Food Tech Startup of the Week is a series of interviews with founders and CEOs of Israeli startup companies in the Food Tech industry, in a collaboration with the ACT Hub. We share their stories about early struggles, growth and success, in the hopes of providing some insight for entrepreneurial spirits looking to walk in their footsteps.
This week's startup – SOOS Technologies
SOOS Technology is a biotechnology company that aims to solve one of the toughest challenges the poultry industry has today – male layer extermination and production capacity loss in commercial hatcheries.
Interview | Ms. Yael Alter, CEO
――― Why did you start SOOS?
Prior to SOOS Technology, I was an industry veteran and ex-CEO of a global poultry and agricultural projects company. In this role, I learned that every female chick has a male brother that is killed the moment he is born.
For me, this was an eye-opener to learn about a huge problem impacting the egg-production industry and I wanted to make a change. I started after I met my colleague and co-founder Nashat Haj Mohammad in an industry event. He told me that he discovered that sound vibration can induce sex reversal in poultry embryos! As an industry veteran, I realized this was a game-changer for egg-producers, and I knew I could contribute by helping the business side of creating a company around his fantastic idea. After raising a four hundred thousand dollar pre-seed from Takwin Labs, we were able to start SOOS in 2017.
―――What’s unique about SOOS?
Our unique proposition is to produce more female layer chickens without materially changing the resources needed. SOOS developed a hatching system that affects the sex development process in poultry embryos during the incubation stage and is able to turn genetic male layers into functional female layers that can lay eggs!
Our solution is scalable and affects the entire incubated egg population in parallel. The procedure adds sound and a software control layer to the incubator, thus providing a non-invasive, non-GMO, and non-hormonal based solution while maintaining the industry incubation practices.
――― What’s your daily motivation?
Growing up in a family of immigrants who came to Israel from North Africa in the ‘50s, my parents put an immense emphasis on education and made sure I grew up to be an independent, hard-working, and collaborative person. I put these values to work in my professional and personal life every day.
I find my daily motivation in the innovation in the poultry domain. The creation of new technology and its ability to improve industries has always intrigued me. Also, my talented team in SOOS is a significant motivating factor in my daily life, we are a small group of very committed and connected people.
―――You are using technology that can promote food sustainability. What is your vision for the future?
In my vision, Soos’s solution will solve the animal welfare problem in a gradual fashion as we improve our platform’s capability and begin to offer a compelling solution to the industry’s production and waste problem – we will replace male extermination with more female production.
SooS Technology Website: http://www.soos.org.il/
Photos & Information provided by SOOS Technologies
Photos by Jordan Kastrinsky
Interview by the ACT Hub
