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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Better Meat Co.

Better Meat Co. Serves Legal Foie Gras To Hungry Silicon Valley Workers

No trip to Silicon Valley would be complete without a visit to one of the sumptuous dining experiences at companies such as Yahoo, Google, Adobe, and LinkedIn. We’re not talking private dining rooms with white table clothes; employees and guests (especially employees) are treated to five-star dining every day, at no charge. And, if someone is hungry between scheduled meals—no worry; there are more snacks on hand than you would find at your neighborhood grocery store.

Thanks to its relationship with Bon Appétit Management Company, a Palo Alto-based café and catering service, Better Meat Co. is pulling a sleight of hand by offering foie gras to the employees at LinkedIn’s Sunnyvale officer cafeteria. The trick here is that foie gras is illegal in California, so Better Meat substitutes fungi for duck or goose liver. For good measure, Better Meat is showcasing its deli turkey slices, also made from mycelium called Rhiza. Rhiza (the Greek word for root) is a whole food, complete protein that’s allergen-free, neutral in taste, and has the texture of animal meat.

Showcasing is the keyword here. At this point in its lifecycle, Better Meat Co. is more of a supplier than a producer, offering its mycoprotein to partners such as Hormel for inclusion in its existing and new products.  As CEO Paul Shapiro explains, Better Meat Co. is focused on what it does best—“Our real expertise is in the fermentation and creating this extremely meat-like and versatile ingredient,” he told The Spoon, “But every once in a while, we like to showcase what the ingredients can do and the fact that it can make things as diverse as a turkey slice and foie gras really showed that. And so, in California, it’s illegal to sell foie gras, but now there is an option to enjoy that same delectable experience.”

Better Meat Co. walks a tightrope like others in the plant-based protein and cultured meat sector. Once a viable product has been developed, they face the option of taking their creations directly to the market (B2C) or taking the safer B2B route where a company offers its product to food manufacturers for their use in existing or new products. Shapiro, known throughout his industry as a visionary, realizes his company can take both paths to success.

In October 2021, Better Meat Co. and Hormel’s venture division entered an exclusive partnership to bring new mycoprotein and plant-based protein products to the marketplace. “Companies like Hormel have dramatically larger product development teams than we do,” Shapiro said. “Once our ingredients are in the hands of experts at companies like Hormel Foods, we are confident that the next generation of alternative meats will be more convincing and economical than ever.”

Perdue is another partner of Better Meat Co. In June 2019, the Sacramento-based company launched a national partnership with Perdue Farms – a leading chicken producer in the U.S. The company will provide Perdue with plant-based blends mixed with Perdue chicken to create the Chicken Plus product line.

While relationships with Hormel and Perdue make sense in the short run, neither, at his point, shows the breadth of Better Meat’s possibilities. In-house products developed by its food scientists and chefs range from Rhiza-based beef to fish to pork and may lead to the company—at some point—going directly to consumers.  “I think you can expect to see that,” Shapiro said of such future plans. “We want to be able to bring our micro protein to as many people as possible, and we want to make it humane, easy to eat and affordable for everyone.”

According to Crunchbase, Better Meat has raised $9.6 million, the bulk of which came in a July 2020 round of $8.1 million. The new funding is led by Greenlight Capital and Green Circle Foodtech Ventures, and Johnsonville, the maker of Johnsonville Sausages. Another financing round would be expected for Better Meat Co to scale enough to bring its branded crabcakes and deli slices to hungry, healthy consumers.

Fungi-Based SPAM? You Never Know as Hormel Partners With Better Meat Co To Develop Next-Gen Products

Listen, I’m not here to promise anything. I’m also not trying to create some clickbait headline about some new kind of SPAM (ok, maybe a little).

All I’m doing is wondering aloud where a new partnership between Hormel, the maker of the delicious canned meat(ish) product/pop culture mainstay, and Better Meat Co., a supplier of mycoprotein and plant-based protein ingredients, will go. After all, the new partnership’s mission is to co-develop new alt-protein products, so who’s to say a fungi-based SPAM isn’t on the roadmap?

The announcement centers around the two companies working together to create new products using Rhiza, Better Meat Co’s novel mycoprotein. As described in the release, Rhiza is made via “via a potato-based fermentation pioneered by The Better Meat Co., Rhiza is an all-natural whole food mycoprotein with a remarkable meat-like texture. Boasting more protein than eggs and more iron than beef, Rhiza offers a new generation of sustainable animal-free protein for the burgeoning alternative meat market.”

According to Better Meat Co’s CEO Paul Shapiro, the two companies have an exclusive relationship with gives Hormel early access to Rhiza for product development purposes. The partnership does not, however, give Hormel exclusive distribution rights to Rhiza products.

“Demand for Rhiza right now far outstrips our ability to supply it,” Shapiro told me via email.

Like Unilever, Hormel sees the potential in mycoprotein as an alt-meat platform. After all, fungi are inherently meat-like and pack a powerful protein punch. But perhaps most important if you’re an industrial scale meat company like Hormel, mycoproteins – including Rhiza, reproduce very quickly.

So while I can’t promise a fungi-based SPAM, I not gonna say it won’t happen. After all, we’re talking about a meat product so popular it has a museum and festival. So, with traditional factory farming becoming less sustainable by the day, what better way to ensure the future of SPAM by going full fermented fungi?

Make it happen, Hormel.

Want a Whole Cut Fungi-Based Steak? Head to Sacramento This Weekend

Curious what a steak made from fungi tastes like?

You’re in luck if you are in Sacramento, California this weekend because that’s where the Better Meat Co will debut their mycelium-based steak. Made using Better Meat Co’s proprietary Rhiza mycoprotein, the alt-steak will be available for one day only at Bennett’s American Cooking steak house this Saturday.

The debut of the company’s new cut comes just a couple of months after the company opened its Rhiza manufacturing plant in West Sacramento. Better Meat CEO Paul Shapiro told me in a video call this week that they were able to create a steak-like experience so quickly in part because fungi are much closer in texture and overall makeup to meat than plants.

“It takes a lot to get plants to taste like animals, but because we’re using fungi which are much closer to animals, you have a shorter distance to bridge,” said Shapiro. “We can create a more meat-like experience with our fungi than we can with plants.”

In addition to Rhiza, the steak also had added avocado oil, fava beans, beet juice for coloring, and some natural flavors. The results, according to Shapiro, are pretty close to the real thing.

“[American Cooking Steak House owner] Brian Bennett says it’s the most convincing alternative meat he’s ever had,” said Shapiro.

And while that may be true, the steak still isn’t 100 percent there, in part because it’s missing the structural and flavor complexity of the fatty marbling that comes in in a traditional cut of meat. Shapiro admits this is something their alt-steak 1.0 edition doesn’t have but says they are working on it.

“[Marbling] is something that we would like to pursue but we have not yet gotten that down,” said Shapiro. “However, when you eat it, it really does have a steak-like experience.”

Better Meat is not the only company working on alt-steaks. Whole cuts are quickly becoming an obsession in the alternative meat space, as startups like Novameat, Green Rebel Foods, Atlast, and even Impossible Foods are working on plant-based steak, while ingredient companies like Motif and Melt&Marble are developing building blocks like plant-based fat to help those creating consumer products get closer to the real thing.

According to Shapiro, he believes this is the first time an alternative steak has been served at a high-end steakhouse. Maybe, but it’s certainly not the first plant-based steak on the menu at a restaurant, as companies like Meati (also made with mycelium) have been showing up at places like SALT’s Bistro since last year.

Either way, it certainly won’t be the last steak made with Rhiza and, according to Shapiro, the next one could be from one of their partners.

“This is our 1.0. What we want to do is showcase what our ingredients can do, and work with companies who can utilize these ingredients to take them to even higher heights.”

Forget Plants. Alt-Meat Needs More Mycoprotein

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Of the three pillars of alternative protein, plant-based is getting the most mainstream attention and cultivated meat is the currernt darling of VC investors. But fermentation may be the most practical in terms of both cost and scalability, and one area of that segment turning heads of late is mycoprotein. 

From an affordability and nutritional point of view, mycoprotein has a boatload of advantages over other forms of alternative protein — a point underscored this week when The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht profiled a company called Kernel Mycofoods. In their own words, the folks behind the Buenos Aires, Argentina-based company are currently on a mission to “make a product that [is] comparable without a price that will exclude the emerging markets.”

But Kernel isn’t the only company hoping to bring mycoprotein to the forefront, which makes now a good time to take a closer look into what this segment of fermentation is and why it matters to alternative protein.

Mycoprotein is a single-cell protein made from a naturally occurring filamentous fungus called fusarium venenatum. To get mycoprotein, fungi spores are fermented alongside glucose in fermentation tanks in a process similar to that of brewing beer. The entire operation produces a pasty, doughy texture that resembles a chicken breast. 

Up to now, the most well-known application of mycoprotein is as the main ingredient of Quorn’s meat analogues. But as noted above, several other companies are now getting recognition for their use of mycoprotein as an alternative to traditional meat. That list includes Kernel Mycofoods as well as Better Meat Co., which opened its production facility last month, and food giant Unilever. The latter is producing a mycoprotein called Abunda through a partnership with Scottish company Enough. 

Experts say mycoprotein is high in fiber, low in sodium, has an inherently meaty texture, and is rich in amino acids. Kernel, for example, says its mycoprotein has a higher protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score than beef, soy, or wheat gluten.

Mycoprotein falls into the “biomass fermentation” category, as opposed to traditional or precision fermentation (though the lines between all three can be blurred). Because of this, its biggest advantage compared to other forms of alt-protein is its ability to scale at a lower price point. The Good Food Institute noted in its 2020 State of the Industry report on fermentation that biomass fermentation offers “well-established examples of scalability and cost reduction suitable for alternative protein applications.” 

Mycoprotein specifically has a number of other advantages. 

Versatility is a big one. Mycoprotein can be used on its own, as Quorn does with it, or it can be blended with traditional meat to enhance the latter’s flavor and nutritional profile. For example, it could reduce the amount of cholesterol found in a traditional burger patty.

Mycoprotein also already has an established track record, having been approved for use in food products in the early 1980s. That point alone suggests companies won’t face the same types of regulatory hurdles they do with, say, cultured meat. 

And as an alternative to plant-based meat analogues like those of Beyond and Impossible, mycoprotein is a potentially much more eco-friendly operation since it doesn’t require land to grow plants or significant amounts of downstream processing to get the meaty texture consumers want.

Of all these things, though, nutrition might just be the main driver behind mycoprotein. Citing panelists at the recent IFT FIRST event, Food Navigator recently reported that “consumers increasingly want products that are nutritionally comparable to or better for them than animal protein – something the current industry is not fully delivering.” The “current industry” in this case are plant-based analogues from the likes of Beyond and Impossible, companies that talk at length about elements like texture and mouthfeel but very little about their products nutritional profiles. Nutrition will, according to IFT FIRST panelists, be the “disrupting” factor in the near term when it comes to alternative proteins.

All of those factors mean mycoprotein could well become the breakout star of the alt-protein sector by the end of the year.

More Headlines

Plant-Based Cheese Company Nobell Foods Raises $75M – The company will use the new funds to commercialize its first plant-based cheese products, including mozzarella, which the company makes from soybeans that are genetically edited to produce casein. 

Bezos-Backed NotCo Raises $235M for Plant-Based Alternatives – This new capital will allow NotCo to expand into new product categories in North America and scale its proprietary A.I. platform. 

Redefine Meat Launches 5 “New Meat” Plant-Based Proteins in Israel – Plant-based meat company Redefine Meat announced five new products are now available at select Israeli restaurants and hotels. 

 

 

Better Meat Co. Completes Its Production Facility for Fermented Mycoprotein Ingredients

Plant-based ingredient maker Better Meat Co.’s new fermentation plant, which will produce the company’s mycoprotein ingredient Rhiza, is up and running as of today in Sacramento, California, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. 

Rhiza is a fungi-based protein analogue with a naturally meaty texture and neutral taste. Because it is a whole food, it requires less processing than, say, pea protein, to get a meat alternative customers would actually want to eat. Better Meat Co. says the product can be used either on its own, as a complete replacement for meat, or as a “meat enhancer” that gets blended with traditional protein. 

To get Rhiza, the company uses a fermentation process where fungi feeds on a basic crop such as a potato to create a biomass that can be harvested with minimal processing. The process is similar to those of Quorn or Enough, companies that also use fermentation-based mycoprotein production. 

Since Better Meat Co. is a business-to-business company, it will sell Rhiza to food companies that can use it in their own products. Adding an ingredient like Rhiza to an existing meat product can improve the latter’s overall nutritional profile. For example, it could reduce the amount of cholesterol typically found in a traditional burger patty. The company also claims its product has more iron than traditional beef, more protein than eggs, and more fiber than oats.

The new facility in Sacramento will include both lab and office space. It will primarily serve as a R&D facility in addition to producing “thousands of pounds of finished product per month,” according to today’s news release. 

SKS Q&A: Adam Yee on Podcasting, Meat Alternatives and The Importance of Food Stories

You might not recognize Adam Yee’s face if you saw him on the street, but there’s a chance you would recognize his voice. Yee created and runs the My Food Job Rocks podcast: a weekly show highlighting people with all kids of cool jobs in the food industry.

When he’s not behind a microphone, Yee is moonlighting as a food scientist for the Better Meat Co., a startup developing blended meats (part meat, part plant-based protein) to act as an alternative to animal products.

Yeah, he’s a busy guy. Yee will also be speaking at the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) in Seattle on October 8-9th. Come hear him (and see him!) as he interviews movers and shakers in the food world, and shares his own insight into the future of eating.

You’re the founder and host of the podcast My Food Job Rocks! What’s the podcast all about?
We interview experts in the food industry about career advice and new technologies every single week and we’ve done it for the past three years. With over 185+ episodes, we have people from big companies such as Coca-Cola, KraftHeinz, and Tyson Foods, to startups such as Beyond Meat, JUST, and FoodLogiQ and everything in-between such as the suppliers, legal counsels and market research groups that help the industry function. We specialize in interviewing the people in the trenches and have specific yet fascinating roles within the companies. However, I’ve been told our founder episodes have helped a ton of food businesses out as well.

Overall, My Food Job Rock’s purpose is to get people excited about the food industry. Students, prospecting entrepreneurs and food industry veterans love the podcast because it dives into why people are passionate about the food industry and why the food industry is not just being a cook at a restaurant, it’s so much more.

It seems like everyone and their mom has a podcast these days. How do you make yours stand out?
By posting on LinkedIn every week for the past three years.

I also record, edit, and publish all of my episodes so I work on the craft of podcasting and try and make the next episode better than the last.

For me, creating an episode every week is really important because showcasing what people do in this industry is important and what this specific person does is important. When you post without missing a week for a while, it’s more than just a hobby, it becomes a mission.

It’s very hard to be consistent when podcasting. Especially when you first start out and you hate your own voice but, it was important to share the stories because these stories aren’t being told. I think that’s the amazing part about podcasting is that we all have the power to share stories on whatever we want!

In my opinion, everyone and their mom should make a podcast because today, everyone has the power to share their voice and the best part is, there will be always someone who wants to listen. Not only does everyone have a story, everyone has a different perspective to tell their story.

You also helped found the startup Better Meat Co. Tell us more about what they do and your role with the company.
After I interviewed Paul Shapiro about his book, Clean Meat, he asked me if I knew any food scientists that could help him on a project. Well, I’m a food scientist so I volunteered to help. After creating the first prototype, Paul’s fiancée (now wife)’s dad tried it and liked it and Paul asked me to join him in creating Better Meat Co. Since a year and a half ago, I’ve been in charge of creating all of the Better Meat Co. products and developing production and quality systems to make them commercializable.

Because I knew the systems of navigating the food industry, and had the network [to ask] when I didn’t know things, we created a product in less than a year and started selling. About a year after the company launched, we collaborated with Perdue Farms to help them create their newest product, Chicken Plus, a blended chicken product using Better Meat Co. ingredients. I hear Chicken Plus is shipping to stores this week.

Describe one of your all-time favorite interviews from My Food Job Rocks.
I really like all of the episodes I’ve produced. However, I will list three that are a mixture of the most popular and have the best types of discussions.

  • Episode 91 with Missy Schaaphok, who is a registered dietitian from Taco Bell is a fascinating story of someone who can take initiative to make fast food healthier. Missy has made a huge impact because of her skillset in Taco Bell by reducing the salt and sugar in all of their products. She also introduced the power menu and has made a ton of improvements making taco bell the low-key healthiest fast food option. What is amazing about Missy is that as a registered dietitian at a fast food company, she is making a huge impact in making the world healthier.
  • Episode 119 with Tom Mastrobuoni, the CFO for Tyson Ventures is a great episode to understand why huge companies like Tyson are investing in companies that do plant-based foods, cell-based foods, and kitchen tech and I found diving into how big companies can shift to understand and take risks on innovation is more about culture than anything else. This was an amazing episode because Tom was so open about why Tyson is exploring in all of these spaces. This podcast was shared throughout the food-tech realm for the first time and as Better Meat Co got legs, people recognized my name because of this particular episode and that helped us in a lot of talks.
  • Episode 177 with Eric Pierce from the New Hope Network was one of my favorites as well. I’ve listened to Eric talk on other podcasts and I’ve dreamed of having him on because he talks about trends so insightfully. Luckily, I met him when he was looking at the Better Meat Co’s booth at Expo West. We talked and I said I was a fan and I asked him if he wanted to be on the My Food Job Rocks podcast. We prepped a lot before actually interviewing, with Eric sharing me trend insights and me developing questions about them. My favorite part about this interview is we dig through the meta of why trends happen and I think that has helped a lot of people rethink on how to develop awesome products.

I could write a whole story about how I met each of my 180+ guests and how we’ve connected throughout the years. The connections made throughout each episode of My Food Job Rocks are all interesting stories.

Why do you think a podcast is an effective medium to discuss food technology — something that’s very tangible?
Podcasting has the ability to tell stories and they are stories with a voice… literally. They are effective because there are people who want to hear these stories, and with the digital age, people can find what they like anywhere.

But I think the best part about podcasting is that it shows authenticity. Written word misses the human element, video has too much production value to be completely authentic but podcasting, you can choose to edit out the umms and ahhs, you can ask questions that people are afraid to ask on-air, with podcasting, your voice carries authenticity and you have the ability to bring out that authenticity from your guest.

Since I am a food scientist and I did start a company from scratch, I have issues that are hard for me to solve alone, so I ask my guests about the parts when things get hard technically and when times are tough and on a personal level, the advice that has accumulated over the three years of doing this has made me a much better public speaker, food scientist, and person.

Keep an eye out for more speaker Q&A’s as we ramp up to our fifth year of SKS on October 7-8 in Seattle! We hope to see you there.