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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Do Consumers Trust Big Food to Make Their Plant-Based Meat? Does It Matter?

When we released our story about Nestlé launching a meat-like, meatless patty dubbed the “Incredible Burger” last week, it sparked some… backlash from our audience. (To be clear: We welcome comments!) Here are a few examples:

https://twitter.com/rebarrett/status/1079005375674834946

Basically, some readers were skeptical that they could trust Nestlé — which, like most Big Food companies, has a less-than-perfect reputation — to make plant-based food sustainably. These reactions made us at the Spoon wonder: as an eating trend (like plant-based food) goes mainstream, will consumers buy products regardless of the company that makes them?

At first, maybe not so much. During a conversation about the evolving plant-based meat market, The Spoon founder Mike Wolf speculated that earlier in the adoption curve people tend to be more value-driven, seeking out certain products motivated by the ethics of the manufacturing process, the sustainability quotient, or the reputation of the parent company. Early adopters often put more value in the ethics and mission of a product, like how Impossible Foods is out to save the planet by reducing meat consumption.

As Big Food companies like Nestlé concentrate on the meat alternatives space, early adopters might be skeptical of their motives and, therefore, their products. However, as you get to what Wolf calls “the Costco consumer” — one who’s more driven by more by price value than by, well, values — the company behind the product might not mean quite as much. These mainstream consumers aren’t buying the product to make a values statement: rather, they’re selecting it because of its reduced cost, good taste, or maybe even branding. In general, they won’t boycott a product because they don’t like the ethics of the company who makes it.

This sort of apathetic consumerism might grate with the more woke shoppers. But in a weird way, it shouldn’t. Young startups are all well and good, and have been doing a great job drumming up consumer interest in meat-like meat alternatives. However, if plant-based (and, down the road, cell-based) meat has a prayer of actually disrupting the industrial meat industry, Big Food pretty much needs to be involved.

Of course, how they get involved is important, too — in no way should Big Food companies get carte blanche. They shouldn’t use their sizeable market muscles to force out startups who are on a mission, or stifle new companies. Environmental concerns are also top of mind: plants may be more sustainable than meat, but Nestlé still has to be conscious the makings its ingredients, manufacturing processes, and packaging as sustainable as possible.

Tyson Foods has a 5 percent stake in Beyond Meat. (Photo: Beyond Meat.)

All this to say, some people — especially early adopters — might not like how Big Food companies entering the meat-like meat alternatives market with their Incredible burgers and vegan hot dogs. That’s perfectly alright. These objectors don’t have to get their plant-based protein from major CPG companies; there are plenty of other delicious options which, at least from the outside, seem to have the ethical upper hand.

But giant CPG companies like Nestlé have the manufacturing power, global reach, and distribution channels that can help plant-based meat go from (relatively) niche product to mainstream food staple: one that costs the same as or less than conventional meat. In order for alterna-meats to really catch on, they have to be within reach for the “Costco consumer.” And that pretty much inevitably means working with Big Food — even Nestlé.

Do you agree? Is getting Big Food involved the only way that meat alternatives can go mainstream? Sound off in the comments or on Twitter @TheSpoonTech! 

My Whole Family Tried the Impossible Slider from White Castle (and Loved It)

My family has a… rather unique Christmas tradition. For Christmas Eve lunch, when the 15-odd crew of us gather at my grandparents’ home outside of Cincinnati, OH, we have a White Castle slider eating competition. The record: twenty-one. (Blegh.)

As a vegetarian I usually have to abstain from this tradition. But this year, oh this year, I got to be a competitor. And it’s all thanks to Impossible Foods.

In September Impossible Foods, maker of the popular “bleeding” plant-based burger, rolled out their sliders to all 377 White Castle locations. So when we made our annual pilgrimmage to the local White Castle, I went along to pick up a dozen meat-free sliders as well.

I was surprised by how heavily White Castle was marketing the Impossible slider in stores, with giant window decals, BOGO coupons, and ample menu space. But maybe I shouldn’t have been. White Castle CEO Laura Ingram stated that sales of the meatless sliders “easily exceeded our expectations,” and is popular with both new and existing customers.

Here’s a poorly-shot visual comparison of the two burgers: Impossible on the left, traditional on the right:

Photo: Catherine Lamb for the Spoon.

The Impossible slider comes with a two-ounce meat-free patty, smoked cheddar cheese, pickles, and onions, and costs $1.99. A typical White Castle slider is $.79 cents (without cheese), and has a one-ounce beef patty, pickles, and onions. At $1.99, the Impossible slider is almost three times the price of the $.79 regular slider — but it’s also a lot heftier.

As you can see from the photo, the Impossible slider is just, well, better looking than the beef one. It’s bigger, the bun is fluffier (I’m not why they use different buns for the two, but they do), and with the cheese peeking out it just looks tastier. The patty itself is also quite a bit bigger and looks almost more like meat than the thin rectangular slice of the actual beef patty.

When it comes to taste, I also think that the Impossible slider delivered. With two ounces of “meat” the slider has a toothsome bite, and the smoked cheddar and sharp pickles pack a flavorful — and very salty — punch. I didn’t mind the savoriness but several of my family members found the sliders too salty for their liking.

In fact, many of my family members, who are die-hard White Castle lovers, actually said they liked the Impossible slider better than the original. Their one complaint: it didn’t have the same richy, meaty smell.

The sliders were also very well-done and didn’t “bleed” when we bit into them. Which isn’t especially surprising, since that’s pretty par for the course for fast-food burgers, but I’m disappointed that I still haven’t experienced the “bleeding” Impossible effect.

In the end, I only managed four meatless sliders and lost the contest (the winner ate twelve). However, we emerged with quite a few plant-based burger converts, many of whom said they would gladly order one of the burgers if they saw it on a menu — or on a grocery shelf — down the road.

That’s exactly what Impossible was hoping would happen. As I wrote back in September, the White Castle partnership is part of Impossible’s long-term goal to make their products more accessible and affordable. Judging from my experience, I’d say that so far they’re doing a great job.

2019 Will Be a Breakthrough Year for Food Robots

Right now the year 2019 is still (slightly) in the future, but 2019 will also be a year where we start to feel like we’re living in the future. The reason for that can be summed up in one word: ROBOTS.

The food robots are coming and while they won’t become ubiquitous next year, 2019 will be a breakthrough year in which more robots go to work, and more money flows into food robot startups.

2018 was already a pretty a banner year for food robot companies, including:

  • Look, I can do this all day. You get the point. From restaurants to grocery stores, robots will play an increasingly important role in the way we get our food.

    We’ve said it ad nauseum, but robots are really good for things like manual, repetitive tasks. In the food world, this can also mean taking over dangerous jobs that involve hot cooktops. And since robots can run 24 hours a day, they are pretty ideal for making food and/or deliveries on demand, around the clock. Next year is when they’ll move from pilot programs and tests to become more a part of our everyday lives.

    For restaurants, high-traffic, high-volume locales will be the first to dive more deeply into the robotics game. Levy, a hospitality company which owns a number of entertainment and sporting venues, is an investor in Miso Robotics . After Flippy’s successful debut at Dodger Stadium, it only makes sense that it will pop up in other such arenas. Additionally, Briggo launched its Coffee Haus robot/vending machine in the Austin Airport this year. Both Briggo and Cafe X are targeting airports as prime locations for their robo-baristas.

    On the grocery side, both Alberstons and Walmart are building out robot-driven micro-fulfillment centers inside their stores, where robots on rails bring items to humans who bag them up for customer pick up or delivery. The result is an online order that can be fulfilled in as little as a half hour. This type of speed will spur adoption as Takeoff, one of the startups building out these robotic fulfillment centers, says it will open five robot fulfillment sites in Q1 of 2019. Not to be left behind, Kroger is building out the first of its robot-driven smart warehouse fulfillment centers near its Cincinnati HQ.

    Robots won’t be relegated to restaurants and storerooms either. Li’l autonomous rover bots will be out rolling down the sidewalks as well. Kiwi is now making food delivery in Berkeley and Westwood, CA (that one robot catching fire notwithstanding). Starship is operating on corporate campuses and is doing package and grocery delivery in the U.K. And Marble is working with the city of Dallas to test out robot deliveries there. Even well-funded delivery service, Postmates, decided to build and launch their own delivery robot.

    The other half of this equation will be seeing how cities react to delivery robots. What kind of legislation will they put in place as humans start to share sidewalks with more and more robots potentially underfoot? Will cities and states be strict, or more open to the change?

    Robots however, as we’ve also said repeatedly, will transform the workplace — but not just in the number of jobs available to humans. Yes, millions of traditional jobs will be lost to automation over the coming years. This is a socio-economic problem that we should be laying the groundwork to solve now rather than struggling to deal with it after it’s happened. But robots could also open up entirely new job opportunities, as a pop-up cafe in Japan recently did. Though only open for a brief time, the Dawn Avatar Cafe in Tokyo featured robots driven remotely by those with disabilities from their homes. This won’t happen in every robot restaurant, but it highlights a different type of thinking about robots that we can embrace.

    And embracing food robots is something we’ll have to do, not just in the U.S., but around the world. It’s not a question of if the robot revolution will happen, and it’s increasingly less of a question as to when the robot revolution will happen–because it’s already started.

With the Growth of “Bleeding” Burgers, How are the Tofurky’s of the World Faring?

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods forever changed the plant-based meat industry when they rolled onto the scene with vegan burgers that looked, cooked, and tasted like the real thing. A veggie burger used to mean a patty made of black beans, quinoa, and a few vegetables. It was usually reserved for vegetarians and vegans, and many carnivores didn’t see a reason to go near it.

But now there’s a new consumer group in town: the flexitarian. Flexitarians are working to cut down on their meat consumption, and, for a growing number, that means turning to plant-based meats to replace the real thing. That’s exactly who Beyond and Impossible are targeting. Their meat-like burgers (and, in Beyond’s case, chicken strips and sausage) are specifically meant to appeal to consumers who don’t want a black bean burger but something as close to a beef burger as you can get without the cow.

Recently I got curious: If meat-like meat alternatives are all the rage and catalyzing huge growth in the plant-based meat category, how are the OG, less “sexy” veggie burgers and soy-sausages faring? The Boca burgers? The Tofurkys? The Field Roast sausages?

According to Erin Ransom, Director of Marketing for Tofurky, these early vegan food companies are doing quite well for themselves right now. She explained that the growing popularity of plant-based foods, spurred by media darlings like Beyond and Impossible, has translated to increased demand for the veteran vegan meat companies, too.

Dan Curtin, President of Greenleaf Foods, which includes vegan meat companies Lightlife and Field Roast, also acknowledges the impact that Beyond and Impossible have had on the plant-based meat category. “What [they’ve] done is bring attention to this category and help support it,” he told me over the phone.

Photo: Field Roast sausages.

On one hand, that growth is great for the plant-based meat industry. It means that vegan proteins are more widely accessible (and appealing) to people across the country, not just in urban areas. On the other, that uptick in demand translates to pressure on the manufacturers to increase production. Tofurky, for example, is having difficulty filling their orders. They’re not alone: companies like Beyond Meat have also been experiencing difficulty keeping their products on shelves. “It’s a unique conundrum,” said Ransom.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways for plant-based meat companies to fulfill demand. But, as Ransom told me, it probably won’t be a single solution. Existing players will build more production facilities. Supply chains will become more sophisticated, and technology more efficient. Investment will (continue to) pour into the space. More small startups will enter the market. So will Big Food, including industrial meat companies, who can help amp up production capacity for plant-based meats and also ensure good product placement on retail shelves.

Though they may be grateful for the influence of Beyond/Impossible, that doesn’t mean veteran vegan meat companies will try to copy their meat-like products exactly. “We’re not chasing the ‘bleeding anomaly’ [of the Impossible burger],” Ransom told me.

But the effects are clear. Tofurky is working to ensure their newer products, from shredded “chicken” to vegan ham, have the same taste, texture, and mouthfeel as animal protein. Earlier this year Boca Burgers reformulated and rebranded their classic veggie patty, making their burgers bigger and “meatier” to appeal to flexitarians. Lightlife’s website claims its products are “meat without the Middleman.” They may not be trying to make a bleeding burger, but they are definitely trying to make a meat-like burger.

One thing I wonder is how vegetarians and vegans feel about all this. If they don’t want to eat meat in the first place, will they want to eat plant-based meat that is trying to act like meat? Or are companies like Field Roast and Boca alienating their original consumers as they reformulate to appeal more to flexitarians?

As of now, most of these vegan meat veterans still offer classic products like black bean and quinoa burgers. But if flexitarianism continues to grow (and I don’t see why it wouldn’t) vegan meat companies will likely continue to shift their image to become meat companies. The meat just happens to be made out of plants.

Chew Abandons Plans to Save Former Pilotworks Brooklyn Location

The poor former tenants of Pilotworks’ Brooklyn just cannot catch a break.

This October their commercial kitchen space, which many depended on for their entire business operations, shut down with no warning. A supportive community rose up to support these stranded entrepreneurs, 175 of which had been working out of the Brooklyn Pilotworks location, but many struggled with the challenge of relocating their business.

Then a ray of sunshine seemed to peek out through the clouds. A few weeks ago Boston-based food research lab Chew announced that it was taking over the former Pilotworks Brooklyn location and turning it into a new food & beverage incubator called The Nursery. All previous tenants were invited to return and restart their businesses. The space, under new management, was set to reopen in mid-December, pending permit approval.

But all budding hopes were dashed when The Nursery tenants received an email from Chew founder Adam Melonas on December 18th with the headline “Unfortunate News” (hat tip to Edible Brooklyn). Melonas went on to write that “our plans to open Nursery at the former Pilotworks Brooklyn site will unfortunately not be moving forward.” According to Eater, the Chew team found issues during pre-inspection and came to the conclusion the former Pilotworks location wasn’t up to par with the company’s standards.

While I don’t know details about the facility or Chew’s exact motivations for shutting down this project, I do know it’s a major bummer. Pilotworks’ tenants — most of whom are budding food entrepreneurs hustling hard to turn their business from dream into reality — have been jerked around a lot of late, and it seems like Chew should have maybe figured this all out before they promised to revive the space.

Gripes aside, this news shows just how tough it can be to make the commercial kitchen business sustainable. Thankfully tools like the Food Corridor and Cookitoo exist to help connect small-scale food producers with local shared kitchen spaces. But even so, those resources can’t guarantee that the commercial kitchen spaces on their list won’t also run into issues and shut their doors.

It’s not all darkness and despair, though. Last week Hudson Kitchen signed a lease to open a shared-use commercial kitchen space in South Kearny, New Jersey, not far from Pilotworks’ former Newark location. This may seem like relatively small news, but it’s still a sign that the demand for food business incubators is still very much there — and that companies are working to meet it.

Unilever Buys the Vegetarian Butcher, Big Food Continues Plant-Based Investment

News broke yesterday that consumer goods giant Unilever will acquire the Vegetarian Butcher, a Dutch company that makes plant-based meats (h/t Bloomberg). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Vegetarian Butcher meat substitutes like Vegan NoChicken Shwarma and Vegan Smokey Hotdog out of soy protein, sunflower oil, and flavorings. Its products are currently available in over 4,000 locations in 17 countries, including the Netherlands, Japan, and the U.K. (As of now, they’re not available in the U.S.)

As a region, Europe is a hotbed of vegan protein innovation. Its plant protein market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.1 percent until 2023. It’s also considered the largest market for meat substitutes, accounting for over 39 percent of global sales in 2017. So it makes sense that Big Food companies, like Unilever, are taking notice and acquiring smaller vegan food brands to diversify their portfolio and capture some of this booming market.

Here are a few notable investments/acquisitions:

No wonder. As more and more consumers — led by millennials and Gen Z — shift from meat-heavy diets to more flexitarian ones, the demand for plant-based protein is skyrocketing. In a report commissioned by the Good Food Institute, research firm Nielsen showed that retail sales of plant-based foods have grown 17 percent in the past year, reaching $3.7 billion. The report estimated that the total plant-based retail market is worth roughly $4.1 billion.

Big Foods’ involvement in the plant-based food market could help mitigate widespread production issues. As consumer interest in vegan foods rises, smaller producers are struggling to keep up with demand. With newfound access to the manufacturing systems and supply chains of major food producers and distributors, plant-based meat companies can hopefully have an easier time feeding our hunger for vegan protein.

Which likely means there’ll be a lot more Vegan NoChicken Teriyaki making its way onto flexitarians’ plates.

Real Talk: Who Should Buy Blue Apron?

Blue Apron’s stock price has dropped below $1, losing 90 percent of its value since going public last year. The company keeps missing revenue targets, laying off people and a recent retail partnership with Costco was halted for the holidays.

It seems increasingly unlikely that Blue Apron will be able to pull itself out of this tailspin, and a sub-one dollar share price certainly won’t help. All this could make Blue Apron an attractive and affordable acquisition target. Grocery Dive laid out a few options for Blue Apron, but I feel like we can go a little deeper: Who should or would buy Blue Apron?

WHAT WOULD A COMPANY BE BUYING?
So what does Blue Apron have to offer? According to its Q3 results, the company has 646,000 customers who generate an average of $233 in revenue, with sales of $150.6 million. Blue Apron also has an active, nationwide logistics and mail order fulfillment operation as well as a supply chain in place. It also presumably has a fair amount of consumer data around when, where and what people are buying.

RETAILERS
There aren’t many retailers left who need a meal kit solution. Albertsons owns Plated. Kroger owns HomeChef. Amazon makes its own meal kits. Maybe Walmart? They are making their own meal kits, but Bentonville loves a bargain, perhaps it could jumpstart that offering with a Blue Apron buy. Or maybe Target could jump into the game. Adding meal kits to its groceries would make sense, and is on-brand for the store where you can pick up everything for your house.

OTHER MEAL KIT COMPANIES
The remaining independent meal kit companies don’t have the money to afford Blue Apron, even at a discount. HelloFresh is the market leader and done some acquisitions, but it seems to be redundant for a company with HelloFresh’s existing reach and business. True Food Innovation acquired Chef’d earlier this year, but is focused more on the retail experience–not mail order.

CPG COMPANIES
I’ve asked before whether the future of meal kits is frozen dinners. Nestlé owns Stouffer’s, which has rolled out a frozen dinner meal kits in grocery stores. Tyson has their own frozen meal kits as well. Perhaps there’s a brand extension into either mailing frozen meal kits direct or extending into fresh food.

DARK HORSES
Maybe Uber? Hear me out! Uber Eats is a growing part of that company’s business, and it’s already invested in ghost kitchens to make the food it delivers. Maybe an acquisition could ditch Blue Apron’s existing mail order and turn it into more of a same day meal kit delivery to your door service.

Or perhaps this is an opportunity for a more old school company like Schwan’s. They are already have robust lines of consumer and retail food delivery, and the company has bought into new meal kit businesses before with an investment in baby food meal kit company, Raised Real.

PRIVATE EQUITY
It seems like there’s always a private equity deal to be had. Maybe Blackstone or the Carlyle Group could come in and sell it for parts or combine it with some other of their portfolio companies.

But what do you think? Is there a good fit out there for Blue Apron not on this list? Leave a comment and let me know!

Aleph Farms Puts a Steak in the Ground, Unveils New Cell-Based Cut of Meat

Israeli startup Aleph Farms has unveiled what it calls “the first cell-grown minute steak” — that is, the first steak made from cow cells, but grown outside a cow in a bioreactor.

Up until now, companies such as Finless Foods, JUST, and Mosa Meats have made cultured tuna, chicken nuggets, and hamburgers, respectively. But cell-based steak, with its complex, sliceable texture, has remained elusive.

I spoke with Aleph Farms CEO Didier Toubia back in May about their plans to make the first cultured steak:

“Instead of starting with a simpler ground “meat” product and later developing 3D tissue-growing technology, [Aleph Farms] is hoping to skip ahead and bring a fully developed product — one with the same texture, structure, and taste as beef — to market.

To do that, their scientists are working on growing four types of cells: muscle, fat, blood vessels, and connective tissue… Once they cultivate the various types of cells, they place them on scaffolds which act as a framework for the cells to cling onto. That way, the four types of cells can grow together into a finished product with the shape of steak — not just blobs of separate cell types in petri dishes that have to be manually combined.”

Wall Street Journal senior correspondent Jason Bellini got to taste this new cut of cell-based meat on camera. In the video, Amir Ilan, a chef at the restaurant Paris Texas in Israel, seared the thin slices of pre-cooked steak about the size of a credit card. (Interestingly, the camera crew was not allowed to film raw slices of the steak.) He served the meat with a truffle glaze and mushrooms. The consensus? “It’s pretty good, I have to say,” said Bellini between chews. “It’s pretty close to a regular steak… it passes.”

For now, the size and texture of Aleph Farms’ steaks are limited. They can’t grow them bigger than a few inches and no thicker than a few centimeters. Though companies are working to create bigger and better-textured cuts of cultured meat through 3D printing or using plants as scaffolds, texture remains one of the biggest challenges in making cell-based meat taste like the real thing.

Aleph Farms’ news comes just a day after JUST, a San Francisco startup most known for their plant-based foods, announced that it has partnered with Japanese producer Toriyama to create the first cell-based Wagyu. Though they’re planning to make a burger instead of a steak, the one-two punch speaks to how quickly the field of cultured meat is accelerating — though it’ll be a while yet (at least a year) before JUST’s product is to market.

If you want to try Aleph Farms’ steaks, you’ll have to wait even longer. While the company didn’t give an exact timeline, the WSJ video stated that their cultured steak is still at least two years away. But the implications of this first taste test are still significant. As I wrote back in May, “If they can nail the texture of a steak, Aleph Farms has a real shot at converting even the most hardcore of carnivores.” It seems that the startup has taken one big step closer to that goal.

JUST Partners with Toriyama to Create Cheaper Cultured Wagyu Beef … Eventually

This morning, plant-based food company JUST, Inc. announced that it will work with Japanese producer Toriyama to develop the first cultured Wagyu beef.

The San Francisco-based company will use tissue samples taken from Toriyama’s Wagyu cows (or cuts of their beef) and use that to create cell lines to grow the meat cells. Awano Food Group, a meat and seafood supplier, will market and distribute the cell-based meat, and Toriyama will get a percentage of the profit from each pound of meat that JUST sells.

But hold the applause — there are still quite a few problems JUST has to tackle before we can taste Wagyu grown outside the cow.

In a video with the Wall Street Journal, JUST CEO Josh Tetrick said that they would debut a cultured Wagyu hamburger within “a year, a year and a half.” But the press announcement notes that “as with any other product, the first step is an extensive research and development period followed by scale-up, testing, regulatory approvals and availability to the public.” All of which are pretty significant hurdles, which have to be overcome before the cell-based Wagyu can get on our plate.

Let’s start with the first issue: R&D. At this point, achieving the buttery texture of Wagyu steak is out of the question. Though some scientists are working on 3D printing meat to create different textures, or even using plants as scaffolds on which to grow the animal tissue, we’re not going to see a thick, marbled cut of cultured Wagyu anytime soon. Even Aleph Farms, the company in Israeli developing the first cell-based steak, is years away from bringing its product to market.

However, it seems like JUST is planning to avoid the steak issue altogether by making a Wagyu hamburger. From a get-to-market stance, that makes a lot of sense; but I have to wonder if it will taste all that different from any other cell-based ground beef. After all, most scientists “grow’ the meat tissue and fat cells separately and then combine them, so they can make their ground beef as fatty as they’d like. That essentially negates Wagyu’s biggest unique value add: its rich fat marbling.

Then there’s regulation. The USDA and FDA already took the first few steps towards establishing a regulatory process last month, but if JUST is planning to release their burger within a year or so, the issues around naming and food safety might not be ironed out. JUST is planning to bring a poultry cell-based product to market by the end of this year, however (though they have yet to do so). If they succeed, there will theoretically be at least some regulatory precedent in place before the Wagyu comes onto the scene.

The regulatory piece of the puzzle brings up another question: Will JUST be able to sell its new product with the label of “Wagyu”? The term is a specific Japanese beef cattle breed which dates back thousands of years and carries a lot of weight with discerning carnivores. Clearly Toriyama doesn’t have a problem with JUST using the name, but I wonder if other Wagyu producers will have the same laissez-faire attitude.

There’s also the issue of terroir, or the natural elements that give local foods, like Parmesan or Champagne, their inimitable flavor. For example, Crowd Cow has an olive Wagyu that has a legendary taste because the animals are fed caramelized olives (side note: yum). It seems like this level of nuance and locality would be reaaaaally tricky to translate into meat cultivated in a sanitized room.

However, JUST’s partnership with Toriyama does illustrate one of the coolest potentials of cell-based meats: accessibility. With its intense fat marbling, Wagyu is widely considered the Holy Grail for carnivores. It’s also really expensive; to give you an idea, Costco once sold it for $109.09 per pound. In their press release, JUST states that it hopes to use its technology to decrease the cost of Wagyu, so it can share the meat with more people at more amenable “price-points.” Which might indeed be possible… if and when they succeed in producing a product with the distinct Wagyu-ness of Wagyu.

JUST is known for pushing the envelope on cell-based meat technology. If it does succeed in creating a Wagyu product, its success (or failure) will pave the way for other companies working to recreate specific heritage meat types with cell culture technology.

This piece was updated with new information about the Wagyu product timeline from a WSJ video. 

Good Dot Paves Way for Plant-Based Meats in India with Vegan “Mutton”

Plant-based meat companies are largely based in two continents: Europe and North America. But in places where alterna-meats could have the largest impact on health and the environment, there are very few options available.

One company working to change that is Good Dot, a startup making plant-based meats, as their website states, “in India, for India, by India.”

Founded in 2016, the Udaipur-based company makes meat alternatives out of soy, wheat, and pea protein. Its flagship product is a vegan mutton, and it also has a dehydrated plant-based “chicken” product and an “egg” scramble in its lineup (some Indians don’t consider eggs vegetarian). The company is also working on a shredded-chicken alternative.

When I first heard about Good Dot, I wondered: in a land where 80 percent of the population believes that cows are sacred, and where vegetarian dishes like palak paneer, lentil-based dal and curried bhindi are the norm, is there really a need for meat alternative?

Apparently, I — and many others — am completely off base here. “It’s a huge misconception that India is a primarily vegetarian country,” said Abhishek Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Good Dot. In fact, he told me that around 72 percent of Indians do consume meat.

In a country of 1.3 billion, that still leaves over 360 million vegetarians. Like most alterna-meat companies, however, Good Dot isn’t just targeting vegetarians. Instead, it markets its products as an easy replacement that tastes as good as meat but is healthier for you (lower saturated fat, etc.) and better for the planet. Good Dot’s products are also shelf-stable, which means that people can store them for long periods of time (up to one year) without worrying about spoilage, as they would with meat.

In order to gain a foothold in the market, however, Sinha knew that Good Dot needed to get its products to cost the same — or less — than regular meat. “We believe that to make plant-based meat mainstream it is important to have cost parity with real meat,” he said. “This is where our strength lies.” Good Dot’s “mutton” is at price parity to its traditional counterpart, and its vegan egg product is cheaper than traditional eggs.

Another challenge Good Dot had to tackle was distribution. Chain grocery stores aren’t common in India; locals rely on smaller neighborhood shops and outdoors markets. To get around this hurdle, Good Dot sells its products through RCM, a direct selling company in India with 7,500 stores, as well as online via the Good Dot website and Amazon. In addition to its direct-to-consumer channel, the company also supplies its plant-based meats to hotels and restaurants throughout India.

In addition to its CPG business, Good Dot also has a food stall franchise called GoodDo which sells fried “chicken” made with Good Dot’s plant-based meat. GoodDo currently has four locations in India, and Sinha told me they plan to open 30 more.

Good Dot currently has a team of around 120 people and has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from New Crop Capital, as well as angel investors.

Its products are only available in India for now, but Sinha said Good Dot is in “advanced stage” talks with Canada and UAE about distribution opportunities. The startup can carve out some space in these markets thanks to the novelty of its products: while Beyond and Impossible already offer vegan burgers and sausages, no one is offering plant-based mutton (yet).

However, the place where Good Dot can make the biggest impact is on its home turf. Demand for meat in India is growing rapidly: as national wealth increases, more and more people are turning to a meat-heavy diet. This shift puts pressure on environmental resources, especially water, and also leads to more greenhouse gas emissions.

A similar dietary change is happening in China, where there’s a growing demand for pork despite the government’s goal to cut meat consumption in half.  There, Omnipork is trying to do with pork what Good Dot is doing with chicken and mutton: feed the local demand for meat with a plant-based alternative, one that’s developed specifically for the tastes of the local population instead of the Western world.

The lack of consumer demand for plant-based meat in India is partly because, up to now, there haven’t been good options available. “Bleeding” vegan burgers from Impossible and Beyond wouldn’t make sense in the Indian market, since more than three-quarters of the country are Hindu and don’t eat beef in the first place. By targeting culturally appropriate meats (mutton and chicken), Good Dot has a chance to catalyze demand in the second-highest populated country globally and pave the way for more alterna-meat companies outside the Western world.

USDA and FDA Will Tag Team Regulation of Cell-Based Meat

Last Friday, we got one step closer to figuring out the regulatory future of cell-based meat.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a statement stating that they would work together with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to oversee production of what they called “cell-cultured food products derived from livestock and poultry.” The statement comes almost a month after the two organizations led a joint meeting to focus on regulation and labeling of the new technology.

We knew from the get-go that the two organizations would work together on the regulation of this new technology, so that part isn’t exactly news. But the statement also outlines exactly which roles each organization will take on. From the USDA (bolding our own):

Agencies are today announcing agreement on a joint regulatory framework wherein FDA oversees cell collection, cell banks, and cell growth and differentiation. A transition from FDA to USDA oversight will occur during the cell harvest stage. USDA will then oversee the production and labeling of food products derived from the cells of livestock and poultry. 

So the FDA will oversee everything from gathering the tissue to cultivating it (growing it into enough muscle fibers to eat). Once the meat is complete, the USDA will take over and oversee the process of labeling. This division “leverage[s] both the FDA’s experience regulating cell-culture technology and living biosystems and the USDA’s expertise in regulating livestock and poultry products for human consumption.”

True enough, the USDA typically oversees meat at the point of slaughter. Since there’s no slaughter when meat is cultured outside the animal, it makes sense that the closest equivalent would be the point of “harvest” in which the cells are done reproducing and ready to be processed and eaten.

Dr. Mark Post with the world’s first burger made of cells grown in a lab.

Sentiment seems to be positive about the new division of power. Initially, cell-based meat companies advocated for the FDA to be the primary regulatory body involved, but they seem to be okay with this arrangement. Jessica Almy, the Director of Policy of the Good Food Institute, a non-profit which supports meat and dairy alternatives, issued a statement writing that “This announcement is an exciting indication that FDA and USDA are clearing the way for a transparent and predictable regulatory path forward.”

Big Beef is also pleased(ish) with the division. In a statement emailed to Food Dive, The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association wrote: “This announcement that USDA would have primary jurisdiction over the most important facets of lab-produced fake meat is a step in the right direction.”

In the end, it seems that the USDA will have the trickier job of the two. Labeling is one of the most contentious issues surrounding cell-based meat: In the last few years alone, it has been called in-vitro, lab-grown, cultured, clean, and, most recently, cell-based meat. Traditional meat companies are pushing back on calling it meat at all (see “fake meat” reference above). The fact that USDA has the power in the labeling department could mean an uphill battle for cell-based companies who want to use the term “meat”.

But the USDA’s timeline to deciding on a name for the stuff is ticking down. JUST, Inc. is still planning to bring a cell-based poultry product to market by the end of 2018, provided it gains regulatory approval. With just over a month remaining, it seems ambitious that they will indeed be able to get the regulatory thumbs-up to meet their goal.

Progress may be slow, but all involved — traditional and cell-based meat companies — seem pleased that the government is taking steps to address this new technology. However, there’s still a lot to work out. It remains to be seen what information the two organizations will share, how and to what extent they’ll collaborate, and, of course, what we’re going to call the stuff.

The public comment period of last month’s meeting has been extended will be open until December 26th. Speak now, or forever hold your peace (of steak).

Beyond Meat Files for IPO, is First Alterna-Meat Company to Go Public

Beyond Meat, maker of plant-based burgers, sausage, chicken strips and more, has filed for a U.S. initial public offering (IPO).

Rumors first started circulating last month when CNBC reported that plant-based meat company had hired J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse to help lead their IPO. On Friday Beyond filed for an initial size of $100 million. The company has applied to list on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol BYND.

El Seguno, CA-based Beyond Meat sells its non-GMO plant-based meats in over 32,000 retailers, as well as Del Taco, T.G.I. Friday’s and A&W. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised $72 million in funding thus far. Tyson Foods, the largest meat company in the U.S., has a 5 percent stake in Beyond Meat, and the company also boasts investments from Bill Gates, Obvious Ventures, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

In the past Beyond has struggled to keep up with high customer demand; they even had to delay their U.K. launch, expected in August, despite the fact that in June they added a second production facility aimed at tripling production. (Beyond recently rolled out in U.K. supermarket chain Tesco’s last week.)

With the demand for plant-based proteins growing by leaps and bounds, paired with the rising number of flexitarians around the globe, Beyond Meat’s post-IPO future looks bright.

This will be the first public stock offering for the recent smattering of companies making meat-like alternatives out of plants. If successful, Beyond Meat’s IPO will make it easier for others in the space like Impossible Foods to and Seattle Food Tech to follow a similar path. The success or failure of Beyond’s IPO could also have implications for the nascent cell-based (AKA lab-grown) meat space, which itself has seen a lot of investment this year.