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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

flexitarian

Bacon in the U.S., Chicken in Europe: ADM’s Dir. of Flexitarian Solutions on Developing Plant-based Meats for Different Regions

The rising popularity of meat alternatives is a worldwide phenomenon. From Brazil to Belgium to Birmingham, Alabama, consumers are embracing flexitarian lifestyles and eating more plant-based meat.

But as culinary tastes vary widely around the world, so do preferences for plant-based meat. That makes things tricky for giant companies that are attempting to simultaneously develop alternative proteins that will appeal to a wide range of geographies. 

That’s one of the biggest hurdles that Kurt Long, the Director of Flexitarian Solutions for global food and commodities giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) has to deal with. “Every culture has a different taste or texture that they’re targeting,” he told me in a recent phone interview. “Even something basic like a hot dog will have different taste in Latin America than in Asia.”

To cater to these differences, ADM is developing totally different plant-based offerings meant to appeal specifically to each region. For example, in Europe they’re developing fibrous products to emulate plant-based chicken, which is gaining massive popularity in that area of the world. In North America they’re racing to make meatless bacon (hurry up, please). In Latin America they’re focused on burgers; in Asia, it’s pork analogs.

Of course, it’s no surprise that different parts of the globe have different tastes in plant-based meat. But it’s interesting to hear just how much those differences apply to meat alternatives — and how R&D teams will have to tweak the flavor palate and texture to meet local consumer tastes. For example, Asian consumers like more gelatinous textures, which might not translate to, say, Europe.

This challenge — to create products that appeal across the globe — isn’t one reserved only for major food corporations like ADM. Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are also gearing up to launch in China. Depending on consumer reception there they might have to tweak their formulas to appeal to their palates, especially if they want to compete with local plant-based meat companies like Omnipork.

For now, Long noted that ADM is currently filling the most demand in U.S. and Europe. But that could soon change. Rising global incomes in developing countries are spurring a higher demand for protein, specifically meat. At the same time China, the largest meat consumer in the world, is facing massive pork shortages as the African Swine Flu ravages its pig population.

Plant-based meat options can help fill these protein gaps — that is, as long as they can be agile and adapt to regional flavor and texture preferences. Admittedly, a big if.

We Tried Perdue’s Chicken Plus Tenders Blended Meat + Veggies, and They Fooled My 8-Year-Old

As a child of the 70s, I grew up watching commercials with Frank Perdue talking about his name brand of chickens. I don’t know if my mom ever bought Perdue chicken, but I know I haven’t since becoming an adult. So it was a little strange to rip open the bag of frozen Perdue Chicken Plus chicken breast and vegetable patties and tenders the company sent me to test out.

The Chicken Plus product hit store shelves this month and the hook is that vegetables are blended in with the chicken, so it’s a sneaky way to get your kids to eat their veggies. Perdue’s June press release announcing Chicken Plus describes the product as such:

…PERDUE CHICKEN PLUS blends cauliflower, chickpeas and plant protein to create the next generation of frozen chicken nuggets, tenders and patties, and each serving is complete with one-quarter cup (half a serving of vegetables) and is made with 100 percent all-natural ingredients and no antibiotics ever white meat chicken.

Like so many other traditional meat companies, Perdue is seeing the writing on the wall as sales of plant-based proteins from the likes of Beyond Meat and Impossible skyrocket. The Food Marketing Institute’s “Power of Meat 2019” report found that “plant-based meat alternatives sales increased 19.2% last year and account for $878 million in annual sales.”

And Perdue is by no means alone. The chicken company joins other high-profile traditional meat companies in jumping on the plant-based bandwagon. Just this week, Hormel launched its Happy Little Plants line of meatless meat, and the other chicken giant, Tyson, has invested in plant-based shrimp company New Wave Foods.

Tyson is actually the most apt comparison for Perdue. Not only are both companies in the chicken business, but in June, Tyson launched its Raised & Rooted line of chicken products, which also feature a blend of chicken and vegetable protein. My colleague Catherine Lamb explained why blended protein is becoming big in her (excellent) Future Food newsletter this summer when she asked Are Blended Meats the Future of Flexitarian Dining?:

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 their existing infrastructure.

It’s also a way for traditional meat companies to hang on and not alienate their existing meat-loving customer base.

For its part, Perdue is really leaning into the whole flexitarian lifestyle. The headline for its Chicken Plus press release was how the product could “meet demand for flexitarian families” and that the company was there “to help flexitarian families who are hungry for new ways to fill the vegetable void…” I’m a bit more of a skeptic and think Perdue didn’t want to play, errr, chicken with the oncoming wave of plant-based protein.

All of this business about flexitarianing is all well and good, but how do the Chicken Plus tenders and patties taste?

Pretty much like chicken tenders and patties. I air fried them both, and while they are a little mushier than a straight up chicken tender or patty, both still tasted like chicken. And by that I mean a processed chicken. Serving sizes pack plenty of salt: 480 mg (20 percent of your daily value) for a Chicken Plus patty and 460 mg in three tenders (19 percent of your daily value).

But it really doesn’t matter what I think. The tenders and such are more for kids. So what did my eight-year-old think? I asked him after school if he wanted chicken tenders for snack, neglecting to mention the veggie part, and he enthusiastically said yes. I cooked and plated them and he gobbled them up without saying a word.

“Did you like them?” I asked.

“Yeah,” was all I got back. Which, in this case was more than enough. He didn’t think there was anything odd or off about them, and he asked for more the next day after school. So Perdue should take that as a win.

I’m not a nutritionist, I can’t say how “healthy” the vegetable servings in Chicken Plus really are. In addition to the sodium count, the Chicken Plus tenders have 10g of protein and 21 g of carbs. Regular Perdue breaded chicken tenders have 10 g of protein, 420mg of sodium, and 16g of carbs. So it’s not like there’s a huge difference between the two.

Though a 22 oz. bag of Chicken Plus product is $6.99, I don’t think I’ll be purchasing any. My son is already pretty good about eating his vegetables, so I don’t need a clandestine delivery mechanism for them. And more important to me is whether the chicken is organic, which Chicken Plus is not, so there isn’t a reason for me to buy a bag of it.

I don’t even think Frank Perdue could convince me.

Beyond Meat Cooks Up Fast Food Partnership with Carl’s Jr.

If one of your New Year’s resolutions included eating less meat, you won’t have to cross Carl’s Jr. off your list. The fast-food chain announced today that it has partnered with plant-based meat company Beyond Meat to make a “flexitarian” version of their Famous Star burger.

The Beyond Famous Star burger will contain a quarter pound of Beyond’s “beef,” cooked in Carl’s Jr.’s signature charbroil style. It will presumably also have lettuce, tomatoes, onions, dill pickles, special sauce (ketchup + sweet relish), and mayo (though whether or not the mayo will be vegan isn’t clear).

A regular Famous Star burger will set you back $4.09, without cheese. The Beyond Famous Star burger will be available in 1,000+ Carl’s Jr. locations in 2019 and will cost $6.29.

$6.29?? That’s pretty pricey for a fast food burger, even one that clocks in at a sizeable quarter pound. For comparison, the Impossible Foods’ plant-based slider at White Castle will only set you back $1.99. To be fair, it only contains half as much “meat” as the Beyond Famous Star burger and doesn’t have the LTO, but it costs less than a third of the price.

Fast-food diners at White Castle were apparently open to ponying up an extra dollar to go plant-based, and the Impossible slider has now rolled out at locations across the U.S. But there’s no guarantee that Carl’s Jr. patrons will shell out over two bucks more to make their Famous Star burger vegan.

Regardless, the move shows that Beyond is prepped for some serious expansion. This news comes a few months after the company inked its first U.S. fast-food chain partnership with Del Taco. (Their plant-based burgers are already available in Canada’s A&W chain). However, Beyond is currently available in just over twenty Del Taco locations — its partnership with Carl’s Jr. would massively ramp up its fast-food presence, allowing it to better compete with plant-based frenemy Impossible Foods, who is planning to launch in retail next year.

These new partnerships will equate to much higher product demand, so hopefully Beyond Meat has moved on from its past supply chain issues. If it can pull off this partnership, no doubt we’ll be seeing Beyond burgers on more and more fast-food menus — and maybe even someday the Golden Arches?