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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future Food

TurtleTree Labs is Creating All Kinds of Milk (Even Human Milk) in a Lab

When I first heard about TurtleTree Labs, a new self-described “clean milk” company based in Singapore, I assumed that the startup was creating milk proteins from genetically modified microbes, similar to alternative dairy companies like Perfect Day or New Culture.

Boy, was I wrong. “That’s very much not what we’re doing,” TurtleTree’s CTO Max Rye explained to me over the phone. Instead, their scientists are using cellular agriculture to grow mammary gland cells in a lab which actually lactate milk.

And by milk, we mean any kind of milk — not just cow milk. In fact, according to TurtleTree’s CEO Fengru Lin their first product will likely be human milk.

Yep, human. She said that they’ll focus on human breastmilk initially for a few reasons. One, it could sell at a much higher cost, so they could reach price parity more quickly than with, say, cow’s milk. For context, their cultured milk — any type — currently costs about $138 per liter to produce.

However, TurtleTree won’t be selling its cell-based milk directly to consumers. Instead, the company plans to license out its milk-producing technology, for which it has a provisional patent, to large dairy companies as a SaaS model.

Rye told me that since the milk is cell-based, there’s a huge amount of versatility to their product. Their scientists can play with the settings to create milk that’s lactose-free and has different cholesterol and fat levels. So, for example, they could make a healthier milk for those following strict diets, or an ultra-creamy options for gourmet chefs. 

The startup plans to have a media day in Q1 of next year to debut their first glass of milk, which will likely be human. It’ll be a while yet before they enter the market — two years, according to Lin. The startup has raised an undisclosed amount of funding and is in the midst of raising their seed round. 

TurtleTree’s decision to operate out of Singapore is a very conscious one. Not only were two of the four co-founders already based there, but the local government is very supportive of food tech initiatives. The country has a goal to produce 30 percent of its own food by 2030 (they currently import over 90 percent). As a result, the Singaporean government gives more support to startups to get new products to market more quickly. 

That could give TurtleTree an advantage against other dairy disruptors. As I mentioned at the beginning of the piece, TurtleTree isn’t the only company trying to make milk without the animal. Perfect Day or New Culture are both using microbes to create the protein building blocks of dairy — casein and whey — to create milk that’s genetically similar to the real thing. However, Rye said that TurtleTree has an advantage over these competitors because they can make milk “without having to break it down piece by piece.” Their technology is also species agnostic, meaning they can create milk of any animal without having to rebuild an entirely new process.

I understand why heading to market with cell-based human milk makes sense from a cost perspective, but I’m not sure how well it’ll be received — at least at first. People are pretty skeptical about eating lab-grown food to begin with. Developing a product that normally only comes from humans has a distinctly Soylent Green-y vibe that could be very off-putting to consumers. Especially as something to feed to their babies.

However, as cultured meat and other products hit the market and become more commonplace, maybe that perception will change.

Mycusini, the First Consumer-Priced 3D Chocolate Printer, Begins Shipping in Europe

While the future of 3D food printing will include everything from printed bread to plant-based steaks, the reality is printing globs of goo for your meal might not be an appetizing thought for most consumers.

But what if it were chocolate?

If you live in my home, where pretty much everyone is a certified chocoholic, there’s a good chance you’d find some takers. Luckily for us, a consumer-priced 3D chocolate printer went from idea to reality recently when the mycusini home 3D chocolate printer started shipping in Europe.

Priced at €298 (~$320), the mycusini is the only chocolate printer on the market today shipping below the $2,000 price point. The product debuted on Kickstarter in June and went on to raise €20,000 (~$22,185 USD). Originally, mycusini was scheduled to ship by the holidays, but the product is weeks ahead of schedule and, according company spokesperson Gerd Funk, regular orders for the Kickstarter were all fulfilled at the end of last month.

Part of the reason Print2Taste, the company behind the mycusini, has been able to get the price so low is that they first developed a professional 3D chocolate printer, the Procusini, in 2015. Since that time, the company has continued to iterate and improve on the Procusini (currently in its fourth generation), including the development of the “choco” ingredient capsules that are similar to the ones used in the mycusini.

As I wrote this past June:

“So how does the mycusini work? Basically like all 3D food printers: by extruding small amounts of material (chocolate in this case) layer by layer. The major downside to the mycusini is it, at least initially, requires the use of custom-made “Choco refills” as the printing material, which are essentially crayon-shaped chocolate cylinders that fit into a stainless steel dispensing cartridge. A single-source supplier is never ideal, and being reliant on a small startup out of Germany for chocolate refills likely means potentially long wait times before you can start printing your next confection.”

While I still would prefer not to rely on a proprietary refill system, I think it would be worth the investment for those who are attracted to the idea of creating elaborate chocolate designs. Because of its low price, I could see the mycusini as a low-risk way for some chefs or chocolatiers to dip their toe into the 3D food printing waters.

So what would you print with the mycusini? The software allows you to freehand draw designs or pick from a pre-designed template, of which there are over 200 designs created by Print2Taste’s in-house chef. According to the company, in the future mycusini users will be able to upload their own designs created through CAD software and shared on an online marketplace.

Like I said, I could see some takers in my home for a product like the mycusini, but because the product is only shipping in Europe, I’ll have to wait before I put it on my holiday wish list.

For those of you living in Europe, the mycusini might make a good last-minute holiday gift for the chocolate nut or aspiring chocolatier in your life, especially since the product looks be on sale through the holidays at €250.

Meatable Raises $10M to Develop Cultivated Pork Prototype

Today cultured meat startup Meatable announced it had raised an additional $10 million in seed funding. The capital came from existing investors including BlueYard Capital, as well as angel investors and the European Commission. This brings Meatable’s total funding to $13 million.

According to the press announcement, the Dutch startup will use its new capital to reach its goal of unveiling its first cultivated pork prototype in the summer of 2020.

So far 2019 has been a boom year for cell-based meat and seafood funding. Shiok Meat raised $5.3 million over two funding rounds, Future Meat secured $14 million, and Wild Type closed a $12.5 million Series A, to name a few fundraises of note.

In the growing crowd of cultured meat companies, Meatable hopes to differentiate itself with speed and versatility. Founded in 2018, the company has been developing a technology that will let it grow meat from a single cell quickly, and without the need for controversial (and expensive) Fetal Bovine Serum.

They do this by using pluripotent stem cells, which can proliferate faster than regular stem cells and are malleable, meaning they can be coaxed to turn into any type of animal cell (muscle, fat, etc). Meatable claims that with its unique technology it can make large batches of animal tissue cells in a matter of days to weeks, whereas most companies need months. The startup has an exclusive license to use their pluripotent cell-based technology, which could give them an advantage in the race to bring tasty, affordable cultured meat to market.

It seems they’re going to reach that goal faster than expected. When I spoke to Meatable’s co-founders last October they told me they were hoping to debut a prototype in three years. With a new release date of next summer, clearly things have accelerated — likely in part thanks to their substantial new funding.

Newsletter: Personalization in a Tech-centric Food Era, Plus Food Tech Hacks for Your Thanksgiving Prep

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Customizing our food is a decades-old practice we’ve come to expect if not outright demand when it comes to the way we eat. Fast-casual chains like Chipotle and Sweetgreen are built on the idea of each person customizing a meal to their specific eating needs. Most of us will to some degree customize the traditional Thanksgiving spread tomorrow, using plant-based ingredients in place of meat or maybe even turning the whole meal into a bowl of ramen. Meanwhile, there are reportedly 87,000 ways to order a drink at Starbucks. Can our food and beverage consumption get any more customizable. 

Yes, actually, and largely thanks to tech. As we discuss often at The Spoon, apps and other tools powered by AI and machine learning, big data and analytics, as well as food science and research are making it possible to customize our food  right down to our DNA. That includes food not only at restaurants or holiday feasts, but also with our daily meals and snacks, our dietary needs and restrictions, and even our grocery shopping lists. 

Customizing and personalizing our food through tech, however, is a relatively new practice. While some standardization is beginning to occur — notably in the QSR drive-thru lane — this space is right now a pretty fragmented one, with many ideas and solutions but no clear idea yet as to how they come together to help us eat smarter and enjoy our food at the same time.

That’s why we created Customize, a one-day executive summit slated to take place on February 27 in NYC. During the one-day event, which will be held at WeWork’s 85 Broad St. space, The Spoon will examine topics from the world of food personalization, including microbiome-based nutrition, AI-powered grocery recommendations, new developments in CPG products, and much more.

We’re already got a great lineup of speakers to talk about the impact of personalization in the grocery store, at the restaurant table and in our own kitchens, and we’re adding more every week so make sure to check them out!

Want to learn more? Head over to The Spoon Publisher Mike Wolf’s post introducing the event, then grab tickets before they sell out (which they will).

Nutrition is one area where customization is going to be huge, and indeed is already showing up via apps and websites that help users determine the kinds of foods they should be eating and plan out meals and diets.

Trouble is, it’s one thing to download an app that promises to help you eat healthier. It’s another to actually take the time to track the food you’re eating and determine whether it has any actual nutritional value in your life (hey, iceberg lettuce).

That’s where companies like Foodvisor come in. As my colleague Chris Albrecht noted recently, the French nutritional coaching app startup lets users simply snap a picture of their food then, using computer vision and deep learning, the app analyzes it and auto-creates a nutritional report of the food. The company just raised $4.5 million in fresh funds, and it’s one of a growing number of food-tracking apps out there. Another notable example is Bite.ai’s app, which also offers consumers visual food tracking through their smartphones.

Getting consumers to actually change out unhealthy eating habits for smarter ones is, of course, a whole other mountain to tackle, and one we’ll be discussing more of at Customize. 

Last-Minute Food Tech Hacks for Thanksgiving

Of course you may have more immediate concerns around customization, like how in the heck you’re going to get dinner on the table on time and with every dish at the right temperatures.

Fear not. Chris put together this handy guide that highlights a few pieces of connected-kitchen gear that could make your cooking easier, some of which you can still grab before your Thanksgiving cooking commences.

Finally, if you are planning on going to CES and are looking to explore some food tech in Vegas, make sure to check our Food Tech Live event. If you want to showcase your product at FTL drop us a line, and if you want to attend you can request a ticket here.

Feast responsibly,

Jenn

Future Food: Why Is Everything — Grass, Microbes, Even Air — Suddenly A Source of Protein?

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. Subscribe to get the most important news about alternate and plant-based foods directly in your inbox!

There are a few things that are generally understood to be #blessed with much protein. Meat, obviously. Soy, chickpeas, and legumes too, though to a lesser extent. 

But within the past year or two, companies are suddenly trying to extract protein from every. possible. source.

This discussion came up when I was talking about a Foodnavigator story on Danish scientists who are exploring how to turn grass (yes, grass!) into protein on a Spoon editorial call. “Jeez, is everything just full of protein and we didn’t know it?” asked Head Editor Chris Albrecht.

The short answer is… kind of. Lots of natural resources — grass, cotton seeds, etc. — contain some amount of protein. Many of them just don’t have a lot of it, or aren’t able to be digested by humans. 

Enter tech. Scientists are leveraging technology like CRISPR to find ways to extract every last drop of protein from every possible source.

They’re also looking beyond naturally occurring sources of protein and finding ways to grow their own. Perfect Day uses genetically engineered microbes to “grow” milk proteins (and they’ll soon branch into fats). Air Protein, Motif FoodWorks, Solar Foods and Sustainable Bioproducts use similar fermentation techniques to produce protein from, in some cases, thin air. 

So protein really is all around us. 

The question is, why are we just realizing this now? Likely it’s because we as a population have suddenly become ravenous for protein. At the same time, consumers are increasingly turning flexitarian. To meet their demand for meat (and egg and dairy) alternatives, companies are searching for new protein sources that are plentiful, cheap, and not animal-based. And as tech like CRISPR emerges, and old-school tech like extraction and fermentation become more evolved, scientists are able to get this protein out of, well, almost anything.

Right now the technologies to make protein from grass, air, and more are pretty nascent, so they’re much more costly than straight-up chickpea and soy protein.

But consumer demand for protein isn’t projected to stop its meteoric climb soon. Expect to see new protein sources popping up in more and more unlikely places.

Photo: Chick P

No beans about it
Companies are still developing new ways to tap into existing popular protein sources, though. This week Israeli company ChickP launched to develop a super high protein chickpea protein meant to be used in dairy alternatives. 

So will chickpea milk be the new alternative milk du jour? It would first have to usurp crowd favorites almond, soy, and recent plant-based darling oat milk. But if ChickP can deliver on its promises to make a protein that will create dairy alternatives that are flavorless, creamy, and extremely high in protein — admittedly, a high ask — then I think they have a shot.

At least until scientists figure out how to extract exceedingly high protein isolates out of other beans and legumes. (Pinto bean yogurt, anyone?)

All this to say, chickpea milk might be coming to your grocery shelves and baristas, but it’s unclear if it’ll have staying power.

Contamination controversy
A vegan man is suing Burger King because the fast-food chain cooks the Impossible Whopper on the same surface as meat (h/t Reuters).

Sounds… kind of extreme. Sure, if you specifically abstain from eating meat products, it’s not fun or appetizing to figure out that your food is contaminated with meat juices. But is it worth getting litigious over?

I think there’s merit to the suit, considering it also touches on issues of transparency around plant-based meat prep in fast food. The lawsuit includes an injunction requiring BK to “plainly disclose” that Impossible patties and meat burgers are cooked on the same grill. Which seems, you know, fair, if they aren’t willing to create a whole separate surface on which to cook the Impossible patties, like White Castle does.

In short, Burger King could have avoided all this headache if they were just a little forthright about how the Impossible burgers are prepared. After all, customers can actually request that their plant-based patty be prepared on a separate surface from the meat. They just have to ask.

Photo: Quaker.

Protein ’round the web

Finally, I’ll be out next week for Thanksgiving. Currently debating whether or not to make this White Castle Impossible Slider stuffing.

Perfect Day Expands to Develop Animal-Free Milk Fat

Today Perfect Day announced that it’s building a team to develop animal-free fats through genetically engineered microbes. The Berkeley, California-based startup has already developed a fermentation-like process to create key milk molecules which can be used to make animal-free dairy.

A blog post from Perfect Day’s co-founders Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya made clear that these efforts are still super early stage. They indicated that there probably wouldn’t be prototypes of products featuring the flora-based fats for a while since they’ll be laser focused on scaling up their milk proteins in 2020. They also didn’t indicate which products they would develop with their fat, but in an email to The Spoon their team told us that “animal-free dairy is the obvious fit.”

The startup has been going at full force recently. Last year the company partnered with ADM to increase production capacity and raised a $34.8 million Series B in early 2019. As I mentioned above, it also launched its first product — ice cream made with their flora-based milk — in July of this year. 

This expansion shows that Perfect Day’s scope is far wider than just protein. In the post, Gandhi and Panda write that they want their flora platform “to be as broad and powerful” as possible to make “the full dairy experience animal-free.”

Perfect Day’s announcement also goes to show that when it comes to developing sustainable alternatives to animal products, protein is only part of the puzzle. All of the ingredients — from fats to flavorings — have to be environmentally friendly as well.

Right now, that’s not necessarily the case. Many plant-based products rely on palm or coconut oil for richness, since these two fats are saturated (just like butter or beef fat). However, coconut oil and especially palm oil can be exploitative to laborers and the environment, clearing tropical rainforests.

In short, just because a food is animal-free doesn’t mean it’s necessarily sustainable. Perfect Day’s initiative to revamp every aspect of animal alternatives is a good blueprint for other alternative protein companies to consider, if they’re not doing so already.

Could Chickpea Milk Be the Next Oat Milk?

Soon enough, your local barista could be asking if you’d like chickpea milk in your latté.

A new food tech startup called ChickP is set to launch a new chickpea-based protein for use in dairy alternatives, specifically milk and yogurt. The isolate was developed by a team of scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who discovered a way to extract up to 90 percent pure protein from a chickpea seed (that is, the bean) — which is much higher protein than can be gleaned from, say, almonds or soy.

Founded in 2016 in Israel, Chickp has raised an estimated $1.2 million according to Crunchbase. The startup is planning to partner with alternative dairy companies to provide them with their high protein isolates for new product R&D. The startup hasn’t revealed where they will launch, but they did indicate they were looking to work with companies with a global reach. 

Based on America’s hunger for alternative dairy, I wouldn’t be surprised if ChickP targets the U.S. market. In the U.S., sales of plant-based milk grew by 6 percent over 2018, while plant-based yogurt sales spiked 39 percent, according to data from the Plant Based Food Association and the Good Food Institute. Consumers’ rising demand for plant-based dairy has caused a flurry of companies to try and milk-ify a wide variety of plants, from macadamia to hemp to current cult favorite, oat.

However, chickpea milk has a few advantages that could help it thrive in the alternative dairy space. Firstly, chickpeas have a neutral flavor without the same bitter aftertaste that comes with, say, pea protein or soy. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, ChickP’s protein also has a smoother texture than other plant-based proteins, which can be chalky or curdle in acidic drinks (looking at you, almond milk). Finally, chickpea protein is free from soy and tree nuts, which are some of the most common food allergens. 

ChickP isn’t the only one leveraging garbanzo beans’ high protein potential. Fellow Israeli startup InnovoPro makes plant-based protein powder from chickpeas which can also be used in alternative dairy products. Here in the U.S., companies Nutriati and ProEarth also making chickpea powder for use in a variety of food and beverage products. However, ChickP’s distinguishing factor is the super-high protein content of its chickpea isolates, which means that dairy alternative companies can more easily develop products with just as much protein as the real thing. 

We haven’t tried out products made with ChickP’s protein, so it’s too early to say if it’ll have the power to break into the already crowded alt-dairy space. However, with the hunger for plant-based dairy on the rise, I expect that ChickP will have no problem finding global food companies willing to develop products using their super protein. 

The question is whether they’ll taste good enough to keep consumers coming back in the same way that others, like oat milk, have. 

SKS 2019: The Key to Sustainable Protein Might be Fermentation, not Plants

When you hear the term alternative proteins, your thoughts likely jump to plant-based foods, or maybe even cultured meat.

But there’s actually a third way to create high-protein meat alternatives without plants by leveraging a relatively old technology, and that is fermentation. At SKS 2019, Dr. Lisa Dyson of Air Protein, Perumal Gandhi of Perfect Day, and Morgan Keim of Motif FoodWorks discussed how their companies are using genetically engineered microbes to ferment sustainable, highly customizable proteins.

If you’re intrigued by all the buzz around the alternative protein space, it’s worth watching the whole video below. (You get to learn how Air Protein makes protein from air, c’mon.) Here are a few takeaways from the conversation:

Fermented protein is super sustainable
Plant-based protein is certainly more environmentally friendly than animal protein, but fermented protein has the potential to be even more sustainable. Dr. Dyson noted that their protein is made using only energy (which can come from solar or wind) and elements of the air. Bonus: unlike farming, it can scale vertically, is independent of weather conditions, and makes protein incredibly quickly.

It’s more efficient, too
One of the perks of fermenting protein is you can get really granular about which molecules you want to create, eliminating waste. “If you just want one part of, say, a dairy molecule, why create the whole thing?” asked Keim onstage. “Why not just make the one part you actually need?” Having that sort of control over the protein leads to more efficient R&D processes for all sorts of animal alternative products.

Fermentation isn’t *that* out of this world
Dr. Dyson noted that growing protein from fermentation “may sound like science fiction,’ but it’s actually quite close to our current standard methods of growing many staple foods — including yogurt and beer.

Gandhi echoed this sentiment. Perfect Day, which dubbed their proteins “flora-based” after the microflora used to create them, noted that fermenting protein isn’t anything new. “We’ve been using it for 40 years now,” Gandhi said. “We’re just applying [the technology] in a new way.”

Watch the full video below to learn more about what Keim called “the next generation of what non-animal foods will be.” It’ll make you rethink the protein on your plate.

SKS 2019: Growing Protein: The Emerging Food Tech Ingredient Market

Tyson Expands Raised & Rooted Footprint, But Will Anyone Actually Care about Blended Burgers?

On its earnings call this week, Tyson Foods gave some updates on its Raised & Rooted alternative protein brand which it announced in June. According to the call, the brand’s plant-based “chicken” nuggets, made with plants and egg whites, are now available in 7,000 stores. Tyson also stated it would begin shipping its blended burgers — made with a mixture of beef and plant protein — later this month.

Since there are already plenty of faux chicken nuggets in the frozen grocery aisle, it’s the blended burger bit that’s more intriguing to us at The Spoon. Especially since Whole Foods just named “blended, less beefy burgers” one of its top 10 food trends of 2020.

In theory, blended burgers seem like a good idea. Replacing part of the beef with plant protein is an easy way to cut down on animal products without being too radically “anti-meat” or alienating hardcore carnivores. And in settings like cafeterias, where people might not even know that they’re eating meat cut with plants, that approach might work out.

Blended meat is still pretty new so it’s too soon to say for sure how these blended offerings will resonate (or not resonate) with consumers. But I’m not optimistic. My guess is that in trying to appeal to so many people, companies making blended burgers might actually end up appealing to very few. Carnivores will continue to choose meat, health nuts will go with lower-fat turkey, and those with strong environmental or ethical motivations will likely opt for plant-based options.

All of which is to say, despite the stamp of approval from folks like Whole Foods, I’m not sure that blended meat is actually a juicy enough offering to draw in consumers. When we already have plant-based offerings like Impossible and Beyond that taste pretty darn close to the real thing, what’s the point of getting something that’s not quite meat but not quite plants? It seems like flexitarians would be more keen to choose one path or the other.

There is one edge that Raised & Rooted’s burgers have over Beyond and Impossible though, and that’s health. Tyson’s blended patties contain 40 percent fewer calories and 60 percent less saturated fat than typical beef burgers. Plant-based options from Beyond and Impossible, however, are comparable to beef in terms of calorie content and fat — something they’ve attracted a lot of flack about lately. Then again, if consumers want a meaty burger option with fewer calories than beef or plant-based beef, they could always opt for turkey or bison burgers.

Tyson isn’t the only Big Meat company betting on blended meat. Rival Hormel sells Blend Burgers, in both turkey and beef, under its Applegate brand. Chicken behemoth Perdue announced a line of blended chicken products — half white meat chicken, half plant protein — shortly before Tyson unveiled Raised & Rooted. Our Head Editor Chris Albrecht tried the nuggets (as did his eight-year-old) and liked them just fine, but said there wasn’t enough of a value add to entice him to purchase them again. Instead, he’d rather just feed his kid nicer chicken and vegetables, separately.

I think that ambivalence will hold true for the blended meat space overall. Blended burgers are just fine — but when so many companies are vying to be your protein pick in the grocery aisle, fine just isn’t good enough.

Burger King Is Launching 3 New Impossible Burgers, Expanding Plant-based Offerings in Europe

Burger King’s meatless meat selection just got bigger, as the chain is expanding its family of Impossible burgers in the U.S. On Monday, BK announced it will test three new offerings made with the plant-based “bleeding” burger at 180 restaurants.

The Impossible Whopper Jr. is a smaller version of the wildly popular Impossible Whopper, which BK released nationwide in August and which has been such a hit with customers it recently boosted the chain’s sales by 5 percent.

For those craving simpler sandwiches, The Impossible Burger and The Impossible Cheeseburger are pared-down offerings that come with just ketchup, mustard, and pickles on the plant-based patty.

Burger King will initially test the new burgers at restaurants in Milwaukee, Cedar Rapids, Augusta, Cinncinnati, and Buffalo. Given how ridiculously popular the chain’s first Impossible offering was, a nationwide release of these latest three patties will no doubt follow soon.

And while Impossible isn’t yet available on the other side of the Atlantic, that hasn’t stopped BK from doubling-down on its plant-based offerings in Europe. The company is launching its Rebel Whopper, made with plant-based patties from Unilever-owned The Vegetarian Butcher, to more than 2,400 European locations today.

So far, none of BK’s direct competitors have embraced the plant-based meat concept as rapidly or widely, though that is finally starting to change. McDonald’s is testing a plant-based burger that uses Beyond Meat, though that’s only available in Canada at the moment. McDonald’s also has a plant-based burger in Germany, that one made with Nestlé’s incredible patty. Carl’s Jr., too, is working with Beyond and has had a plant-based patty on its menu for some time now. Wendy’s, meanwhile, is semi-secretly testing a plant-based burger, though we don’t know yet if it’s made with Beyond, Impossible, or some other alt-protein.

What we do know is that the list of QSRs offering plant-based meat items is only going to get bigger and that chains will keep expanding their menus to accommodate consumers’ growing demand for alt-protein options.

Omnipork to Make Plant-based Pork Debut in Mainland China on Black Friday

Black Friday often means slogging through crowded stores and feasting on Thanksgiving leftover sandwiches.

But this Black Friday will also mark a significant move for Green Common, maker of the plant-based product Omnipork. On November 29, the company will make its mainland China debut through online retailer Tmall during the site’s Black Friday event. Green Common founder David Yeung said over the next two months more than 180 restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing will begin selling Omnipork, according to the South China Morning Post.

Omnipork is a meatless ground pork product developed specifically to appeal palates in Asia, where pork is the most consumed meat. The plant-based pork is currently available online, in Green Common stores and in multiple restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau and Thailand. I got to taste it when I was in Hong Kong earlier this year, and while it wasn’t exactly the same as the real thing, it did a good job of mimicking pork when put in dishes like ramen or dumplings.

The timing is ripe for Omnipork to head to China. With the recent outbreak of the African Swine Flu, China’s pig population is estimated to drop by as much as 50 percent. But Chinese consumers still have an immense appetite for protein.

Green Common isn’t the only meat alternative company to set its sites on China. Just last week Impossible Foods’ CEO Pat Brown did its first product taste in the country at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai. There he said that Impossible had developed a pork prototype and was working on scaling it with the intention of selling in China. Beyond Meat has also called out Asia as an area with high market potential for plant-based meat.

Earlier this year Yeung told me that once Omnipork entered China it would double its footprint from 5,000 to 10,000 outlets. It’s still too early to say if Chinese consumers will indeed flock to Omnipork to the degree which he anticipates, but with the prices of pork set to rise over the next few months, the time is certainly good for meat alternatives to enter the Chinese market. And now it looks like Omnipork has secured first-mover advantage.

A Win for Veggie Burgers: Mississippi to Table Rigid Plant-based Meat Labeling Restrictions

In a win for free speech and veggie burgers everywhere, yesterday Mississippi officially revised its restrictive labeling rules around plant-based meat. The original regulations restricted companies from using traditional meat terms like “burger,” “hot dog,” and indeed “meat” on their packaging, even when preceded by terms like “vegan” or “plant-based,” arguing that the lingo could confuse consumers. This despite the fact that we’ve been buying veggie burgers for decades.

Mississippi’s restrictive meat labeling legislation went into effect in July of this year. In response, the Plant Based Food Association (PBFA) and member company Upton’s Naturals immediately sued the state, claiming that the new rules were a violation of the First Amendment. As a result of the lawsuit, the Mississippi Department of Agriculture proposed a new regulation in September that would let plant-based meat companies use terms like “veggie burger” and “vegan hot dog.” Yesterday that regulation took effect.

Mississippi wasn’t the only state to institute such strict labeling rules over the past year or so. Arkansas, Missouri, and a dozen other states have also banned a myriad of meat labeling terms. Under many of the states’ rules, each “offense” could be punishable by a $1,000 fine or one year in jail.

But plant-based meat wasn’t going to take these restrictions lying down. In August of last year the PBFA, Tofurky, the ACLU, and the Good Food Institute formed a coalition to sue Missouri, arguing that the new rules violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The group also challenged similar laws in Arkansas.

Jaime Athos, the CEO of Tofurky and President of the Board of the PBFA, spoke with me about the labeling issue in depth at SKS 2019 last month. There he told me that these labeling bills are a result of pressure from meat lobbies, which are threatened by the recent astronomical growth of the plant-based meat sector. They don’t actually serve the consumer. In fact, he argued that they could actually end up confusing the consumer, since people have been buying veggie burgers and vegan hot dogs for decades.”It’s insulting to the consumer,” he said.

It seems that at least in Mississippi, Tofurky has successfully netted a win for plant-based meat. But there are still many other battlefronts they have to win. “We hope that other states that introduced similar legislation in the past year, including Arkansas and Missouri, take note of Mississippi acknowledging and accepting already-used, clear qualifying terms such as ‘meat-free,’ ‘meatless,’ ‘plant-based,’ ‘vegetarian,’ and ‘vegan’ to describe plant-based protein products,” Athos wrote in an email statement to The Spoon.

Months ago, Athos told me that he and the coalition were fighting to establish a precedent with one of their three suits which would eventually kill all plant-meat labeling laws. This latest win with Mississippi could be just the precedent they were hoping for.