has put its products on his menus.

For the adventurous, Hargol in the Golan Heights is the world’s first intensive grasshopper farm, marketing whole grasshoppers, grasshopper powder and even grasshopper gummy bears to customers all over the world. The name Hargol is the biblical name for a kosher grasshopper, and the firm’s products are all under hechsher.

Tel Aviv startup Mush Foods is spending millions growing mushroom fibres that absorb the flavour of meat. Used in a 50/50 blend with beef, it helps to cut the carbon cost of cattle farming and also offers the health benefits of reduced meat consumption.

Here the JC gives its taste verdict on a few of the brilliant new foods of the future...

Hargol food’s lamb kebab with grasshopper protein 3/5 

The taste gives no clue that there are hundreds of crushed up grasshoppers in the form of powder that bulks up the meat. The grasshoppers seem to suck up the natural fat, but the small loss in flavour is offset by the protein boost.

Mush Food’s Mycelium protein 50/50 burger 4/5

The mix of mushroom and beef is half and half; the result is remarkably similar to a full beef burger. The mycelium protein, grown in huge beds in a custom factory, has the flavour of a regular forest mushroom and when combined with beef is basically unrecognisable.

Redefine Meat’s Plant based steak 5/5

Fancy a big juicy steak of plant-based meat that vegans can eat? The unique manufacturing process creates both the colour and bloodiness of a medium rare slab of beef. I forgot I was eating a complicated blend of peas and seasonings.

Bee-io Honey 3/5
For the most part it may as well have been the real deal but there was something ever so slightly off-kilter about it, whether the texture of the scent. Fine for a mint tea, but I wouldn’t rush out and grab a jar for Rosh Hashana just yet.