Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future Food

Future Food: Why Atlanta is the Perfect Place for a Beyond Meat to Launch its Fried Chicken

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

More than anything else, my mother loves hard-boiled detective stories and murder mysteries.

How is this tidbit relevant to a newsletter that covers the future of protein, you ask? This week I took advantage of my mother’s love of sleuthing and sent her to investigate a case of her own: the new Beyond Meat Fried Chicken nuggets and wings. They debuted at exactly one KFC location in Atlanta, Georgia — which just happened to be a few miles from where she lives.

She arrived at the KFC only to find that the line was wrapped around the block and the drive-thru had shut down because cars were starting to pile up on the side of the road. The wait time: over 2 hours.

The line wrapping around KFC to get the Beyond Fried Chicken. (Photo: Susan Lamb)

Describing the scene to me, my mom kept saying one thing over and over: “And this is in Atlanta!”

I think what she meant is that Atlanta is a city steeped in soul food tradition — a place that takes its fried chicken seriously. So on the surface, ATL seemed like an odd city for Beyond Meat to make its fast-food poultry debut.

Of course, Atlanta is a big city with plenty of hip, millennial folks eager to try food that grabs a lot of media attention (cough, Beyond Meat, cough). Choosing Atlanta as its pilot city is also a little mic drop towards Chick-fil-A, which is headquartered in ATL and is reportedly also exploring plant-based protein options.

But the fact that Beyond Fried Chicken sold out so quickly (in only five hours!) means that there’s something larger at work here. Something that we’ve known for quite a while: consumers want plant-based meat. And they want it everywhere: even in places known for their fried chicken.

Basically, if Beyond Fried Chicken can make it there, it can make it anywhere. And it will. After this viral success, I’m betting we’ll see the plant-based nuggets and wings spread to KFC’s across the country as quickly as Burger King adopted the Impossible Whopper.

My mother didn’t end up getting to try Beyond Fried Chicken on that day, but she did get to speak to a few people in line who did. The verdict: delicious. Now the mystery is where Beyond Fried Chicken will show up next…

Photo: Catherine Lamb

We all scream…

I may have missed the boat on sampling Beyond Fried Chicken, but this week I did get to perform a taste test of my own when I worked my way through 6 pints of Oatly’s new plant-based ice cream (don’t worry, I shared).

In short, it was good — not great. The texture creamy and rich, but the flavor was a little too… oaty for my taste. The exception being the Oat flavored ice cream, which was actually on point!

Despite my qualms, I think Oatly ice cream will do well when it rolls out in retail in the U.S. this fall — despite the growing competition in the dairy-free ice cream case. Its brightly-hued pints attract eyeballs and Oatly’s name will pop out to consumers who have already established a taste for its oat milk.

It may be crowded, but there’s also plenty of room for more players to enter the plant-based ‘scream market: According to Grand View Research, the dairy-free ice cream market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.8 percent over the next five years, reaching a size of $1.2 billion by 2025.

Things will get really interesting once Perfect Day enters the scene with its (delicious) flora-based ice cream, though.

I’ll take the lab-grown mahi-mahi, please

Last week BluNalu, a cellular aquaculture growing fish, mollusks, and crustaceans without the animals, announced more plans about its commercialization strategy. When I spoke to the CEO, Lou Cooperhouse, on the phone, he said they hope to break ground on their first large-scale production facility — which can produce a whopping 18 million pounds of seafood — in five years. Their inaugural product: mahi-mahi.

Having a concrete timeline at all puts BlueNalu ahead of most other cellular aquaculture startups out  — heck, ahead of most cell-based meat companies at all. While lots of companies have vague promises to bring a product to market “within the next few years,” putting actual numbers on their rollout plans shows that BlueNalu is thinking long-term — and thinking big.

With BlueNalu developing mahi-mahi, Wild Type creating salmon, Shiok Meats making shrimp and Finless Foods tackling tuna, we could eventually dine on a fully cell-based seafood sushi smorgasbord. Now we have 3-5 years to get hyped about it.

Photo: Nestlé

Protein ’round the web

  • Pizza, eh? Canadian 7-Elevens will start selling pizzas topped with Beyond Meat Italian sausage crumbles.
  • Nestlé is reformulating its plant-based Incredible Burger, which it sells under its Gourmet Garden brand in Europe, to make it have a meatier flavor and texture (h/t Bloomberg).
  • Puris, Beyond Meat’s pea protein supplier, just snagged an additional $75 million investment from Cargill, according to CNBC.
  • Singapore-based vegan-friendly recommendation and review platform Abillionveg raised a US$2 million seed round (via TechinAsia).

That’s it from me this week! Have a great Labor Day and please, grill responsibly.

Eat well,
Catherine

New Coalition Forms to Bring Cultured Meat to Market Faster

Today five cellular agriculture and aquaculture companies announced that they have formed a new coalition to educate and advocate for cultured meat — that is, meat or seafood grown outside the animal.

Called the Alliance for Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation (AMPS Innovation), the group consists of cellular aquaculture companies BlueNalu and Finless Foods and cell-based meat companies Fork & Goode, JUST, and Memphis Meats.

The goal of the coalition is to twofold. They want to provide resources to educate consumers on what exactly cell-based meat is and its health and environmental footprint. But to get to that, they’ll first have to tackle their other goal: to get cell-based meat and fish approved by regulators.

According to a press release sent to the Spoon:

In the coming months, AMPS Innovation intends to engage policymakers and stakeholders to educate them on their products in addition to working with Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration as they continue to build out a regulatory framework for meat, poultry and seafood that is grown directly from animal cells, rather than harvested from the animals themselves.

Basically, AMPS Innovation will act as a mouthpiece and knowledge expert for the larger cellular agriculture industry, pushing for regulatory acceptance needed to bring cultured meat to market.

As of now, the regulatory pathway for cell-based animal products is still pretty nebulous. Last year the FDA and USDA agreed that they would jointly regulate cultured meat; the FDA will oversee animal cell collection and initial cell growth, while the USDA will be in charge of large-scale production labeling. It’s still unclear at exactly what point in the process that handoff will take place, and there’s no timeline about when the governmental bodies will actually approve cultured meat for sale.

Cell-based meat will make it to market; with the amount of interest around and capital invested in cell ag companies, that seems inevitable. At that point AMPS Innovation will likely pivot to focus more on educating consumers who are wary of eating meat grown in a lab — and pushing back against big meat and farming coalitions that don’t want them edging in on their sales.

AMPS Innovation is already building its case. In addition to resources such as high-res media images and descriptions about the cell-based meat production process, their website also has a page called “Terms that are accurate” (kind of an aggressive way to label a glossary, IMHO). The page states that terms like “Meat / poultry / seafood” or “meat / poultry / seafood products” are applicable to cell-based meat, poultry, and seafood, since they are made from animals and real animal flesh.

Big Meat is not going to like that. Farming groups and large meat corporations are already aggressively pushing for labeling restrictions for both plant-based and cell-based meat, even though the latter has yet to make it to market. AMPS Innovation clearly understands to gain regulatory approval, they’ll have to fight not only skeptical regulatory bodies, but also traditional animal agriculture companies with boatloads of money and governmental support.

The timing is right for AMPS Innovation. As the list of companies making cell-based meat and seafood grows, their messaging is becoming more fragmented. They need a unified voice with which to answer questions and advocate for their cause — both now as they start gearing up to advocate for regulatory acceptance, and later as they try to win over consumers.

I Tried Oatly’s New Oat Milk Ice Cream, Headed to Your Freezer Aisle This Fall

As someone who is lactose intolerant I try to limit my dairy intake, but the absolute hardest thing for me to say “no” to is real ice cream. Especially since most plant-based options out there aren’t great.

But this week I was able to give a new milk-free ‘scream a try when Oatly sent me a shipment of its new plant-based ice cream made from its signature oat milk.

For those who aren’t familiar with Oatly, check your hippest neighborhood coffee shop — odds are they’ll have a pint of the stuff next to the espresso machine. Swedish company Oatly helped to catalyze America’s oat milk obsession when it came stateside in 2016.

Now, oat milk is one of the most popular alternative milks out there, attracting droves of fans with its creamy texture and neutral flavor. In fact, Oatly is so popular in the U.S. that recently it has been hard to keep in stock. To combat production issues the company just opened a new production facility in New Jersey and already has plans for another one to open next year in Utah.

In the U.K. and Europe, Oatly is already capitalizing off its popularity to create new products — such as savory spreads, yogurt, and ice cream — featuring its oat milk. Now it’s slowly releasing those products in the U.S., starting with ice cream.

Oatly gave American consumers a first taste of its dairy-free ‘scream earlier this summer with a roaming ice cream truck in Southern California. According to an email from Oatly, their ice cream is now available at small bodegas, Wegmans stores, and through FreshDirect in NYC. It will start rolling out to Whole Foods nationwide this fall. A pint will put you back $5.99, which isn’t especially cheap but is certainly in line with other non-dairy options from Ben & Jerry’s, Haagen-Dazs, and more (though more expensive than most regular ice cream).

Photo: Catherine Lamb

So how did Oatly ice cream taste? Creamy, smooth and rich — though it wouldn’t fool me into thinking it’s real ice cream. The texture is thick and scoopable, and significantly better than other alternative milk ice creams I’ve tried, even other oat-based ones. But the flavor is a bit off.

First of all, it was a lot less sweet than most ice creams I’m used to, which might be a pro for some people but didn’t quite hit the mark for me (I added chocolate sauce to hit my sugar high). In fact, Oatly ice cream has 18 grams of sugar per 2/3 cup serving, which is significantly below the sugar in an equivalent amount of Haagen Dazs (29 grams) or Ben & Jerry’s (31 grams), my typical ice cream picks. It’s also significantly lower in calories and protein.

Unsurprisingly, Oatly’s ice cream also carries the distinct taste of oat. That’s probably why my favorite flavor of the bunch was the Oat one, which leaned into that oatiness instead of trying to cover it up like the mint or strawberry flavors do, with varied success.

Photo: Catherine Lamb

My other qualm was a slightly off-putting thickness to the ice cream that left my tongue feeling coated after I ate it. That’s likely due to the coconut oil and rapeseed oil added to the oat milk to give the ice cream a creamy texture. Oatly also uses several types of gum to stabilize and thicken the product — which actually make the product scoop and melt very similarly to real ice cream. Bonus: One time I accidentally left a pint of Oatly out on my counter for a few hours and stuck it back in the freezer, after which the texture was largely unaffected.

Photo: Oatly.

It’s an opportune time for Oatly to expand the footprint of its plant-based ice cream. People are screaming for dairy-free ice cream: According to Future Market Insights, the alternative ice cream market is projected to reach more than $620 million by 2027. And while it seems like there are new plant-based pints every time I walk by the freezer aisle, the brand recognition Oatly has built up through milk sales will help it stand out from the competition.

Overall, I would definitely buy Oatly ice cream at the grocery store, especially if I was planning to dress it up with toppings or use it to melt on top of a pie or fruit crisp.

However, once Perfect Day brings its flora-based ice cream (lactose-free!) to market, all bets are off. I know it’s not really fair: Perfect Day’s ice cream is made with real dairy proteins so it tastes exactly like the real thing, whereas Oatly has the heavy lift of transforming oats into a totally new product. Perfect Day’s ‘scream is also significantly more expensive than Oatly right now — almost four times as much — so that could deter curious consumers until it gets its cost down.

But when it comes to ice cream, the heart — er, stomach — wants what it wants. And mine isn’t quite satisfied by Oatly. But that won’t stop me from gladly polishing off the pints in my freezer.

Long Lines, Huge Crowds: KFC’s New Beyond Fried Chicken is Going Viral

Yesterday KFC made headlines when the fast-food chain announced that it would test out plant-based Beyond Meat chicken nuggets in one location in suburban Atlanta.

As the majority of the Spoon team is based in the Pacific Northwest, we couldn’t quite justify a trip to taste the plant-based chicken ourselves. Thankfully I grew up in Atlanta and my parents still live there — so this morning I called up my mother to ask her for a big favor: to drive over to KFC and try the Beyond Fried Chicken.

“This is crazy,” she said thirty minutes later when she called to update me. She described lines around the block 70 people deep with dozens of cars queued up to get into the drive-thru. Traffic was stopped on the entire right-hand side of Cobb Parkway, a major city thoroughfare. It was barely 11 a.m. “I can’t believe this is happening in Atlanta!” 

Indeed, the ATL is a place that dearly loves its fried chicken. A soul food hub, the city is also home of Chick-fil-A, which has expanded across the nation drawing fans with its crispy chicken sandwiches and nuggets.

My mother may be nice, but she’s not nice enough to wait in line for three hours on a rainy Tuesday (I can’t blame her). So instead she found a few lucky folks who had already scored their Beyond Fried Chicken and called me up to interview them.

Justin and Ryan with their Beyond Fried Chicken nuggets and wings.

Justin and Ryan waited in line for an hour right when the KFC opened at 10:30am in order to snag the Beyond Fried Chicken. They got 12-piece nuggets ($8.00) and a 6-piece wings, Nashville Hot flavor ($6.00). “They’re really good — the breading is nice, and they’re juicier than other fake chicken we’ve tried like from Morningstar,” they told me. They also said that the nuggets were relatively bland, but that the barbecue dipping sauce added a lot of flavor.

Both Justin and Ryan are vegetarian so they couldn’t speak to whether they thought the Beyond Fried Chicken would fool a meat-eater. They also didn’t offer to share the hard-won “chicken” with my mom (fair enough), so she, a fried chicken obsessive, couldn’t give me her opinion.

Based off of looks alone, it doesn’t seem like the Beyond Fried Chicken is going to be enticing any hardcore carnivores. “It doesn’t look very appetizing,” my mom told me later after sending me a photo of Justin and Ryan’s hard-earned nuggets and wings.

Indeed, the plant-based chicken isn’t winning any beauty contests. But a good chunk of ATL-liens don’t seem to care — heck, they’ll even drive out of their way and wait for hours in the rain for it.

At least part of this fuss is because Beyond Meat has become such a buzzed-about news topic ever since their successful IPO. Consumers are also always drawn to the next hot trend, and the KFC/Beyond Meat partnership got a lot of media coverage. There’s also a slight ‘Free Stuff!’ incentive: today the select KFC location is giving out complimentary samples of Beyond Fried Chicken from 10:30am to 6:30pm (with the purchase of a full-priced menu item and while supplies last).

However, I don’t think the promise of a free plant-based nugget was enough to draw crowds of this size. Instead, the viral popularity of the Beyond Fried Chicken speaks to just how much consumers want plant-based options, well, everywhere. Even in a city famed for its love of fried bird.

“It’s a sensation,” my mother said as she pulled out of the parking lot to head home. KFC stated that it would consider consumer response to the plant-based chicken before it considered a larger product rollout. If it mirrors what happened with Burger King and Qdoba, both of which tested out Impossible Foods products briefly in a few locations before expanding nationwide, that rollout will happen pretty soon.

Based on today’s response, I’m guessing we’ll soon be able to taste KFC’s Beyond Fried Chicken in a lot more places — maybe even Seattle.

Update: According to a press release sent to The Spoon, KFC sold out of Beyond Fried Chicken in less than 5 hours. In that time, the amount of Beyond Fried Chicken purchased by guests was equal to the amount of popcorn chicken that KFC would typically sell in one week.

KFC to Start Testing Beyond Meat Chicken Products This Week

Add another name to the ever-growing list of QSRs offering plant-based meat. Today, KFC announced it will start testing Beyond Meat Chicken nuggets and wings on its menu for a limited time (h/t Restaurant Business Online).

The Louisville, KY chain is the first chicken-focused QSR to join the plant-based meat movement. Back in May, KFC said it was considering a plant-based meat product but was waiting to understand the long-term benefits of adding one to its menu.

It seems, though, that plant-based meat is shifting from the “wait and see” phase and becoming more of a must-have item for most QSRs. Major chains like Del Taco, White Castle, and Dunkin’ have all added an item, and Burger King upped the ante not long ago when it launched the Impossible Whopper at stores nationwide.

According to Restaurant Business Online, KFC’s new pilot is partly to determine if the craze for plant-based fast food will apply to chicken as much as it has to burgers and sausage.

The company will pilot Beyond wings and nuggets at just a single location in Atlanta, GA — which just happens to be Chick-fil-A’s hometown. The latter is said to be developing its own plant-based chicken offering, though details are few and far between as to when that might actually launch on menus.

Chick-fil-A, along with other fried chicken QSRs, will need to move fast too keep pace. KFC has already sung the praises of the new chicken product, saying it’s difficult to tell the difference between it and the real thing. If the Atlanta pilot is successful, KFC will consider a nationwide rollout of the products, presumably ushering in a new craze for plant-based fried chicken.

BlueNalu Unveils Plan for Facility to Grow Fish, Crustaceans and Mollusks, Starting with Mahi-Mahi

BlueNalu just revealed details about its plan to become the global leader in cellular aquaculture. Yesterday the San Diego-based startup, which grows seafood from cell cultures, dove deeper into its commercialization strategy for its cultured fish and also released schematics of its future large-scale food facilities.

According to a press release from the company, the new facility, which will be “a hybrid between a microbrewery and a conventional food production facility,” will be 150,000 square feet and produce a whopping 18 million pounds of seafood products per year. There, BlueNalu scientists will grow fish cells in large tanks then combine them into a variety of finished seafood products.

And when we say variety, we mean variety. “We’re creating a platform approach that will allow us to do freshwater and saltwater fin fish, and ultimately crustaceans and mollusks too,” Lou Cooperhouse, co-founder and CEO of BlueNalu, told me over the phone. They’ll initially focus on species that are overfished, difficult to farm, or contain high levels of pollutants. Finished products will be sold to restaurants, grocery stores and directly to consumers.

Their first product will be cultured mahi-mahi. According to Cooperhouse, they decided to enter the market with this fish since it’s versatile and especially difficult to farm raise. However, they’ve previously done taste tests with yellowtail amberjack, and Cooperhouse emphasized that they’re focusing more on creating a cellular aquaculture platform — not just one particular species.

It will be a while before we can sample cell-based mahi-mahi. BlueNalu’s roadmap, made up of five phases, is still in phase one: focusing on R&D for its cell-based seafood. They hope to start selling their products in two to three years, then break ground on their first facility (phase five) in five years.

The Holy Grail for any cultured animal tissue company — be it focused on beef or fish — is to make an agnostic platform to grow any type of tissue. But for now, other cellular aquaculture companies are much more heads-down on one type of seafood: shrimp for Shiok Meats, salmon for Wild Type, and tuna for Finless Foods. BlueNalu’s plan for the future is unusually broad — and ambitious.

It’s easy for companies to talk a big talk about what will happen five years down the road. And honestly, BlueNalu’s plans might be a little too aggressive to bring into action in that timeline, especially since cell-based meat and seafood have yet to hit the market. Then again, the company raised a significant $4.5 million only two months after launching publicly. Plus, as seafood prices rise and our waterways become more contaminated, I’m betting the market opportunity for cellular aquaculture products will grow. We’ll see if BlueNalu will be there to feed it.

7-Eleven in Canada Now Sells Beyond Meat Pizza for Grab & Go

Yesterday 7-Eleven Canada announced the launch of Beyond Meat Pizza on its Hot to Go menu. The ‘za is topped with Beyond Italian Sausage Crumbles and roasted vegetables, and is now available in select Toronto 7-Eleven locations.

According to a press release from 7-Eleven, customers can grab a piping hot Beyond Meat pizza to go 24/7. There’s also a to-go “take and bake” option, and select stores offer delivery by Foodora or Uber Eats. Pricing details were not disclosed.

This isn’t the first time meatless meats have graced the top of a quickservice pizza pie. Multiple local chains, such as PizzaREV and Minsky’s, serve pizzas topped with Beyond Meat. Little Caesar’s began selling the Impossible Supreme, topped with sausage developed specifically for the chain by Impossible Foods, at select locations back in May.

Canada seems to be having a love affair with Beyond Meat. The plant-based meat is already available at quite a few local fast-food chains, such as A&W and beloved donut-and-burger empire Tim Horton’s.

However, this is the first time Beyond Meat will be available in a convenience store. It’s also yet another way for the plant-based meat to diversify its products and appeal a wider set of consumer demands. The pizza could be a good option for people who want to pick up a quick meal to make at home, or those looking for a speedy to-go bite that isn’t a fast-food burger.

7-Eleven didn’t mention any details about expansion plans. However, there are over 60,000 locations of 7-Eleven globally, including 8,500 in the U.S. alone. If the Beyond Meat pizza proves popular, we could soon be seeing it next to those rotating hot-dogs at the 7-Eleven hot bar.

Future Food: Our Impossible Whopper Taste Test Goes Viral, Just Like the Impossible Whopper Itself

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

Let’s jump right in. Last week The Spoon’s Managing Editor Chris Albrecht drove to his local Burger King, tried an Impossible Whopper, and wrote about his experience. It was without question The Spoon’s most clicked-on post in months.

The review’s popularity shows that people are very curious about the Impossible Whopper. However, Chris was a little “meh” on the plant-based burger. In the post, he wrote:

It was… fine. I mean, it was good, but it’s missing some of the deep flavor complexity and texture of ground beef, and the Impossible patty was a little more dry. It definitely wouldn’t fool a meat eater.

Not everyone was as underwhelmed by their taste test experience with the Impossible Whopper. The Spoon founder Mike Wolf also gave the plant-based patty a try, and he thought it did a great job approximating the telltale “charbroiled” taste of a BK burger. So while the Impossible Whopper might not be a great burger in its own right, it does a pretty good job of approximating a Whopper.

Burger King’s Rebel Whopper (Photo: Burger King)

Regardless of its shortcomings, people are flocking to the BK Lounge to try the Impossible Whopper for themselves. Which made me wonder: Once all fast-food places roll out their own plant-based meat options (besides Arby’s, obvi), will consumers make their dining choices based off of their allegiance to a particular meatless meat brand? For example, will they hit up Burger King to try the Impossible Whopper over Carl’s Jr., which serves a Beyond Famous Star Burger?

Maybe not at first. Unless you’re reporting on these companies day-in, day-out (hi!), you might not have a strong preference for one brand of plant-based over another. At this point, many consumers categorize both Beyond and Impossible under the same umbrella: newfangled “bleeding” vegan burgers.

However, as people get more and more familiar with the various meatless meat brands, they’ll likely establish preferences based off of subtle taste differences, ingredients, or texture, especially once new realistic meat alternatives come to market.

And if you think that those small details aren’t a big deal, you should see what happens when a server asks me, a die-hard Coca-Cola fan, “Is Pepsi fine?” (No, it is not.)

Got (blended) milk?

You might have heard about blended meats, but what about blended milk? This week, Live Real Farms, a brand from the Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), announced the launch a blended dairy product that’s 50 percent cow milk and 50 percent oat or almond milk.

Tyson made a similar move when it developed its Raised + Rooted product line, which features a blended burger made of 50 percent beef 50 percent plants. A major organization known for animal products acknowledging the popularity of alternative proteins by meeting it somewhere in the middle.

The DFA product is currently available in only Minnesota and will roll out nationwide in 2020. Once it does, I’ll be so curious to see whether or not the blends resonate with consumers. If people use different milks for different purposes — cow milk in their coffee, almond milk in their cereal, etc. — will they be willing to chuck them all in favor of a new catch-all?

We’ll see. But personally, I’ll stick to Oatly.

Protein ’round the web

That’s it from me this week!

Eat well,
Catherine

JUST Egg Heads to Kroger Grocery Banners as Demand for Plant-Based Egg Grows

On Friday alternative protein startup JUST announced that it would be selling JUST Egg at 2,100 Kroger-owned grocery stores around the U.S.

JUST Egg is a plant-based liquid egg substitute made of mung beans and contains no saturated fat or cholesterol. Over the next few weeks, the product will be sold in the egg aisle of Kroger, as well as Kroger grocery banners like Fred Meyer, and QFC. It’s currently available at Kroger-owned Harris Teeter and Roundy’s brands.

This news is just the latest in JUST Egg’s latest expansion efforts. The plant-based scramble is already pretty widely available in retail: you can find it at Whole Foods, Sprouts, and even Costco, where it’s sold in a 2-pack for $9.99 (at other stores it typically costs almost that much for one 12-ounce bottle).

JUST Egg is also amping up its restaurant presence, and just forged its first fast-food partnership with Tim Horton’s in Canada. And that’s just in North America. Internationally, JUST Egg is also available at both retailers and restaurants in Hong Kong, China, and Europe.

But the fact that JUST is expanding the footprint of its Egg product so quickly indicates that there’s significant consumer demand for a tasty plant-based egg alternative — from both vegans and flexitarians. In fact, in an email to The Spoon JUST reported that a whopping 77 percent of those who buy JUST Egg also eat meat. The fact that JUST will be selling its plant-based scramble in the egg section means that the company has an even better chance of capturing flexitarians who are either curious to try a new product or want to reduce their environmental footprint.

As of now, JUST Egg doesn’t have any significant competition. But given its popularity, I doubt that will be the case for very long. It’s smart to snap up as much retail shelf space and build brand recognition while it’s still the #1 player — before the grocery egg section gets crowded with more alternatives.

If you want to stay up to date on all the plant-based food trends, make sure to subscribe to our weekly alternative protein newsletter Future Food! It’s fun, we promise. 

Future Food: Pigging Out on Omnipork in Hong Kong

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

I just got home from a stopover in Hong Kong after the whirlwind of SKS Japan, and boy it was anything but boring.

In between sampling bubble waffles and copious amounts of dim sum, I got to meet with David Yeung, founder of the Green Monday enterprise. Green Monday is an umbrella organization which includes a non-profit educating consumers on the benefits of meat alternatives, a vegan grocery and wholesale operation, a venture arm, and a branded plant-based pork product called Omnipork.

Yeah. David Yeung is busy.

During my visit I also got to put Omnipork to a taste test. I sampled it tucked in a fried gyoza, crumbled on top of a bowl of ramen, and stuffed inside sweet puff pastry dim sum.

Overall, I thought Omnipork worked pretty well as a pork substitute. It doesn’t have the same unctuous fattiness of actual pork, at least partially because it’s lower in saturated fat, but it’s still tasty and the texture hits close to the mark.

Omnipork is essentially flavorless — which is both a good and bad thing. Yeung told me this was very intentional; he wanted to make a product that was endlessly versatile so it could be incorporated into a wide variety of Asian dishes. However, it can also make for a pretty bland bite if not properly seasoned or combined with tasty sauces.

The versatility bit is key. Yeung’s overarching goal is to make a comprehensive platform to cut down on Asia’s consumption of animal products, starting with the continent’s most popular meat: pork. Yeung said that Asian consumers might have a burger every month or so, but they incorporate ground pork into multiple meals daily. He figured that if he wanted to create a plant-based protein that could have a shot at taking a bite out of growing meat consumption in Asia, he had to make a product specifically tailored for that audience.

Crazily enough, he’s the first to do so. When people think about the new wave of fake meat products, their thoughts automatically turn to Silicon Valley. While there’s certainly plenty of innovation there, Asia is actually the area that seems in most need of tasty, cheap plant-based protein: meat consumption there is projected to rise by 78 percent by 2050, and recent outbreaks have made meat prices skyrocket and also triggered consumer demand for a safer alternative.

I left Hong Kong feeling both inspired by Yeung’s progress and daunted by how far he has to go. If he wants to take a bite out of Asian pork consumption, he’ll need to get Omnipork on a lot more plates. Making it into tasty gyozas is certainly a good start.

Photo: Beyond Meat

Beyond Meat skips Japan

Like any alternative-protein nerd, I kept my eyes peeled during my time in Tokyo to see if I came across any plant-based meat, eggs, etc.

No dice. And now it seems that at least one major alt-protein player won’t be entering the Japanese market at all, at least for a while. Last week Reuters reported that Beyond Meat had dropped plans to start selling in Japan, instead opting to double down on the U.S. market.

This is a change in tune from Beyond CEO’s Ethan Brown statement during the company’s first earnings call a few months ago. Then, he outlined Beyond’s aggressive expansion plan, naming Asia as one of the key areas of focus.

That being said, it makes sense why Beyond has to hit the pause button on outward growth and turned their attention back stateside. The company has announced multiple fast-food partnerships over the past few weeks alone, including large rollouts with Dunkin’ and Subway. A product shortage would be very, very bad right now, as Beyond competes with Impossible Foods in a race to snag the most fast-food partners and steels itself for Impossible to enter retail later this year.

No wonder Beyond has turned its attention back to the U.S.

Photo: Aramark.

Cafeteria special: Meatless meat

As I mentioned above, alternative meat companies have been grabbing headlines lately by partnering with large fast-food chains like Burger King, Subway and Dunkin’. But recently, two new alt-meat partnerships have flown relatively under the media radar — and they shouldn’t.

Last week food service management company Sodexo announced it would launch a new product line featuring the Impossible burger at 1,500 locations in the U.S. A few days later, news broke that food and facilities management giant Aramark would begin using Beyond Meat products to build out its plant-based meat portfolio.

Partnerships like these may not get as much press as fast-food launches, but teaming up with major food and facilities management companies is an important strategic move for companies like Impossible and Beyond.

Most obviously, it’s an opportunity for plant-based meat companies to massively expand their footprint and get their products on even more plates, selling to a captive audience at sports venues, concert halls, and cafeteria. Since both providers also serve a lot of university cafeterias, also a way for them to train younger generations of consumers to expect alternative proteins wherever they dine.

Beyond and Impossible may be just starting to ramp up foodservice expansion, but they’re not the first to do so. Plant-based chicken nugget company Rebellyous has been targeting large clients like cafeterias from the start (they just got into the Microsoft canteen).

If meat alternatives want to give real meat a serious run for its money, they’ll need to capture audience not just in restaurants and grocery stores, but also during their office lunch or ball game dinner. These partnerships are a great start.

Photo: Integriculture

Protein ’round the web

  • An Australian startup is growing kangaroo meat in a lab (via the Wall Street Journal). They currently estimate it would cost about $600 Australian dollars (~$400 USD) to produce one kilogram.
  • Edible insect company Chapul is no longer making protein bars. Instead, they’ll focus on growing bugs to use as fish and poultry feed (h/t Foodnavigator).
  • At SKS Japan we spoke with Integriculture’s founder about his plan to sell cell-based foie gras in restaurants by 2021.

That’s it from me this week. I’m off to grab another coffee to keep my jet lag at bay.

Eat well,
Catherine

A Taste of Omnipork, The First Meat Alternative Developed Specifically for Asia

Last week I visited Kind Kitchen in Hong Kong and got to taste a special type of pork gyoza that was juicy, tender, and delicious — and also happened to be made entirely of plants.

Kind Kitchen is part of Green Common, a group of plant-based retail shops and restaurants. In addition to the physical outlets in Hong Kong, Green Common also has a wholesale operation which distributes vegan products to thousands of grocery stores and restaurants throughout Asia. Its products are also available for consumers to purchase online.

Even as the number of flexitarians in Asia begins to rise and the Chinese government calls for a cut in meat consumption, vegan products can be hard to come by in Hong Kong. Asia is the world’s largest consumer of pork, and right now, there aren’t any good alternatives on the market — especially those that would appeal to the dietary preferences of an Asian audience.

According to David Yeung, founder of Green Common and its parent company Green Monday, it can be hard for Western people to understand Asia’s relationship with pork. “Pork is a foundation ingredient in everyday cooking,” Yeung told me over milk tea (made with Oatly) at Kind Kitchen. “Almost like salt and pepper.”

To address that shortage of pork alternatives while still respecting the dish’s cultural significance, Yeung launched Omnipork under his Right Treat brand last year in Hong Kong. The minced “pork” product is made of soy, pea protein, shiitake mushrooms, and rice. It has no cholesterol and higher amounts of calcium and iron than pork, but slightly less protein.

Omnipork display at Kind Kitchen in Hong Kong. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

Yeung decided to develop Omnipork with a relatively neutral flavor to optimize versatility, so it can be used to make everything from dumplings to meat sauce.

In addition to Hong Kong, Omnipork is also sold at roughly 1,000 suppliers in Macau, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Nearly two-thirds of its distribution points are restaurants, ranging in fanciness from hawker stalls in Singapore to 3 Michelin star dining establishments.

Yeung has aggressive expansion plans in mind: He told me that by the end of the year he expects to sell Omnipork at close to 5,000 outlets. The number will rise to roughly 10,000 outlets after their anticipated entrance into the Chinese market over the next few months. By the beginning of 2020, he hopes Omnipork will be available in up to 15 countries. His team is also developing new Omnipork products, such as dumplings and ready-to-eat meals.

A 230 gram pack sells for around $40 HKD ($5 USD) at Green Common. According to Yeung, that puts it on par with regular pork. In fact in some cases it’s a lot cheaper, since the African Swine Virus has recently depleted the Chinese pig population and made pork prices skyrocket in Asia.

But no matter how cost competitive it is, people won’t buy meat alternatives unless they taste good. After my taste test experience, I think that Omnipork measures up. Sure, its texture is slightly spongier than pork, and it has a slight pea protein aftertaste. But while it doesn’t have a ton of flavor on its own, it meshes super well into a variety of dishes, from ramen to dumplings.

Ramen and gyozas made with Omnipork from Kind Kitchen. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

Realizing the unmet demand for plant-based foods, Western companies are also beginning to target Asia as an emerging market for plant-based products. JUST sells its animal-free egg scramble in Singapore, Hong Kong, and China, and Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are also available in several Asian countries. Earlier this week Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer (and interestingly owned by a Hong Kong-based company), announced the launch of its new line of plant-based protein, though hasn’t specified if it will sell its new products in Asia.

Hong Kong was actually the first area to carry Beyond Meat outside the U.S. — at Green Common. That isn’t exactly surprising, since Yeung was an early investor in Beyond through his Green Monday Ventures platform (yes, another branch of his plant-based empire).

There are also a few players beginning to make meat alternatives in Asia, mostly in the cell-based meat space. In Singapore Shiok Meats is developing cultured shrimp, and back in Hong Kong Avant Meats is developing lab-grown fish swim bladders.

When I asked Yeung if he was planning on selling Omnipork in Europe or the U.S., he seemed hesitant. He said that they were hoping to expand outside of Asia over the next year but will continue to keep their focus on that part of the world. “It’s a white space, a complete vacuum,” he said, indicating how few plant-based products are developed specifically for Asian palates and dining patterns.

The world’s meat consumption is projected to rise. Pair that with a growing population, climate change, and food safety issues, and Asia is primed to be a leading market for meat alternatives. “We built a platform a platform for the entire future food ecosystem,” Yeung said. “Now we want to catalyze it.”

Future Food: The New Wave of Protein Might Come from Air, Not Plants

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

Konichiwa! Greetings from the muggy, beautiful city of Tokyo, where we’ve set up camp this week in preparation for SKS Japan. I’ll be leading a panel on alternative proteins with speakers from JUST and Integriculture/Shojinmeat, so keep an ear to the ground for coverage on that conversation.

Tokyo really does seem to be a city of the future — especially when it comes to food. From sushi burritos delivered in cubbies to ramen via vending machine, the dining experience here is always incredibly thoughtful and efficient.

My time here has got me thinking about what sort of simple, elegant solutions might be out there for our food system right now that are right in front of our face.

One that comes to mind is Kiverdi. The San Francisco-based startup feeds carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to special single-celled organisms to create edible proteins.

It almost sounds too good to be true. Since neither Kiverdi nor other companies turning air into protein (yes, there’s more than one!) have a product to market, it’s too early to tell if they’ll be able to deliver on their goals of creating affordable, super-sustainable protein from the air around us. But the timeline isn’t too distant: both Kiverdi and Finnish gas fermentation startup Solar Foods are hoping to bring a product to market in two years.

At that time, we’ll be able to see if Kiverdi and others can indeed make a neutral-tasting protein from carbon dioxide in a cost-competitive manner (which they claim they can already do). If so, it could rock our food system.

It could be used as an ingredient to make high-protein pastas or breads. It could become a sustainable vegan protein powder. It could be mixed with burgers or chicken nuggets to make blended meat products, further cutting down on emissions by reducing our meat consumption.

That’s just the start. Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing our society today, and one of its biggest causes is the amount of carbon trapped in the atmosphere. If there’s a technology that sucks up excess carbon and not only sequesters it, but transforms it into something that can help feed the planet, I’d call that the future of food.

Photo: the Impossible Whopper at Burger King.

Vegan… ish?

If you’re grabbing a plant-based Impossible or Beyond burger at one of the many fast-food restaurants that now serve the burgers, you probably expect that the food you receive will be vegetarian.

Except not really. While the burger itself may be 100% free of animal products the finished combo meal might still have traces of meat due to the restaurant’s cooking process.

Most fast-food joints don’t have the space to carve out a special area just to cook plant-based meat. Burger King has admitted that the patties for its Impossible Whopper are flame-grilled in the same broiler as its chicken and beef products. Likewise, when I tried the Beyond Famous Star burger at Carl’s Jr. earlier this year the manager told me that the burgers are in fact cooked on the same grill as typical beef burgers. (Interestingly, White Castle has a completely separate grill surface to cook the Impossible sliders.)

I’m guessing it’s the same story at most fast-casual restaurants that serve meatless meat. Rare is the restaurant that has the capacity to designate a completely separate area to cook vegan items, unless that place already caters specifically to vegan diners. In fact, last year I went to a Seattle burger chain to try the Impossible burger for the first time (memories!!) and was told that the chefs try to prep the burger on a separate area of the grill, but when it gets busy that doesn’t always happen.

There’s also the fact that many plant-based meat options at fast-food aren’t inherently vegan: they’re dressed up with cheese and mayonnaise and served on egg-based buns. All of which makes sense, since QSR’s aren’t targeting vegans with their newly-adopted Beyond and Impossible products. Instead, they’re hoping to capture the curiosity of flexitarian diners looking to cut down on their meat consumption without sacrificing on flavor.

In the end, I can see how vegans might be annoyed to learn that they can’t really eat plant-based burgers. But I imagine to many, the end result — more people eating meatless meat — justifies the means. Perhaps if meatless meat gains enough popularity fast-food chains will create designated vegan cook areas.

Photo: Subway

Eat Fresh (Plants)

For a limited time this September, Subway will be testing out Beyond Meatball Marinara sandwiches in 685 locations in the U.S. and Canada. That’s a relatively small fraction, as Subway is the largest and fastest-growing fast-food chain with over 25,000 locations in the U.S. alone.

Then again, Beyond has now forged a partnership with the largest and fastest-growing fast-food chain globally. Forget McDonald’s (though they definitely haven’t) — this partnership indicates, as if we didn’t already know, that plant-based meat is becoming more and more of the norm.

Interestingly, the sandwiches feature Beyond meatballs developed specifically for Subway. It looks like more and more plant-based meat companies are developing unique products specifically for their fast-food partners. Dunkin’s new sandwiches contain Beyond breakfast sausages developed specifically for the chain, and Impossible created plant-based sausage specifically for Little Caesar’s.

This move tightens the screws on other QSR’s dragging their feet on adopting meatless meats. I think we’re one step closer to seeing a plant-based McGriddles sandwich.

Photo: Tyson Foods.

Protein ’round the web

  • eat.life, a food delivery app that only has vegan dining options, will launch in London in 2020 (h/t VegNews).
  • Tyson announced it will start selling its Raised & Rooted plant-based chicken nuggets (which contain egg whites) in 4,000 stores, and roll them out in foodservice this September.
  • FoodNavigator wrote a profile on FUMI Ingredients, a Dutch starting making a vegan egg substitute from yeast.

That’s it for this week! I’m off to eat my body weight in 7-11 Egg Salad sandwiches (yes they are actually *that* good).

Eat well,
Catherine