Incogmeato, Kellogg’s intriguingly-named line of meat alternatives, is branching out.
The brand revealed the new Morningstar Farms line back in September with plant-based burger and chicken, which will launch in the refrigerated meat cases of select grocery stores in March (h/t CNBC). Today Kellogg announced that they’re already diversifying their lineup with two new products, meat-free Italian sausages and bratwurst, set to launch in March. These new offerings will be made with soy, similar to Impossible Foods (Beyond Meat’s sausages are made with pea protein).
In fact, Incogmeato’s plant-based sausages could be a direct bid to compete with Impossible, which announced its entry into meatless pork at CES last month. Thus far Impossible is only selling its new product in the form of a breakfast sausage patty through a limited launch with Burger King. But judging from the wide range of ways they prepared the alt-pork at the CES launch party — showcasing it in formats like ground pork over noodles to banh mi patties — I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time before Impossible diversifies into other plant-based pork products (cough, bratwurst).
Then again, Incogmeato has the edge over Impossible in retail, thanks to Kelloggs. Impossible sells packages of its signature “bleeding” ground beef alternative in select retailers in certain regions, but it’s far from a shelf regular. The company has also yet to announce when (or if) it will start selling its faux pork in grocery stores.
Impossible aside, Incogmeato still has to compete with a handful of other plant-based sausage offerings on the retail shelf, including those from giants like Beyond Meat and Tofurky.
I also doubt that Incogmeato will be the last line to diversify into pork. Breakfast is becoming a white-hot space for plant-based foods, especially breakfast sausage (whose texture is much easier to copy than, say, bacon). Incogmeato’s new offerings aren’t breakfast-specific, per se, but considering how quickly they’ve added to their portfolio before they even hit shelves, it could be only a matter of time.
Leave a Reply