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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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JUST Partners with Michael Foods to Grow Foodservice Sales of Plant-based Egg

JUST announced today that it is is expanding the sales footprint of its vegan egg substitute by teaming up with Michael Foods. Michael Foods is a subsidiary of CPG giant Post Holdings and one of the largest processors of value-added eggs in the world.

With the new partnership, Michael Foods will be the sole manufacturer, supplier and distributor of JUST Egg to its existing foodservice and B2B customers — those who already buy Michael Foods’ egg brands, such as Abbotsford Farms and Papetti’s. It will begin to roll out JUST Egg starting this fall in select locations.

Made from mung beans, JUST Egg currently comes in two iterations: a liquid for scrambles, and a pre-cooked folded egg patty. Both are meant to cook up just like a chicken egg and contain comparable protein, with no cholesterol.

According to FoodDive, roughly 90 percent of JUST Egg’s sales in the U.S. come from grocery stores. The Michael Foods partnership will allow JUST to massively expand the foodservice footprint of its plant-based eggs in the U.S. In addition to restaurants, Michael Foods also caters to large venues like cafeterias, hospitals and stadiums.

Photo: JUST Egg

It’s an… interesting time for JUST to juice up its foodservice business, to say the least. Most crowded venues — like concert halls and stadiums — are shut down for the forseeable future and restaurants are operating at reduced capacity, if they’re open at all.

The point of the Michael Foods news is that JUST is putting fuel in its engine to expand rapidly across multiple channels — and geographic regions. Last year the company acquired a factory in Minnesota to increase production. In March they announced a group of new global manufacturing and distributions partners, from South Korea to Colombia. And just last week, the company announced that it was working with Emsland Group, a German leader in plant-based protein ingredients, to help them scale in Europe.

By partnering with Michael Foods, JUST is clearly thinking (far) ahead to pave the way for more sales when major venues and foodservice establishments open again. Some states are slowly opening up restaurants, but large-scale reopenings, especially for big venues like stadiums, seems far on the horizon.

We’ll have to wait and see if JUST’s partnership with Michael Foods pays off post-pandemic.

JUST Egg Heads to Kroger Grocery Banners as Demand for Plant-Based Egg Grows

On Friday alternative protein startup JUST announced that it would be selling JUST Egg at 2,100 Kroger-owned grocery stores around the U.S.

JUST Egg is a plant-based liquid egg substitute made of mung beans and contains no saturated fat or cholesterol. Over the next few weeks, the product will be sold in the egg aisle of Kroger, as well as Kroger grocery banners like Fred Meyer, and QFC. It’s currently available at Kroger-owned Harris Teeter and Roundy’s brands.

This news is just the latest in JUST Egg’s latest expansion efforts. The plant-based scramble is already pretty widely available in retail: you can find it at Whole Foods, Sprouts, and even Costco, where it’s sold in a 2-pack for $9.99 (at other stores it typically costs almost that much for one 12-ounce bottle).

JUST Egg is also amping up its restaurant presence, and just forged its first fast-food partnership with Tim Horton’s in Canada. And that’s just in North America. Internationally, JUST Egg is also available at both retailers and restaurants in Hong Kong, China, and Europe.

But the fact that JUST is expanding the footprint of its Egg product so quickly indicates that there’s significant consumer demand for a tasty plant-based egg alternative — from both vegans and flexitarians. In fact, in an email to The Spoon JUST reported that a whopping 77 percent of those who buy JUST Egg also eat meat. The fact that JUST will be selling its plant-based scramble in the egg section means that the company has an even better chance of capturing flexitarians who are either curious to try a new product or want to reduce their environmental footprint.

As of now, JUST Egg doesn’t have any significant competition. But given its popularity, I doubt that will be the case for very long. It’s smart to snap up as much retail shelf space and build brand recognition while it’s still the #1 player — before the grocery egg section gets crowded with more alternatives.

If you want to stay up to date on all the plant-based food trends, make sure to subscribe to our weekly alternative protein newsletter Future Food! It’s fun, we promise. 

Clara Foods Raises Series B, Partners with Ingredion to Launch Animal-Free Egg Whites

Today Clara Foods, a startup using cellular agriculture to develop animal-free proteins, announced it has raised a Series B funding round. The round was led by ingredients corporation Ingredion with participation from Hemisphere Ventures, SOS Ventures and B37. The amount of funding was not disclosed.

Based in San Francisco, Clara Foods has been working to create animal proteins without the animals. They use a similar technology to Perfect Day or New Culture, feeding sugar to genetically engineered yeast to “ferment” protein in various forms. So far, Clara Foods has been focused on creating egg whites to use as vegan alternatives in baking.

Under the agreement, Ingredion will work with Clara Foods to distribute and market multiple animal-free proteins means to be used as egg substitutes.

Photo: Meringues made with animal-free egg whites from Clara Foods.

This partnership gives a big leg up to Clara Foods. The startup has been developing its chicken-less egg whites since 2014. When I visited the Clara Foods team a few months ago at the Winter Fancy Food Show, they told me it would likely still be a while before they brought a product to market. Now, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that their “egg” proteins could be available as soon as 2020.

Clara Foods’ partnership with Ingredion is a smart way for them to leverage the massive ingredient provider’s manufacturing capabilities, supply chain, and retail partnerships to get to market much more quickly. Perfect Day made a similar strategic partnership last year when they teamed up with ADM to accelerate production of their animal-free whey.

This is also a smart move on Ingredion’s part. The ingredient supplier has had its eye on the vegan protein space for a while. In fact, its investment in Clara Foods comes months after Ingredion committed to investing $140 million in plant-based proteins. True, Clara Foods’ proteins are made through fermentation, not from plants, but still: Ingredion knows that alternative proteins are a hot investment opportunity, and it’s making moves.

In its press release Clara Foods stated that it had raised a $15 million Series A in 2016. (Though Crunchbase reports that the startup’s total funding — prior to the Series B — was only $3.5 million.) In addition to jumpstarting manufacturing, Clara Foods will also use its new funding to expand beyond egg proteins and develop other animal-free products.

Restaurant Chains Embrace JUST Egg, Vegan Chorizo as Hunger for Plant-Based Protein Grows

Animal-free meat and dairy alternatives have been on quite a roll this week. First Beyond Meat announced it would be in all locations of Del Taco. Two days later, Impossible shot back with the news that its plant-based meat would be available at all Qdobas nationwide.

Now several more national chains are embracing plant-based alternatives with open arms. JUST Inc. (formerly Hampton Creek) announced that its vegan JUST Egg product will be available at the restaurant chain Silver Diner and the upmarket burger chain Bareburger, both of which are chiefly in the Mid-Atlantic area.

JUST Egg is available on two Bareburger menu items. In the “Wake-Up Call,” an eggless patty is served with a Beyond Meat quarter pounder, cheese, and mayo, while the “Get On Up” is essentially a breakfast burrito. The JUST menu items will be available at all 34 U.S. Bareburger locations by the end of May. The diner chain Silver Diner will offer a “JUST Egg Benedict” starting today all 15 of its locations.

JUST Egg is already available at a number of grocery stores and restaurants, including the vegan chain Veggie Grill. They’ve been edging into more sales channels in the U.S. and internationally, though so far it seems they’ve been targeting retailers. These two partnerships show that the company is also laser-focused on getting JUST into as many restaurant menus — and onto as many flexitarian plates — as possible.

Blaze Pizza with its new vegan chorizo.

It might not have a buzzed-about startup name attached to it, but this week fast-casual pizza chain Blaze also rolled out new plant-based options on its menus. The national chain, which has over 300 locations, now offers a vegan spicy chorizo developed in-house by Blaze’s executive chef. While the restaurant has meat and dairy on its menus, its dough is vegan and customers can opt for Daiya plant-based cheese.

The vegan chorizo is available at no extra cost. This is pretty rare: most plant-based alternatives come with an upcharge of at least a few bucks, which is a barrier to capturing the flexitarian market. Though thanks to economies of scale, growing meat alternative companies like Beyond and Impossible will hopefully able to reach price parity with meat pretty soon.

Fast-food and fast-casual restaurants are becoming quite the innovation space for plant-based alternatives. In addition to all the above news,  Burger King recently announced a pilot program to make Impossible Whoppers in the St. Louis area. Impossible’s “bleeding” burgers are also at White Castles and Red Robins, and Beyond Meat is available at Carl’s Jr. and the Canadian A&W chain.

Restaurant chains would be dumb not to put meat and dairy alternatives on their menus. According to the NPD Group, demand for plant-based protein in foodservice grew by 20 percent in 2018. And I don’t see that trend slowing down anytime soon. Down the road, I’m betting it will be unheard of for a fast-casual or QSR restaurant to not have plant-based burgers, scrambled eggs, etc. In fact, it might not be that far from now.