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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Heme

Coming Out of Stealth, Paleo Unveils Six Animal-Free, GMO-Free Varieties of Heme

In 2024, imagine walking into Burger King and ordering a mammoth burger. No, not one that is bigger than your head; this Whopper will taste like the extinct proboscideans that roamed the earth millions of years ago. It’s all part of the magic from a Belgium-based food ingredient company called Paleo.

After two years, Paleo has come out of stealth mode to announce its technology to bring the authentic taste and aroma of meat and fish to plant-based meat and fish alternatives with a non-GMO, animal-free heme. As part of that announcement, the World International Property Organization has published Paleo’s patent application, finally allowing Paleo to share details of its precision fermentation technology. 

Hermes Sanctorum, CEO and co-founder of Paleo: “When we set out to create the ultimate animal-free meat or fish experience, we quickly zeroed in on heme. Without exaggeration, we can say that we cracked the code of heme, allowing us to produce GMO-free heme that’s bio-identical to the most popular meats and tuna – as well as mammoth.”

More about the mammoth burger shortly.

Heme, a precursor to hemoglobin, is an essential molecule found in every living plant and animal. In short, it makes meat taste like meat, giving it its mouthfeel and umami sensation. Paleo has created a bio-identical heme that, through precision fermentation, can be adapted to add a specific taste to beef, pork, chicken, and even fish. Heme is essential when it comes to resembling conventional meat products. Heme is responsible for the taste and color of meat. Before cooking, heme will give meat alternatives a red color that turns brown during cooking. Heme also offers superior nutritional value. The iron in heme is easier for the human body to absorb than iron in vegetables.

In an interview with The Spoon, CEO Sanctorum explains the process: “We make the yeast release the protein to the environment, which means you can separate your protein. It’s a pure protein that you have separated from the yeast cells, making it a non-GMO product. We can produce an animal protein identical to what you find in nature but on top GMO-free. So that’s, I think, our unique proposition.”

“It’s like basically like brewing beer,” Sanctorum goes on to explain. “Instead of making alcohol, it makes a protein that you want. Instead of brewing or making wine, it’s producing the animal heme.”

Although the company has been working on its technology since 2020, its patent announcement is a significant step forward that inches closer to realizing a finished product. Sanctorum expects to have market-ready products in 2023, even with the number of steps that need to be tackled. Given precision fermentation at scale is a cap-ex-heavy investment, one reason to share their patent with the world is to attract investors. To date, Paleo has raised $2.5 million in seed funding and $ 2.5M in seed funding and is working on a Series A round to bring its products to the market and broaden its portfolio. 

Another issue is the breadth of products. The ability to create a variety of hemes may sparkle in a press release, but, as Sanctorum acknowledges, focusing on one area to start is a more prudent approach for a young company. Part of that B2B process is working closely with prospective customers. “A lot will depend on demand from our clients,” he said. “We are talking to big and small food manufacturers like small ones, and it will be all about testing those heme proteins and to see how they behave in their commercial recipes.”

Opening its technology kimono also brings potential challenges for Paleo from other companies working on similar approaches. Impossible Foods filed a lawsuit against Motif Foodworks, claiming the company’s HEMAMI protein derived from precision fermentation infringed on Impossible’s patent for making plant-based burgers containing 0.1% to 5% heme protein. Sanctorum calls the legal battle a “side event” and refuses to let it impede his or Paleo’s vision moving forward.

Back to the mammoth burger. Creating hemes for popular foods of today’s world is obvious, but reaching back hundreds of centuries—the question is why?

“Well, it was basically it started as a challenge to us,” Sanctorum said. “I mean, we were thinking, okay, if we can make the obvious ones, can we do that for an ancient protein that doesn’t exist anymore?”

Perhaps the better answer is, why not?

I Tried a New Rival to Impossible’s Heme, and it Could Be A Game Changer

I have good news for mock meat makers who want to challenge the Impossible Burger: You’ll soon have access to Impossible’s magic ingredient — that’s heme, the molecule that makes its plant-based burgers bleed, sizzle, and taste so similar to the real thing.

Last month, Leonard Lerer, CEO of Back of the Yards Algae Sciences (BYAS), a Chicago-based start-up, invited me to a taste test of a beta-version of his heme, which is derived from spirulina, a blue green algae. The test gave me a chance to compare two popular plant-based burgers —Beyond and Morningstar — with burgers sprayed with low-concentrations of BYAS’s heme.

On a quick inspection, the heme-sprayed versions didn’t look significantly different, or smell different, but after a few bites, I had a clear favorite. It’s hard to pinpoint the source of my preference. Maybe the heme-flavor overshadowed the nutty aftertaste of Beyond? Perhaps it was an increase in umami? Whatever it was, the heme-sprayed burgers were a clear upgrade. In fact, I was so impressed with the heme’s flavoring that I tested the burger on the biggest mock-meat skeptic I know: my 11-year-old son.

As expected, Max shot a frown and yuck look after trying the standard Beyond. But after being persuaded to take one bite of the heme-sprayed version, Max had a shocking response. No frown. In fact, he said, “It’s pretty good.” My wife also tested the samples. While none of us thought the heme elevated Beyond to match the flavor of a real burger, we all agreed: Algal heme makes a big difference.

“There’s a lot of ways to give mock meats a meaty flavor, but there’s nothing quite like heme,” said Lerer, the lead developer of the heme. To date, plant-based heme has been virtually synonymous with Impossible, but BYAS aims to change that. “Impossible is a food company — and as far as I know, they don’t sell their heme. We’re an ingredient company, and want to give plant-based meat makers an option for a heme.”

Lerer describes what he believes is “heme 2.0” because it’s “healthier for people and for the planet.” According to Lerer, BYAS’s heme extraction process is all natural, uses less energy, and eliminates waste. And because BYAS’s heme is derived not from soy, but spirulina, a noted superfood, it brings an array of added health benefits to plant-based meat makers. “I don’t think there’s ever been a burger — plant-based or dead cow — that stimulates gut bacteria.” Lerer also notes that BYAS’s process is all natural and GMO-free, unlike Impossible’s, which he believes will appeal to plant-based burger makers aiming for a cleaner label.

Founded in 2018 by Lerer, who like Impossible founder Patrick Brown is a former physician, BYAS has just six full-time employees in its Chicago lab. The company recently partnered with LiquaDry, a Utah-based specialist in converting natural products into powders, to develop an industrial scale production facility for its algal-derived ingredients. The debut of a product with BYAS’s algal heme will be next month when Brytlife Foods, a vegan food maker, introduces a burger, dubbed the “Biome Burger,” in four specialty grocers in New York City, including the Park Slope Food Coop and Orchard Grocer.

The Backstory of Algal Heme: An “Accidental” Discovery and a Food Waste Solution
Lerer said the idea for the algal heme can be traced to a “serendipitous” discovery that occurred while doing research three years ago for one of BYAS’s core businesses: meeting the food industry’s exploding demand for natural colorant. While working on a process to make the color purple, Lerer isolated spirulina’s leghemoglobin protein. “It was intriguing,” he recalled. “But I didn’t taste it. I didn’t smell it, as I was focused on colorant.”

As BYAS and its food colorant business grew, Lerer & BYAS team started trying to find solutions to another problem: waste. The colorant extraction produces a huge amount of high value algal protein. “Most dye makers just trash it,” Lerer said. “We pride ourselves on zero waste.”A big reason for Lerer’s emphasis on waste reduction is because BYAS is based in The Plant, a former meat packing facility on Chicago’s South Side, which is one of the world’s only food business incubators that functions as a “closed loop ecosystem,” where the waste of one business is used as an input for another. For example, carbon dioxide from a brewery on The Plant’s ground floor is piped into the BYAS’s lab where it feeds the growth of spirulina.

In an effort to upcycle colorant waste, BYAS first aimed to use the leftover algal protein to create a meat analogue for burgers that offer an alternative to soy. But after almost two years of R&D, Lerer stopped the project. “We tried everything and made a lot of progress,” he said, “but it still tasted like crap.”

It was after this failed attempt at algal meat that Lerer had the breakthrough idea — instead of using algae as the burger’s meat, he could explore its potential as a flavoring source. He revisited the heme that he encountered. “And voila, with a little tweaking there it was.”

Lerer said the approach that BYAS is using to develop heme is radically simpler than Impossible’s method. Impossible generates its star ingredient by inserting the DNA of soybean heme into yeast, and then fermenting that yeast at industrial scale. But while the process is much more environmentally-friendly than harvesting heme directly from soy plants, it still requires fermentation, which is energy-intensive and costly.

BYAS’s process doesn’t require genetic engineering or fermentation. The heme is extracted from algae that will be grown outside in tanks in Abraham, Utah, feeding on water and sunlight. While Lerer didn’t reveal his process, he said, it’s a simple, all-natural process and because it’s natural algal heme, it’s already Generally Recognized as Safe.

The “Biome Burger”
The earliest adopter of algal heme, Brytlife Food’s founder Lita Dwight, said that her new product, dubbed the “Biome Burger” isn’t just intended to match the meaty taste properties of Impossible, it’s also, as the name suggests, developed to highlight the health benefits of algal ingredients. Dwight hopes that by incorporating BYAS’s heme, and other spirulina extracts, she will be able to differentiate her product in a crowded marketplace.

She was initially drawn to algae because of its high protein density, but noted that studies have shown that spirulina stimulates the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut, which helps with everything from digestion to nutrient absorption. While it’s not unusual to hear about antioxidants and probiotics in the food industry — it still is in the burger world. Plant-based burger makers have made upgrades to their burger’s health profiles, but have largely focused on increasing protein, reducing saturated fat, and sodium.

“This is likely the first burger with probiotic benefits,” Dwight said. “And I really think that more healthy is the future of the market.”

But Lerer said he hopes the “Biome Burger” will not only raise the bar for the nutritional content of plant-based burgers, but also the environmental sustainability of mock meats. “Our goal is to reduce dependence on industrial soy and pea,” he said. “There’s so much waste in getting soy protein levels so high.” He notes that the “meat” of the Brytlife burger will be a blend of oats and mycelium, ingredients that require less intensive farming than soy, but are less frequently used because they’re bland.

Lerer’s research has found that algal heme provides such a powerful flavor-enhancing meaty quality that food makers could shift to plant protein sources that are less environmentally-damaging, such as oats and mushrooms.

While I ordinarily would been deeply skeptical about an oats-based burger — flashbacks to the veggie burgers of the 1990s — after seeing my son happily chewing a heme-enhanced Beyond burger for the first time, it suddenly seemed plausible.

Whatever happens with the Biome Burger, here’s one prediction. At such a hyper-innovative, health-obsessed time in the plant-based world, it’s almost inevitable that key player in the space (hello, Beyond), will introduce an algal heme-enhanced burger in the coming year.

KFC, Pizza Hut Test Contactless Delivery in Response to China’s Coronavirus

As China continues to grapple with the deadly coronavirus outbreak, some restaurant chains are taking steps to ensure food delivery operations can continue. Yum China, which operates thousands of KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in China, is now using what it calls contactless delivery and pickup to safely get food from restaurants to customers without further spreading the deadly virus.

Yum posted videos to Chinese social media platforms Weibo and WeChat showing a delivery driver having their temperature taken, putting on a mask, and disinfecting their hands before heading out to make the delivery. Drivers are also required to disinfect both their hands and their delivery boxes after each delivery.

The food courier drops the order at pre-appointed spot outside the customer’s building then watches from a distance of at least 10 feet while the customer retrieves their order and goes back inside:

Yum China is also testing an in-store pickup version of this contactless delivery at some locations, where pickup racks have been installed inside. For both delivery and pickup, customers ordering via can now choose a “contactless” option when they order online. 

Chinese food delivery services Meituan and Ele.me are providing similar services. And it isn’t just restaurants peddling this contactless form of food delivery. Grocery stores — namely Alibaba’s Hema, JD affiliate Dada, and Meituan — are using contactless delivery for grocery orders, offering an in-app option for customers similar to that of Yum China. 

CNBC reports that as of last week in Beijing, roughly 20,000 people were delivering an average of over 400,000 orders daily from Meituan and Ele.me alone, but that the “logistical challenges,” such as couriers having to wait outside instead of delivering food directly to the customer’s door, have lowered the efficiency of delivery operations. However, the CDC points out that coronavirus getting spread from person to person usually happens “among close contacts (about 6 feet),” making the measures around contactless delivery necessary if food delivery is to continue.

Others are skipping the human element altogether and relying heavily on technology. A hotel in Hangzhou, China has been dispatching robots to deliver meals to quarantined guests.

Spoon Market Map: Ghost Kitchens in 2019

Just half a decade ago, the phrase “ghost kitchen” referred to restaurants that looked legit on Grubhub and Seamless but were actually digital fronts for unregulated kitchens. In other words, chicken tenders from what appeared to be a local restaurant might actually have been cooked in someone’s apartment.

Then the delivery boom went off, thanks largely to the growth of third-party services like Grubhub and DoorDash, and by the many digital channels through which customers could suddenly get food. Order tickets proliferated for restaurants, but so too did the stress around how to fulfill those orders without over-burdening the in-house kitchen staff.

The answer to the problem? Take the restaurant out of the kitchen.

In the last few years, restaurants have been moving many of their operations around delivery and to-go orders to dedicated kitchen spaces outside the main restaurant location. The name “ghost kitchen” has stuck around, but now it’s a health-department-friendly term for these spaces that act as hubs for off-premises orders.

But actually, there are many names nowadays for the concept: ghost kitchen, virtual kitchen, cloud kitchen, the (slightly nauseating) description “kitchen as a service.” All those phrases amount the same thing: a kitchen facility that exists solely for the purpose of helping restaurants cook and fulfill to-go orders and get them into the hands of delivery couriers. There is no dining room or front-of-house staff in a ghost kitchen, the tech-stack is more streamlined than that of a full-service restaurant, and, increasingly, the location is completely separate from a restaurant’s dine-in location(s). Now, too, there are also kitchens on (literal) wheels, which add yet-another piece of mobility to the business model. 

To help you navigate the evolving world of ghost kitchens, we’ve created a market map for your reference. This market map is intended to be a snapshot of the current ghost kitchen landscape in 2019. It’s not comprehensive, and we expect both it and the overall landscape to change drastically over the next 12 months. That means you can expect to see this map updated regularly. As always, we welcome suggestions for additional companies and players in this space.

Have suggestions? Drop us an email.

1. Kitchen Infrastructure Providers

The largest category in ghost kitchens right now, Kitchen Infrastructure Providers can be likened to cloud computing providers: they rent companies the space and tools needed to run a business, either as a flat-fee model for on a pay-as-you-go basis. 

Kitchen United, for example, charges a monthly membership fee that includes rent, equipment, storage, and services like dishwashing. Reef, which originally made a name for itself reinventing the concept of the parking garage, offers these things as well as direct partnerships with major third-party delivery companies like DoorDash and Postmates.   

Normally these facilities are large, warehouse-like buildings that hold multiple “restaurants” under a single roof. For large restaurant operators with multiple chains looking to fulfill extra demand brought on by delivery or test out new concepts without incurring too much risk, these are ideal.

Multi-unit chains can also use these spaces to reach customers in areas where they might not have a brick-and-mortar store. Chick-fil-A is widening its reach in the SF Bay Area by working out of DoorDash’s newly opened facility.

2. Restaurant-operated Kitchens

For some restaurants, running a ghost kitchen operation themselves makes more sense than teaming up with a third-party kitchen provider. This is often the case with smaller, independent restaurants, whose ghost kitchen might consist of nothing more than an area of the restaurant’s existing location(s) dedicated to fulfilling off-premises orders. Or it might apply to multi-unit chains who simply want to expand to new areas and don’t have the capital or inclination to deal with the burden of a full-service restaurant. Colombian chain Muy is one such company, having started as a dine-in restaurant before expanding its ghost kitchens to serve more areas of Latin America.

The most notable of all the companies in this category right now is Starbucks. In addition to building out “to-go” stores that exist solely for the purpose of fulfilling off-premises orders, the company has also partnered with Alibaba to turn parts of the latter’s Hema supermarkets into ghost kitchens in China.

The boundaries around this category are especially fluid. In other words, just because you operate your own ghost kitchen in one part of the country doesn’t mean you can’t team up with a third-party provider in another, as The Halal Guys and Chick-fil-A have done.

3. Virtual Restaurant Providers

This is where the lines really start to blur between restaurant, kitchen provider, and delivery company. Anyone can make a virtual restaurant, and as the category in our map shows, more than just restaurants are trying their hand at food concepts that can only be ordered through digital channels and are prepared in a ghost kitchen. Whole30, for example, is a diet concept better known for its cookbooks than its dealings with the restaurant industry. The folks behind that brand teamed up with Grubhub and restaurant company Lettuce Entertain You to create a virtual restaurant offering meals with Whole30-approved foods. 

On the other hand, a company like Keatz runs a network of virtual restaurants it houses beneath the roof of its own ghost kitchens. Taster, based out of France, creates native restaurant brands for food delivery companies like Uber Eats and Deliveroo. Food is cooked in Taster-run kitchens.

4. Mobile Kitchens

In slightly more its own category, companies like Ono Food Co. and Zume are creating robotic, self-contained kitchens on wheels that offer restaurant experiences that can be tailored to specific neighborhoods in a city and also plug into third-party delivery services.

Restaurants can also partner with these kitchens on wheels to expand their reach into new markets, as &Pizza has done by teaming up with Zume.

What’s Next for Ghost Kitchens

Ghost kitchens will become the norm for multi-unit chains. With off-premises orders expected to drive the majority of restaurant sales growth over the next decade, multi-unit brands (think Panera, Chipotle, etc.) will find ghost kitchens a cost-effective way to meet this demand without overburdening existing restaurants. The majority of them will rent space from kitchen infrastructure providers, as Chick-fil-A is currently doing with DoorDash. 

There will be an explosion of delivery-only brands. Since ghost kitchens provide a cheaper, faster way for food entrepreneurs and small restaurants alike to test-drive new concepts, we will see an influx of delivery- and pickup-only brands come out of these kitchens over the next year. Many will be born inside the walls of facilities like Kitchen United or CloudKitchens. Meanwhile, the number of virtual restaurant networks like that of Keatz will increase. 

Artificial Intelligence will be designed into the kitchen. AI is a really broad term that’s often misused. That fact aside, its presence in the restaurant industry is here to stay, and in ghost kitchens, it will prove itself valuable for everything from tracking ingredients to helping staff curb food waste. On the consumer end, we expect to see the technology more deeply integrated into the apps and websites from which customers order, improving recommendations and upselling opportunities.  

More non-restaurant food brands will launch virtual restaurants. In keeping with a trend recently made popular by Whole30 and Bon Apétit, food brands, diets, celebrity chefs, and other non-restaurant businesses will team up with third parties to launch delivery and pickup concepts. Grubhub and Uber Eats are two such third parties already doing this. Expect many more such partnerships — soon.

Bonus: The tech stack will get pared down. No front of house means no POS, right? Quite possibly. With less (or no) customer-facing technology like digital menu boards, self-order kiosks, and tabletop ordering, much of the restaurant tech on the market today becomes irrelevant in a ghost kitchen setting. As the folks at Reforming Retail noted recently, “under this scenario the POS is just an ordering node in the cloud that outputs your menu to a consumer and sends orders to your kitchen.”

That doesn’t mean restaurant tech is going by the wayside. Some ghost kitchens, like those of Muy, have a walkup option where customers order at kiosks onsite, and there will doubtless be new solutions created that are specifically for the ghost kitchen. But the tools of tomorrow’s ghost kitchen won’t look a thing like today’s bloated restaurant-management tech stack. For everyone involved, that’s a bonus.