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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

alterna meat

How to Host a Meatless (and Delicious) Super Bowl Party

My eating habits have been on a roller coaster so far this year. From discovering I am gradually turning vegan to switching over (temporarily) to a full-on keto diet, my eating has certainly boomeranged.

With Super Sunday almost upon us, I thought it would be a fun exercise to meld the two opposing lifestyles and create a “beefy” menu of snacks for the big game without using actual meat. This is actually easier than ever, thanks to innovations in the alterna-foods category that make meat substitutes closer to the real thing.

Here’s what I would serve:

Get more out of those (expensive) Beyond Meat burgers by breaking them apart and forming li’l meatless sliders. Beyond actually has a nice video showing you how to do just that on its site. Sadly, Impossible’s killer new burgers aren’t coming to retail until later this year, so maybe they can be on the menu for Super Bowl LIV.

Staying on the “meats,” I really like the LightLife Smart Ground crumble. It’s pretty versatile and can be used in chilis and sauces, but I would load them up on some hearty nachos, smothered in something cheese-like. Check out their recipe section for directions and more ideas.

You could also use the Smart Ground as a topping for a CauliPower pizza to spice up the plain ole cheese version. I’ve become a huge fan of the cauliflower pizza. I don’t think this is actually healthier for me (especially since I could eat an entire pizza in one sitting), but it is just as tasty as other frozen pizzas and, you know, cauliflower. If you’re feeling spicy, you could also make your own tofu-based pepperoni.

For a more snacky-snack type of food, maybe grab a handful of Coconut Jerky. I haven’t tried it, and it would be hard to get in time for the game, but if you can find it, going coconuts might be worth a try.

You can also go the way of Swedish McDonald’s and serve up falafel nuggets instead of chicken ones. Falafel is delicous! It’s just too bad Frecious veggie spreads aren’t widely available in the U.S. (yet) to serve as a dipping sauce.

For something sweet, the JUST eggless cookie dough is fantastic. Serve it raw in little spoons or whip up a mountain of freshly baked cookies for all your friends.

And finally to wash it all down, give the Bud Light a break and crack open a bottle of Kombrewcha (see what they did there?), the alcoholic kombucha. Though, I can’t imagine drinking more than one of them.

Do you have any tips, tricks or hacks for making it a meatless Super Bowl bash? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Lightlife’s New Plant-Based Burger Looks a Lot Like the Beyond Burger…

Alternative protein company Lightlife announced yesterday the release of a new plant-based burger that, according to a press release, is meant to deliver “the sensory experience consumers crave from a beef burger.”

The so-called Lightlife Burger is made of pea protein, coconut oil, and beet powder. It has 20g of protein, no cholesterol, and is free from soy, gluten and GMOs. The burger will be the face of a new pea protein-based product line from the company, which meant to be more evocative of meat.

The launch is in tandem with Lightlife’s upcoming rebrand to mark its 40th anniversary. It’s also just a smart move on Lightlife’s part to try and compete with other meat-like burgers on the market, like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods — especially as Beyond prepares for an IPO and Impossible gears up for its retail launch. Composition-wise, the Lightlife Burger seems closer to the Beyond Burger, which is also pea protein-based and also uses beets for its “bloody” look.

But young upstarts like Beyond and Impossible aren’t Lightlife’s only competitors. Big Food has also been getting into the meat alternative space, releasing products that are more meat-like to capture flexitarians and cash in on the plant-based eating trend. Last month Nestlé released the Impossible  Incredible Burger, just a few days after Unilever bought Dutch plant-based meat company The Vegetarian Butcher.

Lightlife could have an advantage, though. Both it and Field Roast are owned by Maple Leaf Foods, a major packaged meat company in Canada. That means that the company has the advantages that come with being part of a Big Food company, including supply chains, sales channels, and retail partners. But, since it’s also a veteran in the meat alternative space, it also has more plant-based street cred than, say, Nestlé. This could lead to less blowback from consumers who don’t trust Big Food to make their vegan meats.

Recently I predicted that veteran plant-based protein companies, like Lightlife, Tofurky, and Boca, would rebrand from “vegan” companies to “meat” companies–just ones who happened to make meat out of plants. It seems that, at least in the case of Lightlife, that prediction is coming true.

In the U.S., the Lightlife Burger will start rolling out in foodservice this month and hit grocery shelves in late March. It will launch in Canada in April. I couldn’t find any information about pricing, but I imagine it will be in line with other Lightlife vegan burgers (around $2.50 per patty). We haven’t tasted the Lightlife Burger yet, but as soon as it’s available in Seattle grocery shelves it might be time for an alterna-meat burger cookoff.

Video: Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown says They’ll Tackle Steak Next

Last night, Impossible Foods unveiled their new Burger 2.0 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The newest iteration of the alt-meat is made of soy and potato protein (not pea protein, as I guessed!), is gluten-free, and has fewer calories and fat than the first version.

After tasting our way through sliders, tacos, empanadas, and even tartare made of the new ground “beef,” we got to sit down with Impossible Foods founder and CEO, Dr. Pat Brown, to ask him a few questions about the topic that’s on everyone’s mind during CES: the future. Specifically, the future of plant-based meat.

“R&D has been going at a blazing pace since Day One,” said Brown. Which means as soon as they locked down the formula for Version 1.0 of Impossible’s patties and started selling them in 2016, they were already working on version 2.0 (and yes, now they’re working on 3.0).

While they plan to keep iterating on their flagship ground beef product, Brown explained that they’re also starting to work on what he called “whole cuts of beef,” including steak. “[Steak] has huge symbolic value,” said Brown. “If we can make an awesomely delicious world-class steak . . . that will be very disruptive not just to the beef industry, but to other sectors of the meat industry.”

Watch the video below to hear more about Impossible’s plans to tackle the $3 trillion industrial meat industry, and why they’re not worried about plant-based competition.

Impossible CEO Pat Brown talks Impossible 2.0 and the future of meat

If you’re in Vegas for CES, be sure to hit up their food truck outside the Convention Center and taste the burger 2.0!

Impossible Foods Unveils New Gluten-Free Burger Recipe at CES

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is known as a time when companies debut cutting-edge technology like drones, robots, and… burgers?

Tonight plant-based meat company Impossible Foods unveiled new recipe for their popular “bleeding” vegan burgers. According to the release from Impossible, the new iteration will be gluten-free, have zero cholesterol, and contain as much iron and protein as conventional beef from cows. This marks the first time the Redwood City, CA-based startup has revamped their burger recipe since the patties debuted in 2016.

The new-and-improved burgers will launch tomorrow (January 8th) in an array of high-end restaurants, and Impossible stated over email that they will “likely” be available in grocery stores in 2019 (as long as Impossible gets FDA approval to sell its burgers in retail). So far, there’s no word when the new recipe will roll out to the over 5,000-odd locations — including all White Castles — which currently have Impossible burgers on their menu.

Impossible’s patties already contained no cholesterol and have comparable protein to ground beef — so essentially, the main difference is that the new patty is gluten-free. Which is actually kind of a big deal. “Wheat protein” is the first ingredient listed on the Impossible Foods website, followed by coconut oil, potato protein, and heme (which is what makes the burgers “bleed”). That means that the original Impossible patty was strictly off-limits for anyone with a gluten allergy, or who was just trying to cut down on gluten for health/dietary reasons.

Nixing the wheat protein certainly opens up potential new consumers for Impossible, but only if they can still deliver on taste without their primary ingredient. Which leads me to wonder: what exactly is the new burger made of? Impossible didn’t reveal the ingredients in their new burger, so we don’t know what they’re using to replace wheat. My guess is pea protein, the go-to protein choice of most alternative-meats including Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods’ biggest plant-based competitor. (Beyond Meat’s products are already gluten-free.) That could make it especially tricky for Impossible to differentiate itself when it heads onto retail shelves to compete directly with Beyond in 2019.

[Ed note: At the opening Impossible Foods revealed that the main ingredients in their new burgers are soy and potato protein, not pea protein as I’d guessed.]

Taking a step back, it’s interesting that Impossible Foods decided to make this announcement at CES, amid a sea of more “traditional” technologies like touchscreens and VR helmets. But when you think about it, plant-based meat is indeed a technology: one that’s changing the way we eat protein. In fact, it’s a technology that has the potential to improve our planet a lot quicker than something like self-driving cars. I for one hope we see more innovative food companies repping at events like CES in the future.

For now, CES attendees can try free samples of Impossible’s new burgers from a food truck outside the Las Vegas Convention Center from January 8-11. Stop by and let us know what you think!

Editor Roundtable Podcast: Gather ‘Round the Botfire

Each week, our editors get together for an planning call where we discuss topics, trends and stories we want to cover on The Spoon. Since we always have a blast talking foodtech, we thought we’d double-dip this week and also record the conversation.

So here it is, the first Spoon editor roundtable podcast!

The topics we discuss include:

We had a lot of fun recording this, and may turn it into a regular thing. Let us know what you think on Twitter and in the comments below!

As always, you can listen to the pod by hitting play below, downloading it direct or subscribing on Apple podcasts.

Seattle Food Tech Raises $1M, Will Ship its Plant-Based Chicken Nuggets this Month

Seattle Food Tech, a startup that creates plant-based “chicken” nuggets, has raised a fresh $1 million in capital from investors including Liquid 2 Ventures, Sinai Ventures Fund, Uphones Capital and VegInvest (h/t Food-Navigator). This brings the total amount raised by Seattle Food Tech to $2 million.

Seattle Food Tech separates itself from other alterna-meat companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible in a few ways. First, the company uses a specialized means of production to better replicate the texture of “real” chicken nuggets through a combination of wheat, oil, chicken flavoring and more. The company says it can implement this manufacturing at large scale production.

Large scale production is important, as unlike its competition, Seattle Food Tech is not going after the consumer market and instead targets commercial customers like school and hospital cafeterias. As my colleague, Catherine Lamb wrote earlier this year:

By opting not to sell their nuggets as a CPG, Seattle Food Tech would be able to offer them at roughly the same cost as meat — around $2 per serving. Lagally says that eventually, once they get their volumes up, they might consider putting their products in large grocery stores, such as Walmart and Costco.

Since the time of that article, Seattle Food Tech’s B2B go-to market strategy remains a smart one as competition in the fake meat space has certainly become more fierce. Next year Beyond Meat will go public, and Impossible will bring its heme-burgers to grocery store aisles. Beyond is already rapidly expanding its product line, and by sticking with institutional customers, Seattle Food Tech can sidestep costly marketing battles with better funded companies.

That strategy seems to be already paying off. Even though Seattle Food Tech has only been around for nine months, the company said in a press release that it will start delivering alterna-nuggets to select customers this month.

We had a chance to taste Seattle Food Tech’s nuggets at our recent Smart Kitchen Summit show here in Seattle, and they were actually pretty good! You can check out the company’s Founder and CEO, Christie Lagally in this video from the Summit, talking about the future of meat:

Plant-Based, Cellular & Sustainable: Exploring The Future of Meat