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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Future Food: Beyond Impossible, Investment is Heating Up Throughout the Alt-Protein Space

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. In it we cover the alternative protein landscape, from plant-based meat to cellular agriculture to insects. Subscribe here!

Who’s investing in alternative protein?

Last week the interweb was all abuzz with Beyond Meat’s wildly successful IPO. This week, Impossible Foods raised $300 million and began selling the hotly anticipated Impossible Whopper in three more cities (besides the OG: St. Louis).

But a girl cannot live on plant-based meat alone, no matter how good it may taste. Plus, any news from Beyond/Impossible this week is really just a continuation of the trajectory we’ve been seeing:

  • Consumers are demanding more plant-based protein options at a variety of price points
  • Alternative meats are heading into more and more retail channels, including prepared meal delivery
  • Investors are hustling to get more involved in the white-hot plant-based meat space

Let’s take a closer look at that last one. We don’t often spend much time peeking behind the curtain at the companies doling out funding to these startup darlings making bleeding burgers or cultured steak. But they’re the ones dictating the pace of innovation in the space.

One company of particular interest is the newly-minted Big Idea Ventures (BIV). The hybrid venture/accelerator firm is backed by Tyson and Temasek, a holding firm owned by the Singaporean government. BIV’s goal is to be the largest accelerator dedicated entirely to the alternative protein space. It made its first investment a few weeks ago, in Singaporean cultured shrimp startup Shiok Meats.

BIV may be unique in its laser focus on animal-free proteins, but there are quite a few other VC firms investing in the space, like Stray Dog Capital and New Crop Capital. Big Food corporations like Cargill and Tyson are also reading the cards and investing in plant- and cell-based startups, expanding their portfolios and gradually reframing themselves as generalized protein companies.

If you’re interested, you can read my piece on BIV’s new protein fund and upcoming accelerator programs here.

Media holds the key

One of the costliest parts of making cultured meat is the media — essentially, the food that scientists feed animal cells to help them multiply enough that we can eat them. As of now a lot of cell-based companies rely on Fetal Bovine Serum. Since this is extracted from the necks of baby cows in slaughterhouses, it’s a) super controversial, b) not vegan, and c) expensive.

This week we also wrote about Canadian startup Future Fields, which is developing a media completely free of any animal products. Their solution could help cultured meat companies bring their product to market sooner, and with a more appealing price tag.

Impossible gets into dairy?

Okay okay, I know we said no more Impossible Food news. But one more tiny thing: this week FoodNavigator reported that Impossible is currently developing a suite of “dairy” products. This isn’t exactly surprising. When we spoke to Impossible CEO Pat Brown at CES this year he made it clear that Impossible wasn’t stopping just at burgers.

We asked Impossible if they had any updates in the dairy department, and they responded that it’s their mission to “make all meat, fish and dairy products that consumers love directly from plants as soon as possible.” No word on when, though I’m guessing Impossible will focus on meat for a while longer. What we do know is their next product: steak.

For now, flexitarians thirsty for plant-based dairy alternatives can opt for a creamy glass of Oatly — that is, if they can find it.

Photo: JUST.

Protein news ’round the web

  • This week JUST, maker of plant-based and (soon) cell-based animal products, officially launched its JUST Egg in China. Their product uses mung bean to replicate scrambled eggs’ signature texture.
  • Iconic Canadian fast-food joint Tim Horton’s is testing out breakfast sandwiches featuring Beyond Meat’s vegan sausage patties in 60 restaurants across Toronto.
  • Chick-fil-A is exploring adding plant-based meat options to their notoriously small menu.

Eat well,
Catherine

Eat Mor (Fake) Chikin: Chick-Fil-A Might Add Plant-Based Meat to Its Menus

Growing up in Atlanta, there was no treat better than a crispy Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich. These days, when I go home to visit, things are a little trickier: I’m a vegetarian now and Chick-Fil-A’s doesn’t have a single meat-free entrée.

But soon that might change. Business Insider reported today that the fried chicken chain is exploring adding vegan options to their offerings, including plant-based meat.

Amanda Norris, executive director of Chick-fil-A’s menu, didn’t tell BI exactly what type of vegan options they were looking into, but did mention that “it might be some kind of alternative protein on a sandwich.”

This news is far from surprising. Restaurant chains large and small are taking note of the rising consumer demand for plant-based proteins and adding vegan products to their menus. Del Taco, Carl’s Jr., TGIFridays and A&W have Beyond Meat options, while White Castle, Qdoba, and Burger King have embraced the Impossible Burger. In fact, at this point any QSR that isn’t exploring more alternative meat products is being foolish.

Chick-fil-A is an interesting case since it likely won’t be using plant-based ground beef or burgers. The chain’s whole shtick is that it eschews beef in favor of chicken, so adding a product from, say, Impossible Foods wouldn’t make a lot of sense from a menu cohesion standpoint. Beyond Meat does make plant-based chicken strips, so we could see something like that, or like the vegan crispy nuggets from Seattle Food Tech.

The chain is clearly open to experimentation: they’re the first fast food restaurant to experiment with meal kits and also have two off-premises units focused 100 percent on catering, delivery, and carryout, and offer delivery via Doordash from 1,000+ locations. And yet they’re only now experimenting with something as simple as a vegetarian entrée.

I chalk this up to the fact that the chain has a very small, simple, and curated menu. But even though people come to Chick-fil-A for one thing, it’s getting harder and harder for nationwide chains to ignore consumer demand for realistic plant-based meat — and the increased revenues and new customers it brings restaurants. It seems that Chick-fil-A is finally waking up to the fact that it’s losing customers (like me) who are bypassing it in favor of other QSR’s that offer filling meat-free options.

Future Food: How Big a Deal is Beyond Meat’s IPO, Really?

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. In it we cover the alternative protein landscape, from plant-based meat to cellular agriculture to insects. Subscribe here!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (no shame), you’ve heard about how Beyond Meat’s IPO is crushing it. At the time of this post, the company’s shares have more than tripled in price — from $25 to $78 — making it the biggest IPO pop since the 2008 financial crisis. Beyond Meat is now valued at almost $4 billion.

You can almost hear the investors drooling.

Beyond’s IPO success has proven that the plant-based protein craze isn’t just a fad; it’s a radical turning point in consumer preferences. Younger generations are demanding more from their foods — Gen Z especially is seeking out dining options that are ethical and environmentally sustainable. And companies like Beyond, who have a mission to halt climate change by reducing meat production, are reaping the profits.

So how big a deal is Beyond Meat’s IPO? Pretty darn big. In fact, I’m betting it will have significant ripple effects on the protein landscape over the next few months.

  • Beyond’s competitors — notably Impossible Foods — will likely follow suit with an IPO of their own (that is, if Impossible can overcome its recent supply issues).
  • Get ready to see lots of new alt-protein startups bring their animal-free eggs/milk/sushi rolls to market. This is where companies like Motif Ingredients, which provides protein R&D services, will soon be in high demand.
  • Mega food corporations like Nestlé and Unilever will invest more heavily in alternative meat products than they already have, possibly even following in Tyson’s footsteps to develop their own line of plant-based proteins.
  • More fast food and fast casual chains — big and small — will add high quality plant-based alternatives to their menus. Burger King went all-in on the Impossible Whopper last week, and I’m betting McDonald’s isn’t far behind.

A chicken patty that’s two-thirds meat, one-third Better Meat Co.’s protein blend.

Stuff is happening in the cell-based meat space, too. Last week Shiok Meats, the Singapore-based cellular aquaculture startup growing shrimp in bioreactors, raised a $4.6 million seed round. That makes them the third best-funded cell-based meat company in the world, after Mosa Meats and Memphis Meats.

Not too shabby for a company that’s only been on the scene for a year.

Instead of making totally new meat products, others are trying to improve the ones we already have. This week the New York Post wrote a story about food scientists in Australia who are incorporating insects into sausages and the like.

It may be a smart strategy to reduce the environmental footprint of meat while keeping a high protein content, but will consumers be okay with eating hot dogs filled with maggots? Probably not. (Though celebrities and celebrity chefs are working on it.)

This brings up an interesting point, though. People might balk at eating bugs, but the concept of replacing some meat with non-meat protein is sound. For example, startup Better Meat Co. makes a wheat protein that can be blended into processed meats, like hot dogs or bologna. It’s a clever way to reduce meat consumption without asking consumers to compromise or adjust their dining habits, at least until cell-based meat gets to market.

Lightlife’s new plant-based burgers.

Plant-based news ’round the web:

  • Lightlife, a plant-based meat company owned by the Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf Foods, brought its new, more realistic line of vegan burgers and ground “beef” to retail shelves this week.
  • Taco Bell U.K. is experimenting with a new plant-based taco filling made from pulled oats (h/t Livekindly).
  • Future Tense (via Slate) posits that cell-based meat is nothing more than “a cotton-candy bedtime story about making a different world through food.” It’s an interesting read asking if cultured meat will actually create a better protein source, or if it’ll continue to promote harmful industrialized agriculture practices.
  • NPR interviews Lou Cooperhouse of cellular aquaculture BluNalu on whether consumers will take to cultured seafood. FYI, they say it’s about 5-10 years from your plate.

Finally, last week Eater staffers brainstormed a list of hilarious (and hilariously bizarre) names for the next unicorn alt-burger company. My personal favorite: Meat Cute.

Eat well,
Catherine

The Future of Protein Might be ‘Gas Fermentation,’ or Growing Food Out of Thin Air

We know that relying on animals — especially methane-producing cows — for the bulk of our protein is unsustainable. But creating protein alternatives in labs or out of plants can also have a significant environmental cost.

What about if we nixed the agricultural bits altogether and just made protein out naturally occuring elements in the air around us? Sounds like science fiction, but Finnish company Solar Foods is working to do just that. The company is creating a new platform for food production using two inputs: air and electricity.

Solar Foods’ technology captures CO2 and water from the air and introduces them to genetically modified bacteria, which form single-celled proteins the company calls ‘Solein.’

Founded in 2017, Solar Foods came about when its CEO Pasi Vainikka, who was in charge of the largest renewable energy resource program in Finland, wanted to develop new technology to push the world towards carbon neutrality. He discovered that one big way to sequester carbon was by making it into food.

As Vainikka explained it, their technology is similar to what Impossible Foods is doing to create its heme or how Perfect Day is making milk without cows. Only instead of feeding sugar solutions to the microbes, as those two startups are doing, Solar Foods feeds them carbon dioxide and hydrogen extracted from the air.

Motif Ingredients and Sustainable Bioproducts are two other companies using microbes to spin out protein, though they also don’t rely on CO2 as the main input. “We are a branch parallel to [them],” said Vainikka. “Not sugar fermentation, but gas fermentation.”

Not the sexiest of names, admittedly. For the less nerdy folks, though, Vainikka said he also calls their process “making food from air.” In fact, visit the Solar Foods lab in Finland and you (yes, you) could actually breathe into their device and make protein.

By disconnecting completely from agriculture, animal and otherwise, Solar Foods can produce protein with a negligable environmental footprint. As it’s not reliant on irrigation, feed, or weather, Solar Foods’ production capacity is also pretty much indefinite.

The technology is way beyond the theoretical stage. As of now, Solar Foods can produce one kilogram of protein per day. The company is also in the early stages of constructing a full-scale factory, filing for patents on their organisms, and starting food application tests.

It raised €2 million (~$2,273,000) in funding from Lifeline Ventures last year. In terms of timing, the company plans to have a global commercial launch of Solein in 2021 and, by 2022, is hoping to scale up to produce enough protein for 50 million meals per year.

Vainikka may have established Solar Foods to make the Earth carbon neutral, but one of the main applications for his technology is actually space travel. The company is working with the European Space Agency to make a prototype device which could theoretically be used to sustain astronauts on a mission to Mars.

Launching their technology into outer space makes things a lot more complicated for Solar Foods. To function on a spacecraft their protein has to last seven years, according to Vainikka. Since the contained environment of a spaceship is a closed loop, the platform will also have to function off of recirculated water and CO2 sourced from inside the ship, as well as recycled energy. “We need super efficient circulation of these factors,” explained Vainikka.

Here on Earth, Vainikka hasn’t yet decided on the best application for Solein. It might be used in a meal replacement product à la Soylent, or even in the Impossible burger as a more sustainable alternative to soy. He told us that Solar Foods will be a protein supplier for food producers and isn’t looking to create their own branded consumer goods.

Photo: Kiverdi.

Gas fermentation may sound kind of out there, but actually Solar Foods is part of a nascent group of startups using carbon dioxide and electricity to make food. Based in San Francisco, Kiverdi is using microbes to upcycle CO2 into edible products like palm oils and proteins. Nearby, Novo Nutrients is leveraging a similar technology to turn CO2 into feed for aquaculture farms. In the U.K., Deep Branch Biotechnology is also focused on animal feed, making single cell proteins out of CO2 in industrial waste gas. Vainikka also pointed out a few university research groups, including ones in Ghent and Nottingham, U.K., which are working on a similar technology.

While gas fermentation makes a lot of sense for space travel, I could also see it having a significant environmental effect here on Earth. Demand for protein is skyrocketing: ResearchandMarkets.com projects that the global protein market will grow from $49.8 billion in 2019 to $70.7 billion in 2025. The world’s population is also projected to hit almost 10 billion by 2050. Combine those, and it means we’ll need to find protein wherever we can — especially if it can replace less sustainable ingredients (like meat) and sequester carbon in the process.

Startup That Makes Food Out Of Thin Air Working to Feed Future Colonies on Mars

There’s no doubt that our world’s food supply faces big challenges. With myriad problems ranging from soil erosion to climate change,  there is increasing stress on a global food system to figure out how to feed a rapidly growing world population.

And those are just the challenges we face here on Earth. Even bigger difficulties await future space travelers trying to explore and inhabit far off places like Mars where there is currently no food system whatsoever.

So with all these challenges – on earth and in space – wouldn’t it be great to invent some gizmo that makes food out of thin air? Well, the good news is that’s exactly what a startup from Finland is working to do.

Last year, we wrote about how researchers from Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) had figured out how to create a single cell protein using only water, electricity, carbon dioxide and small organisms obtained from the environment. This year, the same group of researchers founded a company called Solar Foods, received €2 million in funding from Lifeline Ventures, and is now teaming up with the European Space Agency to create a bioreactor that can make food on Mars. The company has indicated it expects commercial protein production to start by 2021.

From the release:

“The conditions in Mars colonies are very different from those on Earth, but they have sunshine, and there are huge amounts of carbon dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere,” says Kimmo Isbjörnssund, Manager, ESA Business Incubation Centre Finland. “The pioneering technology of Solar Foods enables a new way of producing food even in closed spaces. We assume that ingredients available at the Mars base can be used with the new technology.”

While the idea of a food machine to feed future space civilizations is exciting, a bioreactor to feed people here on earth has much bigger potential implications in the near-term.  If the technology results in commercial or even consumer products that can produce food cheaply, bioreactors would be a completely new form of food production that doesn’t put stress on our existing systems.  The idea of low-cost bioreactors dispersed in food-stressed areas ten to fifteen years from now seems fairly reachable, particularly if the company expects to commercialize their research into working bioreactors in just a few years.

Could a company like Solar Foods to create a bioreactor for home use? While the company hasn’t given any hints on future consumer products, history has shown us that everyday products developed for space travel often find their way into consumer homes. Products like Tang and freeze dried ice cream eventually made it to grocery store shelves, so why not expect to see a countertop version of a bioreactor next to our microwave someday?

And who knows, maybe we’ll even include a home bioreactor in the Spoon’s holiday gift guide of 2030.