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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Beyond Meat

Purple Orange Ventures Announces Fellowship Program For Alt Protein Scientists

Purple Orange Ventures (P.O.V.), a seed fund based in Berlin, Germany, announced the launch of a new fellowship program aimed at alt-protein projects and ideas.

Dubbed The Entrepreneurial Scientist & Engineer Fellowship Program, the fellowship will provide grant money and mentorship for scientists and engineers using, well, science and engineering to create products that mimic the look, feel, and taste of meat, dairy, and seafood without using any animal byproduct whatsoever.

“We want to accelerate the animal-free foodtech movement in Europe, UK, Israel & Singapore,” P.O.V. investor and Managing Director Gary Lin wrote in a blog post when he announced the fellowship. In keeping with that, the fellowship is open to those currently residing in those regions or countries.

The Fellowship, for which P.O.V. has partnered with The Good Food Institute, New Harvest, ProVeg International, and the ProVeg Incubator, differs from the usual startup accelerator or incubator in a few different ways. Most notably, the selection criteria is much narrower: the Fellowship’s homepage states that applicants should have a “Ph.D in science, engineering or related field with ideally commercial work experience or Master’s degree with a minimum of 2 years of commercial work experience.”

It’s also different in that it’s not about growing a company, as startup accelerators do, but rather, to validate whether a project is strong enough to warrant starting a company. To that end, participants will spend time testing their projects in the lab setting, receiving feedback from potential customers and stakeholders, and adjusting the product based on that feedback. The end goal is to get a project closer to a commercial reality.

The chosen few get €120,000 (~$135,379 USD) in grant funding across 12 months. The grant is non-dilutive. Participants also receive coaching and mentorship, networking opportunities, as well as a chance to work at P.O.V.’s facility in Berlin and a lab setting in Berkeley, CA.

Should a fellow choose to incorporate their company by program end, there’s potential for P.O.V. to invest, though that’s not a foregone conclusion.

Fellowships in food, food science, and food technology are becoming more plentiful these days. P.O.V.’s program joins the likes of the Future Leaders for Food and Agriculture (FFar) Fellows program, UC Davis’ Innovator Fellowship, and the Kirchner Food Fellowship.

Beyond Beyond Meat: Which Companies Have Developed “Bleeding” Meatless Burgers?

When vegetarians went out to eat and ordered a veggie burger, even as recently as a few years ago they’d get a hardened puck of black beans or mish-mashed vegetables.

Now it’s a whole new world. Vegetarians and flexitarians alike can bring Beyond Burgers to backyard barbecues and order Impossible patties as a sub at local restaurants (if they’re in stock, that is).

Impossible and Beyond may be the two names that even most carnivores are familiar with, but they’re far from the only ones making plant-based burgers meant to look, grill, and even “bleed” like real beef. Should you want to venture — cough, beyond — here are a few other options in the grocery aisle.

Nestlé: The Incredible and Awesome Burger

Photo: Nestlé

Nestlé announced last December that it would be launching two meaty plant-based burgers over the next year. Launched under the Swiss giant’s Garden Gourmet brand, the Incredible Burger (in no way inspired by the Impossible Burger) became available in Europe this spring. It currently stars in the Big Vegan TS at McDonalds in Germany. Stateside, Nestlé plans to release the Awesome Burger under its Sweet Earth brand in the fall of this year.

Lightlife: The Plant-Based Burger

Lightlife’s plant-based ground “beef”

Earlier this year plant-based food brand Lightlife began selling its new plant-based burger, called… The Plant-Based Burger. Like Beyond Meat, Lightlife’s burger uses beets to get its red color. Interestingly, Lightlife (along with fellow vegan meat brand Field Roast) are owned by Maple Leaf Foods, a major Canadian meat processing company which recently announced it was building the largest plant-based protein factory in North America.

Dr. Praeger’s: The Perfect Burger

Photo: Dr. Praeger’s.

Natural food company Dr. Praeger’s just launched its new plant-based burger… today! Modestly called The Perfect Burger, it’s made of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots and beets (presumably for color). Dr. Praeger’s offering is significantly lower in fat and sodium than options from Beyond and Impossible, and is seemingly trying to position itself as a more wholesome, natural alternative to their heavily-processed patties. The Perfect Burger is currently available for foodservice and will soon roll out in retail.

Morningstar Farms: Meat Lovers Vegan Burgers

Photo: Morningstar Farms.

Though not quite as meaty-looking as any of the above, Morningstar Farms, a stalwart of vegan animal products, released the Meat Lovers Vegan Burger last year. It comes pre-cooked and doesn’t contain any beets to get that rosy color, but it does have tomatoes, soy and wheat protein, and lots of spices, making it less of a neutral base and more like veggie burgers of yore. However, the Meat Lovers burger does have a whopping 27g of protein per serving — significantly more than Beyond or Impossible.

Moving Mountains: The Moving Mountains Burger

Photo: Moving Mountains burger.

If you’re in the U.K. or Europe you can try Moving Mountain’s eponymous plant-based burger. Made with a very similar ingredient list to the Beyond Burger — pea protein, coconut oil, and beets — the plant-based burger launched in select London restaurants last year. The Moving Mountains burger is currently available in over 3,000 foodservice establishments in the U.K. and Europe.

Have you tried any of the above meatless burgers? Which was your favorite? Sound off in the comments below!

Del Taco Debuts New Beyond Meat Burritos as Fast Food Embraces Plant-Based Meat

Today Del Taco announced two pieces of (meatless) meaty news. First, it revealed that the Beyond Meat Taco, which hit Del Taco menus nationwide in April, was one of its most successful product launches ever. Springboarding off this popularity, the fast-food chain also announced that it’s expanding its plant-based lineup with two new Beyond Meat burritos.

The Beyond 8 Layer Burrito ($4.49) and the Epic Beyond Cali Burrito ($6.49) will be available in more than 580 Del Taco locations nationwide. The two look pretty similar, except the Epic Beyond Cali Burrito subs in french fries (!) for beans and is therefore presumably better for curing hangovers.

It’s no wonder that Del Taco is introducing more products featuring the plant-based beef. In the weeks following April’s widespread launch of Beyond Tacos, Del Taco reported an increase in both check size and traffic. According to an email from Del Taco, so far the chain has sold a whopping 2 million Beyond Tacos.

Del Taco isn’t the only fast-food restaurant experiencing an uptick in sales after introducing new meatless products to their menus. Burger King decided to roll out the Impossible Whopper nationwide after only one month of testing, during which its pilot location in St. Louis saw an 18 percent increase in sales. White Castle reps also stated that sales of the Impossible Slider exceeded expectations and that the new product appealed to both new and existing customers.

Skeptics may question whether these sales bumps are just that — bumps. Once the novelty wears off, will consumers keep returning to certain restaurants just to get the Impossible Whopper or Epic Beyond Cali Burrito?

Seeing as the alternative meat market is rising at a CAGR of 6.8 percent with no sign of slowing, my bet is yes. However, as more and more fast-food restaurants embrace plant-based meat (except for you, Arby’s), chains will have to come up with new ways to differentiate themselves and lure in curious consumers.

We’ll see if the new Beyond Burritos can help Del Taco lure diners away from Mexican fast-food competitor Qdoba, who serves bowls and tacos made with Impossible “beef,” or Taco Bell, which has a vegetarian menu (though no plant-based meat).

Adding french fries into the mix can’t hurt.

Future Food: Are Blended Meats the Future of Flexitarian Dining?

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. The newsletter has exclusive additional content, so be sure to subscribe here so you don’t miss a beat!

Earlier today Tyson Foods announced Raised & Rooted, its long-awaited venture into the alternative protein space. Its first products aren’t strictly vegan; they include both animal products and plant-based ingredients. One is a vegetarian chicken nugget made with egg whites and plants and the other is a blended burger composed of Angus beef and pea protein.

Tyson isn’t the only Big Meat company diversifying into the alt-protein market. Just yesterday, Perdue — the fourth largest chicken producer in the U.S. (Tyson is the first) — announced it would also be releasing a line of blended chicken products. Interestingly, Perdue sourced some of its plant-based ingredients with help from Better Meat Co, the startup which makes vegan protein meant to be blended with meat to make it healthier and more sustainable.

Perdue and Tyson are smart to take baby steps into the alternative protein space, though at this point it’s clearly too big a market opportunity to ignore (except for Arby’s, apparently). By starting with blended products, major meat processing companies can grow their customer base into a new market, all while retaining its existing infrastructure.

But there will inevitably be some pushback by those claiming that blended burgers and nuggets are purely a marketing tactic from Big Meat. Which they, of course, are — and a smart one at that. By rolling out a line of (at least semi-) plant-based meats, companies like Tyson and Perdue are showing consumers that they are brands which have their finger on the pulse of what’s new and hip.

Vegetarians and vegans may see these products as a step in the wrong direction. But to those who get in a huff about blended meat, let me say this: it’s a step in the right direction. Sure, consumers who eat a Raised & Rooted burger are still eating meat — but they’re eating less meat than they would otherwise. It’s a good stop-gap until plant-based darlings like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods perfect their products, or cell-based meat takes over.

Beyond Meat’s new Beyond Beef.

For those who prefer their burgers sans meat, this week Beyond Meat announced it’s now selling the long-awaited Beyond Beef in one specific Whole Foods in Boulder, CO. (Fun fact: That location was the first-ever to sell Beyond’s plant-based patties in the meat section.) The company is also dropping a new, meatier version of its plant-based burger patties with better fat marbling to give the patties a texture more akin to beef and apple extract to make the meat brown once cooked.

It’s no surprise that Beyond is firing on all cylinders, debuting new products and improving old ones at a rapid clip. Especially when Big Food companies — Tyson and Perdue, sure, but also Nestlé and Unilever — are all waking up to the potential of the plant-based protein market.

Beyond may have had a wildly successful IPO and enjoy a strong foothold in retail right now, but it’s got competition coming in — and not just from Impossible. No wonder it’s aiming for such an accelerated growth rate in its first year as a public company.

Photo: KFC

Protein new ’round the web

  • KFC in the U.K. is launching “The Imposter,” a vegan chicken burger made of Quorn (h/t The Independent). It probably won’t be long before KFC U.S. follows suit.
  • Dutch food giant Vivera is going to focus 100 percent on plant-based protein. It just sold the meat company in its portfolio, Enkco, this week.
  • Curious about how to grill up Beyond Meat’s burgers and sausages? We’ve got your guide.

That’s it from me this week! I was in San Francisco recently and somehow didn’t get an Impossible Whopper from Burger King. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself.

Eat well,
Catherine

Editor Roundtable Podcast: We Have Opinions on Tiny Dishwashers & Beyond Burgers

In case you didn’t already know, The Spoon team has lots of opinions. As you might guess, those opinions are especially pronounced when it comes to food and kitchen gadgets.

And so we decided to get together and get some things off our chest on this Editor Roundtable edition of the Food Tech Show.

Here’s what we talked about:

In addition to lots of opinions, we also share sound effects (or at least I do).

As always, please subscribe, play (and rate!) the podcast in Apple podcasts (or your favorite pod player), download direct or just click play below.

Beyond Meat Debuts New ‘Ground Beef’ Product at Boulder, CO Whole Foods

Beyond Meat announced today via social media that they’re beginning to sell their Beyond Beef product in select Whole Foods.

In posts on Instagram and Twitter, the El Segundo, Calif.-based company wrote that the Whole Foods Market on Pearl Street in Boulder, CO “will be the first grocery store to offer #BeyondBeef.” According to the post, the Pearl Street Whole Foods was also the first grocery store to put the Beyond Burger in its meat section three years ago.

Beyond first released news about the Beyond Beef product in March. The ground beef-like product will be made of the same mixture of pea, rice, and mung bean proteins as the Beyond Burgers, but will have a more neutral flavor profile and also better binding properties (so it can form meatballs, dumplings, etc). Beyond Beef will have 25 percent less saturated fat than traditional beef and no cholesterol.

The social posts don’t release any pricing data. Beyond teased that a nationwide expansion is coming, though the company has yet to give a timeline.

Lately, Beyond Meat is on fire. The El Segundo, Calif.-based company went public in May, after which their IPO popped 400 percent in its first month. Last week it released its first-quarter earnings report, in which Beyond predicted that it would have a net revenue of over $210 million by the end of 2019.

But competition is a-coming. Beyond’s plant-based meat competitor Impossible Foods is also planning to head into retail by the end of this year. However, Impossible has been struggling with supply issues lately, so we’ll have to wait and see if they can stick to their timeline.

Regardless of when Impossible gets there, Beyond is certainly facing more plant-based competition in the grocery aisle. By diversifying into more versatile products, like Beyond Beef, they’re better positioned to attract more customers and better build brand recognition in the (fake) meat aisle.

Want to stay on top of plant-based and future of food news? Subscribe to our Future Food newsletter. 

How to Grill Beyond Meat’s Plant-Based Burgers and Sausages

As a vegetarian, whenever I go to summertime barbecues I usually come prepared with my own meatless sustenance to throw on the grill. Lately that something has been Beyond Meat’s burgers or sausages, because, well, they’re delicious.

When confronted with plant-based meat that looks a lot like the real thing, the person manning the grill often gets confused. Do they cook these plant-based patties just like a regular burger? How long do the sausages need to stay on? Do they need any sort of special treatment?

I usually just leave the grillmaster to it and make do with the end result. But in the spirit of journalistic research, this week I decided to fire up the grill myself (for the first time ever!) and figure out how to optimally cook Beyond’s plant-based offerings. Here’s the guide I put together from my findings:

Photo: Catherine Lamb

  1. Heat the grill. Charcoal is obviously preferred since that’s how you get that smoky flavor that screams “hey dummy, it’s summer!” Usually 15 minutes or so is enough for the grates to get screaming hot, which is what you want in order to get a nice sear on the outside of your “meat.”
  2. Bring your meat to room temperature. Though Beyond Meat aims to be sold alongside meat in grocery stores, I often find it in the freezer section. Be sure to bring your burgers and brats to room temperature before you grill them, lest you end up with a fully cooked outside and a frozen interior.
  3. Oil your burgers/sausages. Beyond’s packaging instructs to lightly oil the surface of the burger and sausages so that they don’t stick to the grill grates. I brushed the outside of the meat with some canola oil and it worked beautifully — no stickage at all. Oiling the grates themselves would also work using an oiled paper towel or grilling spray. Just make sure to do it while the grill is cold so you don’t risk burning yourself.
  4. Cook for a short time over high heat. The best part of any grilled meat (or “meat”) is the smoky char, so make sure your grill is really hot before you put down your Beyond patties or sausages. Cook them a few minutes on the first side (I found that two minutes was enough), check to make sure the bottom is brown and caramelized, then flip (for the burger) and turn (for the brats) and cook another few minutes.
  5. Don’t press down! This one really only has to do with the burgers. As with meat burgers, you don’t want to press down on your Beyond patties with your spatula. Yes, it makes a nice sizzle sound. But it also causes all the fat (in this case, coconut oil) to squish out of the burgers, which means they’ll be less juicy.

Photo: Catherine Lamb

In the end, grilling Beyond Meat isn’t a whole lot different than grilling regular meat. I was worried the burgers might fall apart when I flipped them or the sausage casings would stick, but I was surprised by how easy they were to cook.

In fact, they might actually be easier to grill than regular meat. Beyond’s website instructs cooking the burgers and sausages to 165°F internal temperature but I didn’t fuss about that. Since Beyond’s meat is plant-based, it doesn’t carry the same risk of salmonella or E. coli as pork or beef, so undercooking isn’t as much of an issue.

There’s also a little more flexibility in terms of timing. Overcooked Beyond burgers aren’t great, but they’re much more palatable than the tough hockey puck of an overcooked beef burger. During my tests the plant-based sausages also stayed moist and juicy, despite the fact that I got distracted and left them on the grill for much longer than the suggested six minutes.

My taste testers (who are both meat eaters) and I agreed that while we wouldn’t mistake Beyond’s products for real meat, they were plenty delicious. Delicious enough that they would even seek them out at a restaurant or in the grocery shelves.

They have plenty of opportunity to do so. Beyond Meat products are served at over 15,000 restaurants, including all Carl’s Jr. and Del Tacos nationwide. They’re also available at more than 35,000 grocery stores. And based off of Beyond’s first earnings call this week, there’s a lot of expansion — both in retail and in restaurants — coming down the pipeline.

That’s good news for summer barbecues.

Beyond Meat Reports $40M Q1 Earnings, Predicts $210M Net Revenue for 2019

Today Beyond Meat had the first earnings call since they went public last month.

The company blew growth expectations out of the water and reported net revenue of $40.2 million in Q1 of 2019, which is an increase in 215 percent since the same period in 2018. It reported a first-quarter net loss of $6.6 million, or .95 per share.

Beyond’s CFO Mark Nelson gave guidance that the company will have a net revenue of over $210 million by the end of 2019. That’s slightly higher than Wall Street’s estimate of $205 million. In response to these positive numbers, Beyond’s shares rose 16 percent after the reporting was released.

The plant-based meat company’s sales are no doubt helped by its well-publicized IPO, as well as its expanding retail and restaurant footprint. Interestingly, the revenue from the two sources is almost split 50-50: grocery store sales accounted for $19.6 million of Beyond’s revenue, while restaurant sales made up $20.6 million.

On the earnings call Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown stated that the company would use its new capital to “invest in current and additional manufacturing facilities, to expand its research and development and its sales and marketing capabilities, and for working capital and general corporate purposes.”

Perhaps most notable was Brown’s emphasis on international expansion. He mentioned the high market potential in South Africa and Chile, as well as Europe and Asia. This could help it differentiate from plant-based competitor Impossible Foods, which is only available in the U.S., Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Despite their impressive stats, Beyond still has lots more room to grow. On the call Brown stated that Beyond Meat has only 2 percent market penetration in the U.S. He hopes to increase that both here and abroad, all while driving down the cost of their products.

That’s ambitious to be sure. Several investors (very reasonably) asked questions about production capacity. If a big fast-food chain, like McDonald’s, opts to add Beyond Meat to their menus, would they be able to quickly amp up production to fulfill those orders? What about overseas? Brown seems confident that their new production partners and manufacturing methods can handle growing demand, but clearly Beyond’s production issues of last year (and Impossible’s current struggles) aren’t far from investors’ minds.

Things may be looking rosy for Beyond right now, but the company still has plenty of competition who wants to take a bite out of their customer base. Impossible Foods recently raised $300 million and is planning to head into retail later this year. Nestlé’s meatless Awesome burger is hitting shelves in the U.S. this fall. The Swiss company currently sells a different plant-based burger, called the Incredible burger, at McDonald’s in Germany. Tyson Foods, who recently parted ways with Beyond Meat, is also releasing their own new line of plant-based protein products this summer.

Future Food: Impossible? Beyond? Our Guide to Meatless Meat in Fast Food

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. The newsletter has exclusive additional content, so be sure to subscribe here so you don’t miss a beat!

Quick service restaurants (QSRs) can read the tea leaves: consumers want more tasty, meatless options. The month after it put the Impossible Whopper on St. Louis store menus, Burger King reported an 18 percent increase in foot traffic. Del Taco’s introduction of the Beyond Meat tacos was one of the chain’s most successful product launches ever.

It’s a smart play for fast-food joints to embrace plant-based meat, allowing them to:

  • Attract new customers who might not otherwise opt to eat at the restaurant
  • Draw back lapsed customers who might have pivoted away from fast-food to embrace a more plant-based diet
  • Boost their brand and frame themselves as an innovator.

With all this action, it can be hard to keep track of which chains are serving which meat alternatives. Who’s got the Impossible patty? Which spots are hitching their horse to Beyond Meat? Which restaurants have yet to make a move, and is anybody rejecting meat alternatives altogether? (Cough, Arby’s, cough.)

It’s a lot to keep straight. Thankfully, we drew up a handy one-sheet outlining which QSR’s are lining up behind which meat alternatives. Check out the full piece for details, then go order a vegan combo meal.

Image: The Spoon.

Beefing up the portfolio

Big Food is going whole-hog on plant-based meat investment.

Tyson, the world’s second-largest meat processor, made headlines when they decided to invest in Beyond Meat. (It has since cut ties, but that’s a different story.) Major Canadian packaged meat company Maple Leaf Foods acquired vegan meat veterans Field Roast and Lightlife Foods and has plans to build the largest plant-based protein factory in North America. Late last year, Unilever snapped up Dutch startup the Vegetarian Butcher.

Photo: Before the Butcher.

This week that list got a little longer when the owners of Jensen Meat Company, a ground beef processor, acquired meatless meat startup Before the Butcher. It’s a textbook symbiotic relationship. Big Beef gets to diversify its portfolio and carve out a chunk of the white-hot alterna-meat market. Before the Butcher gains access to more capital and bigger production facilities, which can help the startup scale and differentiate itself in the crowded plant-based protein market.

Win, win. Expect to see quite a few more of these type of acquisitions coming around the curve. But also expect to see some consumer pushback against big meat companies coming in and sticking their noses (and pocketbooks) into the alterna-meat space.

Photo: Moving Mountains

Protein new ’round the web

Photo: Beyond Meat sausages and burgers.

In the spirit of research and summertime I grilled up a few Beyond Meat burger patties and sausage links last night. Look out for a meatless meat grilling guide coming at you soon.

Eat well,
Catherine

Which Fast Food Restaurants Serve Plant-Based Meat (or Are Thinking About It)?

Thanks to fast-food chains, meatless meats are no longer a niche product meant for vegetarians or vegans — they’re the norm. They’re making plant-based meat more affordable and accessible, and democratizing the alternative protein revolution.

Adopting meat alternatives is also a smart business play for QSR’s. Case and point: Del Taco and Burger King have reported sales increases in the months after they introduced plant-based meat options.

As alternative meats spread like wildfire onto fast-food menus, it can be hard to keep track of which chains have embraced meat alternatives and which are still mulling it over. To help straighten things out we decided to make a handy-dandy list showing which QSR’s in the U.S. and Canada have plant-based meat on their menus, what products they’re serving (Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, other), and even which restaurants refuse to touch the stuff with a 10-foot pole.

Click on the photo below to enlarge.

Photo: The Spoon

But this list is just a high-level overview. If you want more context into the plant-based meat strategies behind some of the most widespread fast-food restaurants, we’ve laid that out below.

Impossible Foods

Photo: the Impossible Whopper at Burger King.

Burger King: On April 1 Burger King launched a Whopper made with plant-based Impossible Foods patties in select St. Louis locations. Just a month later, the fast-food chain announced it would begin rolling out the Impossible Whopper in all of its 7,300 locations nationwide by the end of the year. First stop(s): Miami, Florida; Columbus, Georgia; and Montgomery, Alabama.

White Castle: White Castle was kind of the trendsetter of fast-food restaurants embracing plant-based meat. In April 2018 the chain first started serving the Impossible Slider for $1.99 at select locations on the East Coast before rolling it out nationwide in September of that year.

Qdoba: The Mexican food chain began testing bowls and tacos made with ground Impossible “beef” in February of 2019. As of May 2019, the plant-based options are available at all Qdoba locations.

Little Caesar’s: The new Impossible Supreme pie — featuring Impossible Foods sausage, green peppers, mushrooms and caramelized onions — is available at select Little Caesar’s in Florida, New Mexico and Washington State. The pizza chain plans to expand it to all of their stores if it proves popular.

Red Robin: As of April 2019, diners can sub an Impossible patty for any burger at all 570 Red Robin locations.

Cheesecake Factory: The Impossible Burger hopped on select Cheesecake Factory menus in August 2018.

Umami Burger: Umami Burger currently sells four different Impossible burgers.

Hard Rock Cafe: As of January of this year, patrons can get an Impossible cheeseburger at select Hard Rock Cafe locations.

Beyond Meat

Photo: Beyond Meat x Del Taco.

Del Taco: The fast-food Mexican restaurant began offering Beyond Meat’s plant-based “beef” as a protein option on their tacos, burritos, and bowls in September 2018. As of this April, it’s available at all 580 locations across the U.S.

Tim Horton’s: The Canadian fast-food chain added Beyond Meat sausages to their menus last month. Customers can add the plant-based sausage patty to three of Tim Horton’s breakfast sandwiches.

Applebee’s: The Beyond Burger is available at select Applebee’s locations in NYC.

Carl’s Jr.: Beyond Meat’s first big play into the fast-food burger space was with Carl’s Jr. The Beyond Famous Star burger debuted on Carl’s Jr. menus in January of 2019 and quickly spread to all of its 1,000+ locations. (We did a taste test, if you’re interested.)

TGI Friday’s: The fast-casual restaurant began testing Beyond Burgers on its menus in 2017, rolling them out to all 469 locations in January of 2018.

A&W: In July of 2018 Canadian fast-food chain A&W began selling the Beyond Burger. It’s currently available at all of their 925 locations in Canada.

Dunkin’: In July of 2019 Dunkin’ locations in Manhattan began selling a Beyond Breakfast Sausage Sandwich, making it the first place in the U.S. to serve Beyond’s plant-based sausage patties.

Subway: Subway will start testing a Beyond Meatball Marinara sandwich at 685 locations in the U.S. and Canada for a limited time in September 2019. Beyond developed a meatball specifically for the partnership.

KFC: The fried chicken chain will start testing Beyond Meat chicken nuggets and wings at a location in suburban Atlanta for a limited time.

To Be Determined

Photo: Chick-Fil-A

Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, Dunkin’, Papa John’s: These chains are also rumored to be in talks with Impossible Foods to develop a plant-based menu option.

Chick-fil-A: Last month Chick-fil-A announced that it was exploring new vegan entrée options, including one made with realistic plant-based meat. Exactly what type of entrée is still TBD, but according to Chick-fil-A’s executive menu director, it might be “some type of alternative meat on a sandwich.”

Taco Bell: The fast-food chain has a relatively hefty vegetarian menu but no plant-based meat options as of yet. In London Taco Bell briefly experimented with a meatless ground beef option made from pulled oats, but seems to have taken it off the menu.

Starbuck’s: Though they have plenty of alternative milk options, Starbuck’s has yet to introduce a plant-based meat option to their breakfast, lunch or snack offerings.

McDonald’s: Ah, the White Whale. Despite the fact that all its competitors seem to embracing plant-based meat, McDonald’s is hanging back. At a recent shareholder meeting the fast-food giant stated that it would introduce an alterna-meat menu item once it was sure that there was sufficient consumer demand. Over in Germany, McDonald’s serves Nestlé’s “bleeding” plant-based Incredible burger.

 

No Way

Photo: Arby’s Meat Mountain sandwich.

Arby’s: When Arby’s president Rob Lynch heard rumors that the chain was looking into a plant-based menu option featuring Impossible “meat,” he panicked — and then set the record straight. He stated categorically that Arby’s has no plans to introduce any meatless meat options to its menu, now or in the future.

Have you tried meatless meat at any fast-food chains? Let us know what you thought in the comments below!

Future Food: Plant-Based Meat Is about to Hit Troubled Waters

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. The newsletter has exclusive additional content, so be sure to subscribe here so you don’t miss a beat!

Meat alternatives may be in the midst of their salad days, but they still have their haters.

Thus far, things have been looking rosy for plant-based meats. Beyond Meat blew all expectations with their IPO and followed that up with plans for a new production facility in Europe (next stop: world domination). Impossible Foods recently raised $300 million and has begun rolling out in Burger Kings across the nation. Even mega food corporations like Nestlé, Tyson and Unilever are jumping into the warm, inviting waters of plant-based meat innovation.

But plenty of groups are out to rock the boat.

Big Meat — that is, major industrial meat corporations and coalitions, like the National Cattleman’s Association — feel threatened by the growing popularity of plant-based meat, which is hoovering up a 10 percent chunk of their market share. To clap back, traditional meat companies have helped push bans to keep meat not made from a slaughtered animal from using labels like “burgers” or “sausages.” Europe is contemplating a similar ban.

The competition is not plant-based meat’s only detractor. Some ethically motivated consumers are also turned off by Impossible Foods’ and Beyond Meat’s recent push into fast-food restaurants, including Burger King, criticizing their alignment with corporations which can be exploitative to human workers and promote poor nutrition.

Others are concerned with the long ingredient list and heavy processing that goes into plant-based meat. Sure, options like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are better for the environment than beef — but are they better for our bodies? Not necessarily. As the shine of novelty wears of plant-based meat, companies will have to work harder to show consumers that it is indeed the healthier choice. Or at least convince them that they shouldn’t care.

Plant-based meat has been coasting on a wave of consumer excitement, ethically conscious messaging, and high-profile celebrity endorsements and investments. But soon the waters are going to start getting a little bumpier. That goes double once cell-based meat enters the game and frames itself as a cleanier, simpler meat option — without the sacrifice.

Alternative meat companies better prepare to fight.

Photo: Arby’s

We’ve got the meats

Recently, rumors have been flying that fast-food chains from Wendy’s to Arby’s are considering adding Impossible Foods’ plant-based meat to their menus (along with Subway, Dunkin’, and others).

When Arby’s President Robert Lynch heard the news, he almost had a heart attack. “The only way [it would happen] would be if I got fired for some reason,” he told Fortune, presumably between bites of a hearty Meat Mountain sandwich.

Okay, so vegetarians will have to keep bypassing Arby’s for now. But the bigger point here is how vehemently Lynch was against the very idea of adding plant-based meat to their menu.

As fellow Spoon writer Chris recently pointed out, this sort of all-in or all-out stance towards, well, anything is rampant in today’s political discourse. It seems that even the fast-food space is not immune.

Protein new ’round the web

  • Food tech investment will soon pivot away from plant-based meat and towards dairy alternatives, predicts Techcrunch. Investors better start saying “cheese.”
  • Burger King traffic has increased 18 percent since they introduced the Impossible Whopper (h/t CNBC).
  • Can plant-based proteins significantly cut down on our meat consumption until there’s a reasonable replacement for steak? The Washington Post asks if a lack of T-Bones is an insurmountable obstacle for meat alternatives.
  • Down Under, Hungry Jack’s — the Australian version of Burger King — is investing $1 million to develop a new veggie burger. But is that enough?

This Tuesday was apparently National Burger Day. Food holidays are kinda bogus (National Fluffernutter Day, anyone?), but we hope you took the opportunity to enjoy a juicy double-decker patty nonetheless. Plant-based or otherwise.

Eat well,
Catherine

Beyond Meat’s Impending European Production Facility Marks a Move Towards Global Domination

Beyond Meat announced today that it will open a new manufacturing facility in Europe. The company is expanding its partnership with Zandbergen World’s Finest Meat, who already distributed Beyond products across Europe, to begin making plant-based meats in the Netherlands by Q1 of next year. This will be the El Segundo, Calif.-based company’s first manufacturing facility outside of the U.S.

Beyond’s impending production facility shows how the company is flexing its plant-based muscle — armed with post-IPO capital — to really get serious about global expansion. Beyond is already in 40 countries around the world, and just moved into grocery stores in the Netherlands and Belgium last month. It’ll now be able to create a wave of new foodservice partnerships and deepen its foothold in grocery stores throughout Europe.

(Interesting side note: Zandbergen is also Tyson’s exclusive European distribution partner — maybe the poultry giant helped set up the Beyond partnership before the two parted ways?)

There’s certainly a demand for what Beyond is selling. According to Allied Market Research, Europe accounted for nearly 40 percent of global plant-based meat sales. Sales are expected to grow at a yearly rate of 7 percent through 2025.

Europe is one playing field that Beyond has a distinct advantage, at least over plant-based meat competitor Impossible Foods. Beyond’s products are GMO-free, whereas Impossible uses genetic engineering to manufacture heme, the magic ingredient which makes their burgers “bleed” and taste extra beefy. Europe is especially strict on regulating genetically modified foods, so if Impossible wants to sell in Europe, they’ll have to jump through a lot more hoops.

That doesn’t mean that Beyond doesn’t have any competition in the region. In the U.K. Moving Mountains makes ruby-hued plant-based burgers that taste pretty similar to Beyond, and Nestlé’s Incredible burger is already on menus at McDonald’s in Germany. European supermarkets like Aldi, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s have also been developing their own line of plant-based meats.

Beyond could also have to tackle a headache of rebrand if the E.U. decides to go forward with its proposed ban on using ‘meat’ labels to describe vegetarian products. The European Parliament is meant to vote on the measure after the just-completed May elections, so stay tuned: Beyond might have to continue its world domination not with plant-based meat ‘burgers,’ but with plant-based ‘discs.’