Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Alternative Protein

Court Rules That Nestlé’s ‘Incredible’ Burger Name Infringes on Impossible

A European court ruled that Néstle must change the name of its Incredible burger because it infringes on Impossible’s trademarks, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

For now, the ruling only applies to European countries. Swiss CPG giant Néstle will change the name of its patty to Sensational Burger, which unfortunately doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily but also won’t potentially confuse customers — something the court cited in its ruling. 

According to the WSJ, Impossible claimed Nestlé was “trying to impede” its entry into the European market by using a similar name for its product.

A spokesperson for Néstle said that they believe “anyone should be able to use descriptive terms such as ‘incredible’ to explain the qualities of a product.” The company is planning to appeal the decision.

Néstle launched its Incredible meatless patty last year under its Garden Gourmet brand. The burger is made of soy and wheat protein and meat to compete with the new wave of plant-based meat companies, namely Beyond and Impossible. As of right now, Nestlé’s patty sells in 15 European countries as well as Australia, and in 2019 also landed in McDonald’s stores in Israel.

Impossible doesn’t actually sell its products in Europe yet. It filed with the EU in 2019 for regulatory approval. A spokesperson for the company last year told The Spoon that Impossible plans to “sell plant-based meat in every single region of the world.” That said, one of the hangups with Impossible getting its products in Europe is the company’s use of soy hemoglobin in its products, which is the molecule that gives the patties their “bleeding” flavor and appearance. As Catherine Lamb noted last year:

While technically heme isn’t genetically modified — it’s the output of genetically modified yeast — it could still throw up some red flags for the European Food Safety Authority.

Plant-based meat’s other major player, Beyond Meat, announced a new manufacturing facility in The Netherlands last year, and more recently said it would increase availability and speed for getting its products around Europe and the Middle East.

All of which is to say, the fight over Nestlés naming underscores how competitive the plant-based meat market has gotten recently. Even if Nestlé successfully appeals the court’s decision, the company has its work cut out in terms of carving out a dominant spot in the European alt-protein market.

 

GOOD PLANeT raises $12M for Meltable Plant-based Cheese Made from Coconut

GOOD PLANeT Foods, a company that makes plant-based cheese, announced yesterday that it had raised a $12 million Series A round. The funding was led by Cleveland Avenue with participation by GreatPoint Ventures, Tasseo Consumer, Stray Dog Capital and Lever VC. This is the company’s total funding announced to date.

Based in Seattle, GOOD PLANeT makes vegan cheese — from shredded mozzarella to sliced cheddar — that doesn’t contain any soy, nuts, or GMOs. Instead, it’s made from coconut oil and potato starch plus natural flavorings.

Since it’s coconut oil-based the cheese will melt, which not all vegan cheeses, especially those made from nuts, can do. However, that also means that it’s high in saturated fat: a one-ounce serving of GOOD PLANeT’s shredded mozzarella contains 5.6 grams of saturated fat, or 28 percent of your daily recommended value.

GOOD PLANeT’s cheese is sold at major retailers like Walmart, Costco, and Whole Foods nationwide. With its new funding, GOOD PLANeT will expand production and reach.

We haven’t tasted GOOD PLANeT’s cheese ourselves, so I can’t pass judgment on how close it comes to the real thing. However, I’ve tried other coconut oil-based cheese before and find that it falls short, both on texture and flavor.

Cheese is one of the trickier products to successfully make vegan and tasty. Several startups out there, like Noquo Foods and Grounded Foods, are experimenting with new ingredients and formulations to make a better cheese alternative. On the more high-tech side, New Culture, Legendairy, and Perfect Day are using microbes to recreate actual dairy proteins to make cheese without the animal. However, none of these options are to market yet.

GOOD PLANeT’s funding does illustrate the continued interest in animal alternatives, even during COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic we’ve seen meat alternative companies attract significant amounts of investment as consumers flock to plant-based foods in the grocery store. Now it seems that dairy alternatives are also getting in on the action.

IntegriCulture Raises $7.4M for Cell-based Meat Development

Cellular agriculture startup Integriculture has raised a ¥800 million (~$7.4 million USD) Series A round to further the development of its cell-based meat, according to AgFunder News. The round was led by AgFunder, Beyond Next Ventures, Hiroshima Ventures, Hiroshima Venture Capital, NH Foods, Real Tech Fund, and VU Venture Partners. It also included participation from several other investors, including Caygan Capital CEO Naruhisa Nakagawa. This brings IntegriCulture’s total funding to date to ¥1.1 billion, or about $10.2 million USD.

The company will use the new funds for further research and development around its cell-based meat and also for building a production facility and the company’s first commercial-scale bioreactor. 

Integriculture’s first edible product will be its cell-based foie gras, which is grown in a bioreactor rather than in, well, an animal, thereby eliminating the ethical issues surrounding foie gras. Last year, company CEO Yuki Hanyu told my colleague Catherine Lamb that it plans to launch the cultured liver in restaurants by 2021 and in retail by 2023.

Hanyu is also the founder of DIY cultured meat community Shojinmeat which he started with the idea of “democratizing meat.” The aim was to give every household the ability to grow their own cultured meat in their own homes. IntegriCulture spun out from Shojinmeat in 2015. IntegriCulture’s new CulNet system, which it unveiled earlier this month, is geared towards that, allowing businesses and even (very ambitious) individuals to culture their own animal tissue.

While that sounds a little more involved than, say, growing a garden or even making your own yeast at home, it’s possible the pandemic will accelerate this idea of democratizing meat. 

In the future, IntegriCulture hopes its CulNet system will be able to culture any type of animal cell, so that they can branch out into other types of alt-meat production and even move into non-food industries like medical and skincare. 

We Tried the Plant-based Chicken Nuggets from High Tech Startup Rebellyous

Even though I technically have more time to cook during quarantine, there are some days when my motivation to scrounge up a meal is exactly zero. On those days, I turn to my freezer — frozen burritos, pre-made meals, and ravioli are always ready to go when I need them. Now I have a new staple to add to my freezer: plant-based chicken nuggets from Rebellyous Foods.

If you’re not familiar, Rebellyous is a plant-based meat company that’s reinventing manufacturing technology to make meat alternatives more scalable. After launching in 2017, the Seattle-based startup began selling its first product, a plant-based chicken nugget, to hospital and office cafeterias.

But with COVID-19 essentially closing down their marketplace, Rebellyous quickly pivoted to begin offering its nuggets on retail shelves. Last week the vegan nuggets hit the freezer sections of several small retailers in the Seattle area. A pack of 30 nuggets costs $5.99. The plant-based nuggets have a protein content comparable to regular chicken nuggets and are meant to be just as easy to prepare — whether in a corporate dining hall or a home kitchen.

A bag of Rebellyous plant-based nuggets. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

This week I was able to put that assertion to the test when I received a sample of Rebellyous’ frozen nuggets. I reached for the nuggets when I was feeling especially hangry, hoping that they wouldn’t take forever to cook. The package suggests three cooking methods: Bake, Pan Fry, or Deep Fry. It explicitly notes not to consume the nuggets raw or microwave them, which I assume would be bad for their texture.

I decided to bake my nuggets. I preheated the oven to 425°F, shook out a some nuggets onto a bare baking sheet, and popped them into the oven. Eight minutes and one flip later, and the nuggets were ready. They did stick to the baking sheet a little bit, so next time I would line the pan with parchment paper.

I’ve tasted Rebellyous’ nuggets before, so I knew what to expect. But in the past they’ve always been prepared by an air fryer; I was skeptical that my oven would provide the same crunchy exterior.

Happily I was wrong. The nuggets had a crisp, crunchy coating and a juicy interior that almost exactly mimics the nuggets I grew up eating in my elementary school cafeteria. It’s almost uncanny. The nuggets were tasty enough that I didn’t even feel the need to use a dipping sauce, though a side of barbecue would have been delicious.

Rebellyous’ nuggets post-bake. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

I just enjoyed one serving, which is six Rebellyous nuggets. One serving has 160 calories, 7 grams of fat and 14 grams of protein (Rebellyous uses wheat protein). The serving didn’t look like a whole lot on my plate, but they actually filled me up quite nicely. Since they have a relatively low calorie and fat count, you could double the serving size or just eat them as a snack.

Rebellyous is certainly heading to retail at an opportune time. Sales of plant-based meats have increased dramatically during the pandemic, as meat prices spike and people search for healthier foods. A handful of plant-based companies have also raised funding over the past few weeks, including Rebellyous itself.

Rebellyous is actually cashing in on three food trends right now: plant-based meat, comfort food, and frozen food. Consumers are looking for food that keeps well, prepares easily, and satisfies. Rebellyous ticks all of those boxes, and has the bonus that it’s kid-friendly (a boon for parents working from home).

I may not be a kid, but after trying them I’m a fan of Rebellyous’ nuggets. The fact that they cook in ten minutes, require no prep, taste satisfying and provide a hearty serving of protein means that they’ve definitely earned a spot in my freezer rotation.

Rebellyous’ nuggets are only available in the Seattle area for now. If you buy a pack, please leave us a comment and let us know what you thought!

If The End of Meat is Here, What’s Next?

The New York Times ran an Opinion piece this morning entitled ‘The End of Meat is Here” that soon had that phrase trending on Twitter. The piece was written by Jonathan Safran Foer, novelist and author of the book Eating Animals.

The full article is definitely worth a read, but here, I’ll just summarize Safran Foer’s key points:

  • Animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of global warming.
  • We don’t need animal protein to survive and thrive.
  • Family farms will not suffer if factory farming goes away.

He also dives into why COVID-19, in particular, is shedding light on the problems that come with industrial meat farming. He points to the high amounts of infection within meat slaughterhouses, and how farmers are forced to euthanize animals as said slaughterhouses close. For these reasons, Safran Foer states, the sun might finally be setting on meat.

“Our hand has been reaching for the doorknob for the last few years. Covid-19 has kicked open the door,” he writes. “At the very least it has forced us to look.”

If the time of meat is ending, what’s next?

That’s where foodtech will come in. Here’s what I envision the End of Meat could look like, based on recent shifts we’ve seen during COVID-19:

Mostly plant-based

If traditional factory-farmed meat goes away, plant-based meat certainly seems like the most viable replacement. Consumers are already familiar with it, from industry veterans like Tofurky to disruptors like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. It’s so ubiquitous that you can even get an Impossible Whopper at a Burger King drive-thru.

In fact, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, sales of meat alternatives have skyrocketed. In response that growing demand — and the fact that its restaurant partners are struggling — Impossible Foods has rapidly increased its retail footprint. Big Food companies like Cargill are also entering the space with their own plant-based plays. And smaller startups, like Rebellyous and Plantible, are taking new funding to accelerate their commercialization timelines.

Right now companies are developing technologies to make realistic plant-based versions of everything from steak to raw tuna. Are they perfect? Not yet. But with more investment, within the next decade or so consumers could theoretically buy any and every type of meat — just made from plants. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more consumers turn towards meat alternatives, the better they will be.

Finally time for blended meat?

Blended meat, which is made from a combination of animal meat and plant-based protein, could be a stop-gap on the transition away from factory-farmed meat. Consumers who aren’t ready to switch over to a diet of Impossible burgers and Rebellyous nuggets could wean off meat with blended beef burgers and chicken nuggets.

Right now there aren’t a ton of companies offering blended meat products. However, two of the biggest meat producers in the world — Tyson and Perdue — launched lines of hybrid products over the past few months. If the pandemic continues to throw a wrench into meat production, it would make sense for more leading meat companies to develop blended products to both stretch their own meat supply and lower their costs.

Photo: Raised & Rooted blended burgers from Tyson Foods

Futuristic protein sources

Not all meat alternatives will rely on plants as their protein source. Companies like Motif Foodworks are using fermentation of microbes to create bespoke proteins — and other elements — to more accurately mimic meat. Some companies, like Air Protein and Solar Foods, are even using carbon dioxide to create protein.

As the popularity of meat alternatives grows, producers will likely explore new inputs beyond just pea and soy protein. Fermentation could be a key to unlocking more evolved, more affordable alt-meat.

Coming soon: cell-based meat

We’ll know that the End of Meat is truly here when cell-based meat comes to market. Or at least when it becomes semi-affordable and accessible.

After all, if consumers can buy a steak that tastes like a cow, cooks like a cow, and is made of cow cells, will they really care if it came from a cow or from a lab? There is certainly some consumer resistance to the idea of cultured meat. But as COVID-19 sheds light on some of the less savory aspects of meat production — especially in slaughterhouses — I’m guessing that eating meat grown in sterile lab conditions could seem a lot more appealing.

Regulatory issues are the biggest hurdle for cultured meat right now. We’re at least a year from cell-based meat hitting the market, and likely a decade away from it reaching price parity with real meat. But if COVID-19 continues to cause meat prices to spike then cultured meat could actually reach price parity sooner than expected.

Photo: Impossible Foods

So what’s next?

Safran Foer’s piece argues why it’s time for the End of Meat. But how exactly will it come about? That’s a lot more complex.

Meat won’t disappear all at once with a fiery bang. Instead, we’ll likely see a gradual transition from traditional meat to meat alternatives, including plant-based and blended meat. That’s actually good news for the disruptors making alternative protein. Plant-based and cell-based meat will have to increase production astronomically to fulfill consumer demand for protein left behind by industrial meat. And once cultured meat comes into its own, the need for factory farmed meat will be all but gone.

That will be when the End of Meat can indeed transition into the Dawn of Meat Alternatives.

The Plant-based Meat Innovators and Startups Database (Spoon Plus)

But what about the constant stream of innovators bringing their products to market? Companies big and small from around the world are launching plant-based meat products of their own, trying to carve out a piece of the lucrative pie before the market becomes too saturated.

The offerings go far beyond burgers — companies are also creating plant-based seafood and developing next-generation protein ingredients to power these new meat alternatives.

To give you a clearer picture of the playing field, we’ve created a database naming the companies making plant-based meat, fish, and protein ingredients across the globe.

This sortable database includes the following fields: Company Name, Protein Category, Website, Year Founded, Region, City/State or City/Country, Company Summary, Location of Product Availability, Total Funding.

You can apply filters to search the database by keyword and also sort by category such as region, protein type and more.

The Plant-based Meat Innovators and Startups Database is available to Spoon Plus members. You can learn more about Spoon Plus here. 

JUST Partners with Michael Foods to Grow Foodservice Sales of Plant-based Egg

JUST announced today that it is is expanding the sales footprint of its vegan egg substitute by teaming up with Michael Foods. Michael Foods is a subsidiary of CPG giant Post Holdings and one of the largest processors of value-added eggs in the world.

With the new partnership, Michael Foods will be the sole manufacturer, supplier and distributor of JUST Egg to its existing foodservice and B2B customers — those who already buy Michael Foods’ egg brands, such as Abbotsford Farms and Papetti’s. It will begin to roll out JUST Egg starting this fall in select locations.

Made from mung beans, JUST Egg currently comes in two iterations: a liquid for scrambles, and a pre-cooked folded egg patty. Both are meant to cook up just like a chicken egg and contain comparable protein, with no cholesterol.

According to FoodDive, roughly 90 percent of JUST Egg’s sales in the U.S. come from grocery stores. The Michael Foods partnership will allow JUST to massively expand the foodservice footprint of its plant-based eggs in the U.S. In addition to restaurants, Michael Foods also caters to large venues like cafeterias, hospitals and stadiums.

Photo: JUST Egg

It’s an… interesting time for JUST to juice up its foodservice business, to say the least. Most crowded venues — like concert halls and stadiums — are shut down for the forseeable future and restaurants are operating at reduced capacity, if they’re open at all.

The point of the Michael Foods news is that JUST is putting fuel in its engine to expand rapidly across multiple channels — and geographic regions. Last year the company acquired a factory in Minnesota to increase production. In March they announced a group of new global manufacturing and distributions partners, from South Korea to Colombia. And just last week, the company announced that it was working with Emsland Group, a German leader in plant-based protein ingredients, to help them scale in Europe.

By partnering with Michael Foods, JUST is clearly thinking (far) ahead to pave the way for more sales when major venues and foodservice establishments open again. Some states are slowly opening up restaurants, but large-scale reopenings, especially for big venues like stadiums, seems far on the horizon.

We’ll have to wait and see if JUST’s partnership with Michael Foods pays off post-pandemic.

Omnipork Launches Plant-based Alternatives to “Spam” and Pork Shoulder in Asia

Green Monday, the company behind plant-based Omnipork, announced today that it’s unveiling two new products: a vegan lunch meat similar to Spam and a plant-based pork shoulder.

According to a press release from the company, Omnipork Luncheon Meat will be “the world’s first luncheon meat made entirely from plants.” Both Omnipork Luncheon and Omnipork Strip, a plant-based alternative to pork shoulder, will launch tomorrow at Michelin-starred restaurant Ming Court in Hong Kong, as well as Green Monday’s own line of vegan restaurants called Kind Kitchen. The products will hit retail shelves in Hong Kong in July. Pricing was not disclosed.

Based in Hong Kong, Green Monday launched its first product, Omnipork, almost two years ago. The plant-based ground pork is made from shiitake mushrooms mixed with pea, soy and rice protein, and is meant to appeal to the Asian consumer palate. Thus far, Omnipork is sold in nearly 40,000 retail and foodservice locations in six countries, including mainland China. Less than a month ago, the company announced it would be on menus in Starbucks in China, alongside faux beef giant Beyond Meat.

Photo: Green Monday

Canned, processed meat is quite popular in Asia. It was brought there by soldiers in the Second World War and since has spread to incorporate into local dishes in Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and more.

Despite its popularity, canned luncheon meat is, well, not the healthiest. A single can contains more than 1,000 calories, nearly 100 grams of fat, and double the daily recommended dose of sodium. “Luncheon meat is a food that everyone in Asia has a love-hate relationship with,” said David Yeung, CEO of Green Monday, in the aforementioned release.

In addition to health motivations, consumers around the world are turning to plant-based alternatives as COVID-19 disrupts slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, leading to higher meat prices. Considering the pandemic came just months after an outbreak of African Swine Fever, which decimated China’s pork population, it’s certainly an opportune time to debut a new alternative pork product. Or two.

Barcelona’s Cubiq Foods Raises €5M to Produce Better-for-You Cultured Fat

Cubiq Foods, a Barcelona-based startup making cultured fats for food products, announced today that it had raised €5 million ($5.4 million) from Blue Horizon Ventures and Moira Capital Partners (h/t Tech.eu). This bumps the company’s total amount of funding up to €17 million ($18.4 million).

Founded in 2018, Cubiq Foods cultivates fats and fat/water emulsions for use in industrial food products. The process is very similar to what companies are doing with cultured meat, only they’re doing it with fat. Specifically, Cubiq Foods makes oils that are rich in omega-3s, which have a laundry list of health benefits.

With its new funding, Cubiq Foods will scale up the production of its fats to industrial levels. It aims to make its cell-based fats commercially available to companies around the world by the end of 2020.

In addition to its omega-3 fat, Cubiq also converts liquid oils — like olive oil — into solids, which are intended as replacements for vegan fats like coconut oil. This could have real benefits in plant-based meat, specifically. Many options on the market right now, like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, use coconut oil to give their ground “beef” a juicy richness. Coconut oil is high in saturated fat, which can raise cholesterol levels. Adding Cubiq Foods’ new fats to their products could help plant-based meat companies make their foods more healthy and better fight critiques around health they’ve struggled against over the past year.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, plant-based meat has been getting more attention than ever — and attracting a boatload of funding, to boot. In this climate, I doubt that Cubiq Foods will have difficulty finding alternative protein companies to partner up with.

Rebellyous Launches Plant-based Chicken Nuggets in Seattle Grocers

Rebellyous Foods, the Seattle-based plant-based meat startup, announced today that it would begin selling its meatless chicken nuggets at Seattle retailers next week.

Since it was founded in 2017, Rebellyous has been selling its plant-based chicken wholesale to spots like corporate cafeterias, universities, and hospitals in the Pacific Northwest and Bay Area. Obviously, most of those were crowded gathering spaces, but are now shut down or severely limited due to social distancing and shelter-in-place orders.

As a result, Rebellyous has pivoted to move into CPG. Last month, as Rebellyous announced its $6 million Series A funding round, the company’s CEO Christie Lagally told me that they were accelerating their retail launch in response to COVID-19.

Next week, Rebellyous nuggets will make their retail debut in the freezer section at Leschi Market and Vegan Haven in Seattle. The nuggets will be sold in one-pound packs with 30 nuggets each and cost $5.99. The package includes instructions to bake, pan fry, or deep fry (it warns you not to microwave them).

Up next, the company will expand to other West Coast retailers and launch new products. Lagally told me last year that they have a plant-based chicken patty in the works. At the same time, Rebellyous is still working towards its overall goal; to improve plant-based meat manufacturing technology to make alternative protein more scalable and affordable.

If you’re in the Seattle area and try out Rebellyous’ nuggets for yourself, drop us a line and let us know what you think!

Over Sourdough? Your Next Quarantine Activity Could be Growing Meat

At this point we’re all over making sourdough, right? The needy sourdough starters, the shortages of flour… even for the fermentation-curious, it’s getting to be more trouble than it’s worth.

So for your next foodtech quarantine project, may I suggest growing your own meat?

If you don’t know where to start, Japanese company Integriculture has your back. Earlier this month the startup laid out the details of its new CulNet System; a technology that allows individuals and businesses to culture their own animal tissue.

Democratizing cultured meat has always been a goal for Integriculture founder Yuki Hanyu. In fact, Integriculture spun out of Shojinmeat, a DIY maker community focused on cultured meat founded in 2015. Interested hobbyists can already follow Shojinmeat’s guide — which is formatted to look like manga — to grow their own meat, right now.

The new CulNet system builds on Shojinmeat’s DIY framework to introduce a more sophisticated technology. It will allow everyone from restaurants to farmers to, yes, home hobbyists to grow their own animal tissue in larger quantities, with more precision.

Photo: Integriculture

Unlike Shojinmeat though, the CulNet System is not quite available yet. Integriculture is still in the R&D phase. It plans to begin licensing out the CulNet System — which includes hardware, animal starter cells, and media to feed cell growth — within the next two years or so. Until then, curious makers can still follow Shojinmeat’s guide to grow their own meat in a small scale.

Hanyu also mentioned at last year’s SKS Japan that the company was planning to release a product called Space Salt, essentially a dried version of cell culture media containing a blend of salt and amino acids, to help home enthusiasts grow their cells more easily. Hanyu said that they weren’t able to launch SpaceSalt last year because of difficulty sourcing ingredients from a factory that would give them a “legally food grade” mark. They’re still working to commercialize it.

The CulNet System is obviously geared to serious at-home makers who have the patience and motivation to tackle something like growing their own meat. But with meat processing plants closing and a meat shortage on the horizon, more and more people are taking a long, hard look at where our meat comes from.

This awareness could help accelerate consumer acceptance of new technologies like cultured meat — whether it’s made at home or by startups like Integriculture, Memphis Meats and Aleph Farms. For its part, Integriculture hosted a private taste test of their first product, cell-based foie gras, in 2019, and plans to start selling it commercially in 2021.

If growing your own animal tissue at home seems like too much work, you could always use this time to learn a new restaurant-worthy recipe, make good use of your smart kitchen gadgets, or even go all-out and develop a new connected appliance. Or just go back to yeast and make something besides sourdough.

Perfect Day’s Ice Cream, Made with Animal-Free Dairy, Debuts in SF

Perfect Day, the company which uses fermentation to make animal-free dairy from microbes, announced its first official retail partner today. The startup is working with Smitten Ice Cream in the Bay Area to create a line of ice creams — dubbed Smitten N’Ice Cream — featuring Perfect Day’s fermented protein. Perfect Day provides the flora-based dairy base, while Smitten develops the flavors and churns the pints.

N’Ice Cream is available in four flavors: Brown Sugar Chocolate, Fresh Strawberry, Root Beer Float and Coconut Pecan. Those in the Bay Area can do a socially distanced pick up of Smitten N’Ice Cream pints from Smitten Ice Cream stores for $12 each, or order them for delivery for $13. Consumers on the West Coast can also pre-order a four-pint bundle of N’Ice Cream for delivery. Orders will ship on May 15 and cost $52.00 plus shipping.

You might recall that Perfect Day has already tested its flora-based dairy in ice cream. Last July, the company did a limited-edition sale of 3,000 pints available through its website and sold out.

I was lucky enough to sample Perfect Day’s flora-based ice cream last year and thought it was nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. One thing I was curious about at the time was labeling. What language would Perfect Day use to communicate that its dairy was animal-free but made from microbes, not plants?

At least with the N’Ice Cream partnerships, they’ve decided to add “Perfect Day clean-label base” to the ingredient list of each co-branded. The pints are also labeled “vegan” and “lactose-free.”

One thing has changed from Perfect Day’s launch last year: its price point. Last year’s limited-edition ice cream cost $60 for three pints (plus almost double that for shipping). At $12 a pint, their new price point is much more reasonable, and on par with some of the fancier vegan ice creams on the market. The lower price could be because Perfect Day teamed up with Smitten to actually produce and package the ice cream, instead of doing it all themselves.

The N’Ice Cream launch comes just a few weeks after the FDA officially approved Perfect Day’s flora-based protein as GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe). When I spoke with Perfect Day co-founder Ryan Pandya after the news broke, he told me that the company had “numerous product launches” coming up with partners “across different product categories and channels.” He also noted that COVID-19 had not dramatically altered any of these timelines.

Add to that Perfect Day’s $200 million in funding, and my guess is that we’ll be seeing flora-based dairy show up in a lot more than just ice cream very soon.