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Future Food: Impossible’s Retail Launch, Is 3D Printing the Future of Plant-Based Meat?

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. Be sure to subscribe here so you don’t miss a beat!

Ladies and gentlemen, mark your calendars. At the time of writing, Impossible Foods is heading into retail in 7 days, 23 hours, 43 minutes and 16 seconds. 15 seconds. 14 seconds.

Obviously we’re excited. We’ve been big fans of Impossible’s “bleeding” burgers for a while now and have been anticipating the retail launch ever since the company first teased the news back in November of last year.

Now, thanks to a tweet from Impossible Foods earlier this week, we know a little more about what to expect.

  1. We know their first product will be a 12-ounce ground beef-like product, similar to Beyond Beef.
  2. We know it will debut in a city that “smells like palm trees.”

My first question is, what do palm trees smell like?? My second question is, is the tweet referring to Miami or LA? My money is on LA because of its trend-setting cred and abundance of celebrities, but my colleague Chris Albrecht is placing his bet on Miami because of its reputation as a center for testing out retail innovation.

Really though, it doesn’t matter where Impossible first launches in retail. Unless there’s some sort of catastrophe it’ll eventually roll out in grocery stores around the country. What’s more interesting is what product Impossible has chosen to launch with: a 12-ounce package of ground plant-based meat.

Honestly, I think this move makes a lot of sense. By launching with fresh ground “meat,” Impossible has to jostle with far fewer competitors to stand out in the refrigerated grocery aisle, which is becoming crowded with plant-based burgers. As of now its only really going up against Beyond Beef (which, admittedly, is pretty delicious) and Hormel, who just debuted a vegan ground meat product last week.

Starting with a ground product is also an opportunity for Impossible to show off its versatility. Thus far, the vast majority of Impossible’s restaurant partners have served the alterna-meat in burger form (the notable exceptions being Qdoba and Little Ceasars). This first product is Impossible’s way of saying “Don’t pigeonhole us!”

The flip side of that strategy is that as of now, the vast majority of consumers associate Impossible with burgers. They might not think to look for a ground Impossible product in retail, or they might not want to do the work of forming the patties themselves.

Then again, I doubt they’ll have to wait too long before Impossible follows up with a pre-formed burger product. Though it’ll certainly be longer than 7 days, 23 hours, 42 minutes and 49 seconds.

Photo: Novameat

3D printing money

When I first heard about startups 3D printing plant-based meat, I thought it was a cool, futuristic-sounding technology that would likely never be affordable or practical enough to actually scale up.

It seems I might have been a little too hasty. In the past week two companies which 3D print meat alternatives have snagged funding: first Novameat announced an undisclosed amount of funding at the Good Food Conference last week, then Redefine Meat followed up yesterday when news broke that it had raised a $6 million seed round.

The two startups have a similar go-to-market strategy. Both companies are planning to sell/rent their machine and corresponding plant protein pods to third parties — Novameat to high-end restaurants and Redefine Meat to large meat companies looking to diversify their offerings. And they’re both based in Europe! Novameat in Spain and Redefine Meat in Israel.

Clearly there’s something to this whole 3D printing plant-based meat thing — or at least investors think so.

(photo: Chris Albrecht).

Much ado about processed food

This week WIRED writer Matt Simon published a fascinating dive into why people are making such a fuss about the processing it takes to make plant-based meats.

In the piece he notes that yes, buzzed-about plant-based products like Impossible and Beyond are highly processed. But so are a lot of other staple things we eat, like yogurt, beer and bread.

I think you can also flip the processing question on its head. Plant-based meats are alternatives to meat sourced from animals. And isn’t animal meat one of the most processed foods of all? Animals themselves process plants into muscle, then are butchered to become hamburgers, steaks, or what have you. Comparatively, growing some heme through genetically engineered yeast or pushing pea protein through an extruder to mimic the texture of chicken seems relatively low-key.

In short, processing does not always equal bad. Especially when the choice is between a plant-based burger and industrially farmed meat.

Photo: JUST

Protein ’round the web

That’s it from me! I’ll be off next week exploring the Alaskan wilderness so one of my lovely Spoon colleagues will be taking the Future Food reigns in my stead.

Eat well,
Catherine

Magic Spoon Raises $5.5M Seed Round for Its Healthy Take on Sweet Cereal

Magic Spoon, a company that makes a healthy sugary-tasting cereal, has raised $5.5 million in seed funding, according to an article on Food Dive. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with additional participation from Joseph Zwillinger (Allbirds), Jeff Raider (Harry’s), and David Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal (Warby Parker).

The company plans to use the new funds to expand its business, make new hires, increase marketing efforts, and create new cereal flavors.

Magic Spoon is a non-GMO, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, and wheat-free cereal that’s keto-friendly and still tastes like a sweet cereal you’d find in a grocery store aisle. It also contains more protein and fewer calories than your typical box of Froot Loops. The company uses a natural substance called Allulose, which is found in some fruits, to get its sweetness. My colleague Chris Albrecht got his hands on some not long ago and gave all the cereals a rave review. The cereal also has to be ordered online and isn’t available in grocery stores yet, though Magic Spoon keeps selling out of inventory so clearly it doesn’t need to be widely available at big-box stores just yet.

Company founders Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz are no strangers to alternative ingredients. Prior to the Magic Spoon, the duo made cricket-based protein bars under company Exo, which they sold to Aspire Food Group in 2018.

Magic Spoon’s one catch is its price: it costs about $40 for four seven-ounce boxes. Lewis told Food Dive he “hasn’t heard much pushback on the price” as of yet. Part of that’s likely due to who Magic Spoon is currently targeting: health-conscious millennials who are used to buying groceries online and paying higher prices for trendy foods.

The company’s main competition comes from The Cereal School, who makes another version of “healthy” sweet cereal and sells it online. Unlike Magic Spoon, however, The Cereal School has made a conscious decision to remain bootstrapped as long as possible, a decision that’s led to some manufacturing issues in the past. The Cereal School’s product isn’t cheap either, at $50 for 24 single-serving bags.

Those price points may work now while the concept of cereal innovation is hot and early adopters are willing to pay. However, either company wants to expand and cater to the everyman at some point, they’ll need to find a way to bring that price point down without sacrificing the quality of the ingredients.

New Culture Raises $3.5M Seed Round for Its Lab-Grown Cheese

New Culture, a company making cheese through genetically engineered microbes, has closed a $3.5 million seed round of funding led by Evolv Ventures, the venture fund of Kraft-Heinz. Bee Partners, Mayfield, CPT Capital, Boost VC, and SOSV also participated in the round.

Started in New Zealand and recently relocated to San Francisco, New Culture makes animal-free cheese not with plant-based ingredients but with biotechnology in a lab. As my colleague Catherine Lamb explained when she spoke to New Culture this April:

As of now, there aren’t any plant-based options that can mimic casein [a milk protein] well enough to fool anyone. So New Culture’s team decided to make it themselves using something called “recombinant protein technology.” The company uses genetically modified microbes — like yeast — and “trains” them to produce certain proteins, like casein. The team then adds water, plant-based fat, sugar, and minerals to the casein, which creates something that acts and tastes a lot like milk.

New Culture just graduated from the IndieBio accelerator in San Francisco, a program, whose past participants also include companies like cultured meat company Memphis Meats and Finless Foods, which makes cell-based fish.

They’re not the only company out there attempting to make animal-free dairy products out of more than coconut or soy. Perfect Day, who partnered with food processing company ADM in 2018, uses similar technology to create dairy proteins without any actual cow involved. Currently they operate under a B2B model, selling their product to CPGs. The company also recently did an initial product launch of an ice cream made with their flora-based milk.

New Culture, on the other hand, is targeting high-end restaurants as a starting point to launch their cheese. But while the company did a taste test at the IndieBio demo day, there’s no actual cheese yet available to the public. As Lamb points out, the company has a ways to go before it reaches that point. New Culture said in this week’s press release that it is looking to set up an R&D and fermentation facility as well as further expand its team with this seed investment.

Want more on alternative dairy products? Perfect Day cofounder Perumal Gandhi will be speaking at this year’s SKS North America, which takes place October 7–8 in Seattle. Snag your tickets here.

Redefine Meat Raises $6M for 3D Printed Meat Alternatives

Redefine Meat, the Israeli company developing technology to 3D print plant-based meat, today announced that it had raised a $6 million seed round led by CPT Capital with participation by Hanaco Ventures, angel investors and German poultry company The PHW Group.

The startup will use its new capital to finalize its alternative meat 3D printer and ensure that it hits its timeline release goal of 2020, when it plans to begin selling its 3D printer and corresponding ingredient packs to a handful of meat processing partners and restaurants.

I covered Redefine Meat earlier this year when the startup did the first public tasting of its 3D meat to a restaurant full of unsuspecting diners. From that piece:

Redefine Meat’s “meat” is made with relatively simple ingredients: three plant protein sources, fat, and water. The secret is in the printing production method. Instead of extrusion or pressing, Redefine Meat uses 3D printing to give their products a more realistic texture and mouthfeel. “We can not only mimic the fibers of the meat, but also the way that fat and water is trapped in the meat matrix,” explained [CEO] Ben-Shitrit.

When I spoke to them then the company planned to sell its meat to restaurants and eventually develop their own retail brand. However, since then they’ve changed their go-to-market strategy quite a bit. Speaking with Ben-Shitrit earlier today he told me that now they plan to sell their 3D printing machine and shelf-stable plant protein ingredient packs to meat companies, who can then print their own products to distribute to retail and restaurants. Ben-Shitrit said that their machines currently cost about $100,000 each and only work with his company’s suite of protein packs, which will be a recurring cost for partner companies.

For now Redefine Meat is only focused on beef, though they plan to expand their repertoire to include tuna, pork and more. They will install a handful of machines with their manufacturing partners in 2020 and are planning to do a full launch in 2021.

Something must be in the air since last week another company which 3D prints plant-based meat, Novameat, also raised a chunk of funding. This flurry of investment goes to show that 3D printing might just be the key to making meat alternatives — especially larger cuts like steak — that more accurately replicate the appearance and texture of the real thing. Or at least that investors are willing to bet on it.

Impossible Foods Teases Location for Retail Launch, Reveals First Product

Mark your calendars folks. On September 20th, consumers in one lucky city will be able to purchase Impossible product from the grocery store for the very first time.

We’ve known for a while that Impossible would launch in retail sometime this month. But in a tweet yesterday, the Redwood City, Calif. based startup teased us with a few more details.

This tweet tells us exactly one and a half pieces of information.

Firstly, Impossible’s first retail product will likely be packaged ground “meat,” similar to Beyond Beef. We predicted this might be the case since the startup has been emphasizing the versatility of its product ever since it launched the new Version 2.0 of its recipe at CES this January.

Honestly, it’s a smart move. Refrigerated grocery shelves are becoming crowded with pre-formed plant-based burgers from Lightlife, Beyond, and more. And over the past month alone major players like Kroger, Smithfield and Kellogg (through MorningStar) have all announced plans to launch refrigerated alterna-burgers of their own. By entering retail with a fresh ground meat product Impossible is essentially narrowing its competition down just to Beyond Beef and Hormel.

We haven’t tried Hormel’s ground protein yet but our team is pretty smitten with Beyond Beef. However, Beyond’s ground beef has only been on retail shelves for a few months, so Impossible won’t be too far behind when it enters the category with a product of its own. Plus, Impossible has been busy building up its brand through partnerships with major fast-food chains like Burger King.

Impossible’s tweet also gave us a hint which city it will launch in: one that smells like “palm trees.” Judging from that cryptic hint, it’s likely either L.A. or Miami. (Sadly, it looks like my hometown of Seattle is out. Damn you, evergreens!)

If I was a betting gal, I’d put my money on L.A. The City of Angels loves anything new and trendy, especially if it comes in Instagram-friendly technicolor packaging. L.A. also has the advantage of being much closer to Impossible’s Oakland production facility.

Then again, it’s too soon to count Miami out of the race. As my colleague Chris pointed out, Miami — or really, Florida — serves as a testbed for a lot of new retail technology. Ford is testing self-driving cars to deliver groceries in Miami, Kroger is building its next robotic warehouse in Groveland, Florida, Walmart offers its InHome service in Vero Beach, and robotic grocery fulfillment company Takeoff works with the Sedano’s supermarket chain throughout the Sunshine State. Plus, Miami was one of the first cities to get Burger King’s Impossible Whopper after its successful pilot in St. Louis, Missouri and Florida was one of the first three states to serve Little Caesar’s Impossible Supreme pizza.

There’s still a lot of question marks surrounding Impossible’s launch. We don’t know which stores or how many of them will carry the product or what it will cost. I guess we’ll have to wait 9 days to find out.

Want to stay updated on Impossible’s retail rollout and other plant-based protein news? Subscribe to our Future Food newsletter!

We Tried Perdue’s Chicken Plus Tenders Blended Meat + Veggies, and They Fooled My 8-Year-Old

As a child of the 70s, I grew up watching commercials with Frank Perdue talking about his name brand of chickens. I don’t know if my mom ever bought Perdue chicken, but I know I haven’t since becoming an adult. So it was a little strange to rip open the bag of frozen Perdue Chicken Plus chicken breast and vegetable patties and tenders the company sent me to test out.

The Chicken Plus product hit store shelves this month and the hook is that vegetables are blended in with the chicken, so it’s a sneaky way to get your kids to eat their veggies. Perdue’s June press release announcing Chicken Plus describes the product as such:

…PERDUE CHICKEN PLUS blends cauliflower, chickpeas and plant protein to create the next generation of frozen chicken nuggets, tenders and patties, and each serving is complete with one-quarter cup (half a serving of vegetables) and is made with 100 percent all-natural ingredients and no antibiotics ever white meat chicken.

Like so many other traditional meat companies, Perdue is seeing the writing on the wall as sales of plant-based proteins from the likes of Beyond Meat and Impossible skyrocket. The Food Marketing Institute’s “Power of Meat 2019” report found that “plant-based meat alternatives sales increased 19.2% last year and account for $878 million in annual sales.”

And Perdue is by no means alone. The chicken company joins other high-profile traditional meat companies in jumping on the plant-based bandwagon. Just this week, Hormel launched its Happy Little Plants line of meatless meat, and the other chicken giant, Tyson, has invested in plant-based shrimp company New Wave Foods.

Tyson is actually the most apt comparison for Perdue. Not only are both companies in the chicken business, but in June, Tyson launched its Raised & Rooted line of chicken products, which also feature a blend of chicken and vegetable protein. My colleague Catherine Lamb explained why blended protein is becoming big in her (excellent) Future Food newsletter this summer when she asked Are Blended Meats the Future of Flexitarian Dining?:

Perdue and Tyson are smart to take baby steps into the alternative protein space, though at this point it’s clearly too big a market opportunity to ignore (except for Arby’s, apparently). By starting with blended products, major meat processing companies can grow their customer base into a new market, all while retaining their existing infrastructure.

It’s also a way for traditional meat companies to hang on and not alienate their existing meat-loving customer base.

For its part, Perdue is really leaning into the whole flexitarian lifestyle. The headline for its Chicken Plus press release was how the product could “meet demand for flexitarian families” and that the company was there “to help flexitarian families who are hungry for new ways to fill the vegetable void…” I’m a bit more of a skeptic and think Perdue didn’t want to play, errr, chicken with the oncoming wave of plant-based protein.

All of this business about flexitarianing is all well and good, but how do the Chicken Plus tenders and patties taste?

Pretty much like chicken tenders and patties. I air fried them both, and while they are a little mushier than a straight up chicken tender or patty, both still tasted like chicken. And by that I mean a processed chicken. Serving sizes pack plenty of salt: 480 mg (20 percent of your daily value) for a Chicken Plus patty and 460 mg in three tenders (19 percent of your daily value).

But it really doesn’t matter what I think. The tenders and such are more for kids. So what did my eight-year-old think? I asked him after school if he wanted chicken tenders for snack, neglecting to mention the veggie part, and he enthusiastically said yes. I cooked and plated them and he gobbled them up without saying a word.

“Did you like them?” I asked.

“Yeah,” was all I got back. Which, in this case was more than enough. He didn’t think there was anything odd or off about them, and he asked for more the next day after school. So Perdue should take that as a win.

I’m not a nutritionist, I can’t say how “healthy” the vegetable servings in Chicken Plus really are. In addition to the sodium count, the Chicken Plus tenders have 10g of protein and 21 g of carbs. Regular Perdue breaded chicken tenders have 10 g of protein, 420mg of sodium, and 16g of carbs. So it’s not like there’s a huge difference between the two.

Though a 22 oz. bag of Chicken Plus product is $6.99, I don’t think I’ll be purchasing any. My son is already pretty good about eating his vegetables, so I don’t need a clandestine delivery mechanism for them. And more important to me is whether the chicken is organic, which Chicken Plus is not, so there isn’t a reason for me to buy a bag of it.

I don’t even think Frank Perdue could convince me.

Future Food: In Its Second Year, the Good Food Conference is All About Growth

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. Be sure to subscribe here so you don’t miss a beat!

Greetings! I’m writing this week’s newsletter from the Good Food Conference — the place where all the cool kids in the alternative protein space gather to network, listen to panels on plant- and cell-based meat, dairy, and eggs and sample all the latest alt-protein treats. It’s a madcap ride fueled by plant-based breakfast burritos (verdict: amazing) and lots of coffee.

I attended the first Good Food Conference last year, when it was a relatively intimate gathering of folks in the plant-based and cell-based meat space — a lot of startups and academics. Stepping into the event this year, I was blown away by how quickly it has grown. In terms of audience and venue size, sure — but also in terms of legitimacy. Here are a few things I noticed:

Playing with the big boys

Last year’s attendees and speakers consisted mostly startups and a few investors. This year, however, representatives from Big Food companies JBS, Perdue, and ADM all took the stage to talk about why they were interested in getting in on the alt-meat revolution.

“We are the biggest protein company and will remain the biggest protein company,” said Christy Lebor, the Global Innovation Lead for JBS, on the conference stage. “If plant-based is what it takes then we’ll do that.”

When I asked Bruce Friedrich, co-founder and executive director of the event’s organizer the Good Food Institute, why he thought there was all this new interest. He pointed to Beyond’s success on the stock market and the popularity of the Impossible Whopper as reasons why major food companies — and specifically meat companies — are waking up to the value of participating in a conference so blatantly focused on their disruption.

Friedrich welcomes these companies to join the conversation. “I don’t think anything is more exciting than getting Big Meat and Big Food to invest in plant-based proteins and cultivated meat,” he told me. After all, in order for meat alternatives to go mainstream big companies have to get involved: they have the power to manufacture plant-based meats on a massive scale, distribute them widely, and sell them at a low price point.

Next year he expects Big Meat to have an even larger presence. “I feel like we will make more inroads into the meat industry,” Friedrich said. “They’ll feel like they should have been here this year and they’ll want to be on the dais next year.”

Growth mindset

Eclipse’s plant-based softserve.

The alternative protein companies themselves are also growing and improving rapidly. Since last year’s event, both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have come out with versions 2.0 of their plant-based burgers, which we all agree are massive improvements.

At the event I tasted Eclipse’s plant-based soft serve, which I thought was a significant step up from the last time I tried their ice cream just a few months ago. JUST’s new animal-free egg, which they launched this spring, was also much improved. Next up, a team member told me they’re going to add more sulfur in a play to appeal to Asian consumers, who apparently like the taste.

Sampling these new-and-improved products made me think about a concept my colleague Chris Albrecht wrote about last week:

Plant-based foods, especially those that aim to re-create the look and feel of animal meat, are ushering in a new era, one where new versions of the product are constantly being tweaked, updated, and released. In short, we are entering an era where food is becoming more like software.

Based on what I’ve seen at the conference that certainly seems to be the case. And it’s not just about taste — health is also becoming more and more of a priority for meat alternatives, especially since they’ve been getting serious flack lately by critics who say that their high levels of fat, calories, and sodium make them unhealthy.

As they iterate, scientists will likely be able to find ways to cut down on the sodium, saturated fat, and other health concerns in meatless burgers and more. Heck, they could theoretically tweak fake meat’s entire nutritional profile to make it actually good for you and still taste delicious. After all, plant-based meat can constantly be improved — the cow can not.

Who will be the next Beyond Meat?

Atlast Food Co.’s mycelium scaffolding for meat alternatives

One of the most exciting parts of the entire conference was the startup pitch sessions. We heard from a company making actually delicious plant-based bacon, mushroom root scaffolding for cultured meat, 3D printed vegan steak, vegan chicken nuggets and a jackfruit-based meat alternative.

Some of the ideas seemed a little far out. But as the moderator, Brian Cooley from CNET, noted, it’s the out-there startups that are the ones that are the next Impossible Foods and Beyond Meats.

In fact, the success of those two companies is what’s really behind a lot of the growth and energy at the Good Food Conference. Everyone is hungry to make the next meat alternative to hit it big — or to invest in it.

While the high levels of interest certainly make for an exciting event, it also makes me wonder if we’ll soon hit a point of market saturation. Okay, there’s not a really good plant-based bacon option out there right now. Or a company 3D printing steak. So there’s definitely room for new products and innovative production methods.

But what about next year? As more startups and Big Food companies try to cash in on the popularity of meat alternatives, the space could become so crowded that it’ll be nearly impossible (ha!) for new players to enter the plant-based space at all. Certainly it’ll become incredibly difficult to strike gold the way that Beyond did.

Then again, consumer interest in the alt-meat space shows no signs of waning. And as cell-based meat heads onto the scene we’ll see a whole new vertical ripe for innovation.

You can bet I’ll be there next year to report on it.

Photo: Integriculture

Protein ’round the web

That’s it from me this week! I’m off to go see what kind of plant-based snacks are hanging around the conference — here’s hoping.

Eat well,
Catherine

Ecovative Launches Spinoff Company Atlast Food to Create Myceliuim Scaffolding for Meat Alternatives

At the Good Food Conference today biotech company Ecovative announced it was spinning out Atlast Food Co., a new company entirely dedicated to creating mycelium scaffolding for meat alternatives.

As I wrote about Ecovative/Atlast earlier this year:

The company first developed a mycelium platform 12 years ago to use as sustainable packaging material. Then, a few years ago, they started developing a marshmallow-like mycelium foam, called “Atlast,” which could be used as scaffolding for tissue engineering. Ecovative co-founder and CEO Eben Bayer told me over the phone that they can grow the mycelium into a shape that emulates meat fibers, then infuse it with plant-based fats, flavors, and seasonings. In short: they can use it as a scaffold to grow meat.

It seems that Ecovative has realized that there’s enough potential in growing meat alternative scaffolding to merit a dedicated company. According to Andy Bass, Ecovative’s Director of Marketing, Atlast will partner with companies to help them develop bespoke whole cuts of plant-based and cell-based meat.

So far, Atlast has tested their mycelium into a scaffold for plant-based bacon. I haven’t had a chance to try it myself, but based off of the video below it actually looks pretty tasty.

Ecovative is striking while the plant-based iron is hot — and primed to grow. Most meatless meats available now have a processed texture, such as burgers, chicken nuggets or sausages. In order to take a real chunk out of the meat industry, alternative companies will have to figure out a way to make whole cuts of meat — like steak or chicken breast — out of plants. And one of the biggest challenges standing in their way is texture.

Atlast’s technology could be even more critical to cell-based meat. Thus far, the majority of companies have been able to grow meat with a “ground” texture, though cultured meat companies are experimenting with 3D printing and even spinach leaves as tools to improve texture. Even Aleph Farms, which is making cell-based steak, has only been able to make thin sheets the size of a credit card. There’s a big opportunity for someone to come in and provide a scaffolding solution, especially as cultured meat inches closer to hitting the market.

Bass wouldn’t disclose future partners but said that they would make more public sometime in 2020.

Hormel Joins the Meatless Meat Movement With New Portfolio of Plant-based Products

Add one more to the list of major CPGs looking to capitalize on the public’s insatiable appetite for plant-based meat. This week, Hormel Foods, who owns brands like Skippy and Applegate, announced the launch of its Happy Little Plants product line. This is Hormel’s first project under what the company’s new plant-based foods division called Cultivated Foods.

The new portfolio’s flagship product is a ground protein offering the Happy Little Plants’ website says you can cook “just like you would with ground beef or ground turkey.” The product contains 20 grams of non-GMO soy protein and is gluten-free.

Right now, Happy Little Plants products are available at select Hy-Vee stores in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconson. Further expansion is in the works, though Hormel didn’t name specific cities or timeframes.

Like most big CPGs bringing plant-based meat alternatives to market right now, Hormel is emphasizing the meat-like qualities of its meatless product. In a bid to appeal to more flexitarians — those wanting to curb meat consumption without going full vegan or vegetarian — food companies are currently creating alternatives to meat that cook, look, taste, and feel like the real thing. In other words, they’re trying to live up to the industry standard set by Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat.

Hormel is one of a growing list of CPGs launching such products. Tyson announced its Raised & Rooted brand of plant-based meat alternatives this past June. Nestle is selling meatless meat patties to QSR chains in Europe and Israel. And just yesterday, Kelloggs-owned MorningStar Farms announced its own new line of more meat-like, plant-based products called Incogmeato.

These companies have long histories in the food industry, but as The Spoon’s Catherine Lamb pointed out when reporting on the MorningStar news, that could be more hindrance than help. As evidenced by events like Beyond selling out of its meatless chicken wings in less than five hours, consumers are flocking to trendy upstart brands in the alt-meat space who can tout health and environmental benefits and don’t have a history of selling SPAM in grocery store aisles. Like Kellogg, Tyson, and others, Hormel is one more company that will have to find a way to leap the divide between its legacy products and consumer demand for new and different ways to do meatless meat.

MorningStar Farms Launches ‘Incogmeato’ to Capitalize on the Meatless Meat Craze

Alternative meat giant MorningStar Farms seems to be taking a burger — er, page — from Beyond Meat. Today, the Kelloggs-owned company announced Incogmeato, its new line of plant-based meat products which are meant to look, taste, and cook more like the real thing.

The Incogmeato portfolio (are we sold on that name?) includes a refrigerated plant-based “beef” burger as well as meatless Chik’n tenders and nuggets. In grocery stores the burgers will be sold in the refrigerated section, a first for MorningStar Farms, while the Chik’n will live in the freezer section. All products are made with non-GMO soy.

The Incogmeato line will be available both in retail and foodservice in early 2020. Pricing details have not yet been disclosed.

MorningStar Farms has been in the meat alternative biz for over 40 years, which makes it a grandfather in the plant-based meat space. For most of that time, the company has peacefully cruised along with its frozen veggie patties and chicken strips for vegetarians. But now thanks to Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods’ sudden and much-publicized moves into the alt-meat space, consumers’ former notions about what plant-based meat could look like and taste like have changed.

MorningStar Farms isn’t the only alterna-meat veteran seeking to capitalize on the recent craze around plant-based burgers, chicken, and more. Tofurky, Lightlife, Boca Burgers and others, which have traditionally made meat substitutes specifically geared towards vegetarians, are releasing new, more realistic “meat” products to draw in flexitarian diners — with mixed results.

While these companies have the advantage of name recognition, retail relationships and robust manufacturing, their relative seniority could also hinder them. Flexitarian consumers looking to try this popular “bleeding” plant-based that’s getting so much media attention might skip over brands like MorningStar Farms, which they associate with less-than-stellar first-generation meat alternatives, and go straight for newcomers like Beyond and Impossible. Which is probably why the Incogmeato branding looks completely different from traditional MorningStar Farms products.

With its new Incogmeato line, MorningStar Farms is clearly trying to show that it, too, can be part of the new wave of meaty meat alternatives. But when it comes to plant-based meat, can an old dog learn new tricks? Come 2020, we’ll have to taste and find out for ourselves.

If you want to keep up with the fast-paced world of alternative protein, make sure to subscribe to our weekly Future Food newsletter!

Cargill Makes Additional $75M Investment Into Beyond Meat Supplier Puris

Mega-corporation and food producer Cargill has invested an additional $75 million into Puris, North America’s largest pea protein producer and supplier of Beyond Meat. This is the second investment Cargill has made in Puris, following a $25 million deal made in January 2018.

According to the press release, the new investment will allow Puris to “more than double its pea protein production” at the company’s Dawson, Minnesota plant.

The move lets Cargill keep pace with other food producers historically known for their roles in traditional meat production but who have lately set their sights on the alternative meat market, among them Tyson and Nestle.

More importantly, speeding up production will help Puris, not to mention Beyond, more easily fulfill demand for plant-based protein — a market that’s already been hampered by supply shortages in the past. In August of 2018, Beyond had to delay its UK launch due to supply shortages. More recently, Beyond’s chief competitor, Impossible, experienced its own supply issues that affected availability in restaurants.

While both those situations have been resolved, demand for plant-based meat keeps growing, and pea protein consumption by tonnage is expected to increase 300 percent by 2025. Puris president Tyler Lorenzen said in the press release that the Cargill investment will give his company “the ability to support more food companies, more farmers and more consumers faster.”

That said, production won’t speed up right away. Puris will have to first retrofit the Dawson facility to make it suitable for pea production, a process that will take time. The Dawson location is expected to be operational in “late 2020.”

How quickly makers of plant-based proteins can scale to meet demand may at some point require a change in the way they approach their ingredients. As Spoon contributor Christie Lagally noted over the weekend, “the plant-based meat industry has to stop ignoring how the veggie sausage gets made and adopt new machinery that’s actually optimized for the industry’s unique needs. When this happens, plant-based meat can finally become widely available at an accessible price.”

In the meanwhile, Puris operates two other pea-protein-focused facilities, one in Turtle Lake, Wisconson and the other in Oskaloosa. For now, those will have to be enough when it comes to helping Beyond keep pace with demand for plant-based meat.

Japanese Startup Integriculture Tests Foie Gras Grown in a Lab

Foie gras is one of the most contentious animal products out there. In order to get the goose liver so fatty, farmers have to force feed the animals — a practice that makes foie gras both ethically iffy and really expensive. Some cities are even considering banning it altogether.

However, Japanese cellular agriculture startup Integriculture is developing a cultured foie gras that can be made entirely without animals and therefore without the ethical hangups. This week, the company got one step closer to its goal when it did a private taste test of its cell-based liver at the Beyond Next Ventures office in Tokyo.

Integriculture has done previous tests of its product, but according to an email from Integriculture CEO Yuki Hanyu, this version was significantly more sophisticated. He noted that previous experiments were “chicken cell liver paste,” while this new product was “actual fat-loaded duck liver cells.” It apparently tasted much better and had a cleaner flavor than earlier versions. Hanyu said that they didn’t calculate the cost of producing the cultured foie gras.

The company is also finishing development on their SpaceSalt, a powdered version of cell media (the nutrient-rich bath in which cellular meat is grown) which they’ll sell to biohackers who want to grow their own meat at home using the guide from Shojinmeat, the DIY cultured meat community which Integriculture grew out of. in the aforementioned email, Hanyu told me he hopes to start selling the SpaceSalt by the end of this year.

Integriculture is on a tight timeline to perfect its cell-based foie gras and make it in large enough quantities to sell. The startup plans to launch the cultured liver in restaurants in 2021 and roll it out in Japanese retail in 2023, assuming the government approves cell-based meat for sale. That’s not a lot of time, but this latest test seems to show that the company is at least getting closer to perfecting the product.