Finally Foods is teaching a potato how to be a cow

What does Finally Foods Ltd do?

An AI-based molecular farming startup that grows animal proteins in plants. Its first product is casein, the key protein behind dairy’s functionality. Finally has successfully conducted three open-field trials and is now advancing toward commercial-scale production for the global dairy industry.

The current landscape

Casein is the protein that gives dairy many of the qualities consumers expect — from cheese that melts and stretches to the texture and nutrition of milk and other dairy products. There is no true substitute for it when the goal is to create cow-free products that behave like conventional dairy. At the same time, rising global demand for protein is creating a need for additional, scalable sources of high-quality protein beyond traditional animal agriculture.

This is why several companies worldwide are racing to produce casein without the cow. Molecular farming is an emerging category in alternative proteins, particularly suited to producing complex proteins that are more challenging and costly to make using existing methods such as precision fermentation.

Precision fermentation has made significant progress, but casein presents a particular challenge: its four main proteins typically need to be produced in separate fermentation processes, then individually purified and recombined — adding complexity and cost to a production model that already requires significant capital investment in fermentation infrastructure. Molecular farming offers a fundamentally different approach: plants can be engineered to produce multiple proteins simultaneously within the same crop.

Finally produces all four major casein proteins together in a single potato plant, allowing the biology of the plant to do much of the work within one production system. Combined with its exclusively licensed AI platform, which dramatically accelerates development, this creates a potentially simpler, more scalable and capital-efficient path to casein production. Finally reached successful open-field expression just 10 months after the company was formed and has already attracted investment from two international food companies, including Coca-Cola Israel, owner of Tara, Israel’s third-largest dairy company.

How Finally Foods Ltd started

Finally Foods was born from a need identified by Strauss Group, one of Israel’s largest food companies: the dairy industry needed a way to produce casein without relying solely on the cow. At the same time, Evogene, a computational biology company with more than two decades of experience using AI to improve plant biology, was exploring how its technology could be applied to food. The opportunity brought together an experienced entrepreneur, Dafna Gabbay, and Dr. Basia Vinocur, then VP of R&D at Evogene, combining business-building experience with deep expertise in plant biology and AI.

Finally Foods was founded in 2024 around one ambitious goal: use AI and plants to create a new source of casein for the dairy industry. Just a year later, the company secured a strategic investment and commercial agreement with Coca Cola (Israel), owner of Tara, one of Israel’s largest dairy companies - providing early industry validation for the idea that started it all.

The Finally Foods Ltd solution

Finally Foods’ first product is casein produced in potatoes — designed to give food manufacturers the same critical functionality as conventional dairy casein, without relying solely on cows. The company’s AI-based molecular farming platform enables all four major casein proteins to be produced together in a single plant, while dramatically shortening the development cycle traditionally associated with molecular farming.

The technology has already moved well beyond the lab. Finally has completed three successful open-field trials, demonstrated all four casein proteins in a single potato plant, developed an extraction process, and is now advancing toward larger-scale cultivation, extraction and customer validation. Its commercial traction includes strategic investment from two international food companies and a signed commercial agreement with Coca-Cola Israel’s Tara dairy business.

But casein is only the beginning. Finally’s broader vision is to turn crops into a new production platform for high-value proteins, creating an additional source of protein for a world in which demand continues to grow. The company is also now exploring a protein-enriched potato — leveraging technology and know-how already developed through its work to increase protein expression in potatoes — which could open a second, much broader opportunity beyond dairy proteins.

Ultimately, Finally sees molecular farming as a new way of producing protein at agricultural scale: instead of building more factories, you plant more fields.

We believe in ‘and,’ not ‘or.’ You can pursue big ambitions and live a full life, demand excellence and enjoy the journey, build a successful business and make the world better

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— Dafna Gabbay, CEO; Dr Basia Vinocur, CTO

The team culture at Finally Foods Ltd

Finally Foods was founded by two women entrepreneurs who believe ambitious science is built by teams with direct, open communication, little ego and a shared sense of purpose. While the company is uncompromising about professionalism and results, enjoying the journey matters just as much. Today, its team of seven is united by a simple idea: use science to make a better tomorrow.

The team is now entering one of the most exciting stages of that journey: developing actual food applications with its casein. What began as an AI-designed potato and casein on a computer moved into a tissue-culture lab, then a greenhouse, an open field and finally extraction — and is now becoming food. The next step is putting that casein into customers’ hands to develop products for consumers.

That end-to-end journey captures what makes Finally Foods such an exciting company to build: AI becomes science, science becomes agriculture, agriculture becomes an ingredient, and the ingredient becomes food. The team gets to see an idea that once sounded like science fiction move, step by step, into the real world.