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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Impossible

Impossible Sausage Link Review: Tasty, But Missing That Familiar Sausage ‘Snap’

Today, Impossible Foods announced the debut of their plant-based sausage links, the sixth retail product from the alt protein pioneer in the last eight months.

The new products come in three different varieties – Spicy, Italian, and Bratwurst – and the company claims they have the same snap and savory flavor as conventional pork sausage.

The Spoon got a hold of some samples in advance of today’s news, so I thought I’d try them out. I was excited because I like sausage, and my favorite Impossible product – by a long shot – is the company’s ground sausage product which came out last year.

I pulled the sausages out of the package, and this is what they looked like:

While the Impossible sausages look link-ish, they also struck me as looking a bit, well, squooshy. And, when I picked them up, they felt soft and didn’t have the same firmness I associate with traditional sausage. This, of course, has a lot to do with the casing (which I’ll talk more about a bit later).

You can see in the video below what an Impossible sausage link looks like grilling up in a pan. The instructions suggested I heat the link up at a medium heat. I put a couple of drops of olive oil in the pan to give it a little more sizzle while cooking.

The Impossible Sausage frying in a pan

After cooking the link for 10 minutes, rotating it every minute or two to give it that nice sausage crispiness, I plated it. It looked pretty close to what a conventional pork sausage link looks like on a plate, with slight exception of the casing, which looked a bit loose at the end of the link.

I cut up the sausage into smaller pieces and gave it a taste. I liked the flavor of the interior sausage and thought it tasted pretty darn close to what a conventional sausage filling tasted like. The mouthfeel was similar and, overall, it definitely didn’t give me uncanny valley “vibes”.

But where the sausage fell short is, you guessed it, the casing. The casing is what gives a sausage link its famous “snap” when eating, and, truth be told, the Impossible link just doesn’t have it.

Of course, I understand there are tradeoffs, and no doubt it’s really hard to mimic a conventional casing made of (yes, gross) animal intestines. But the reality is Impossible’s isn’t there yet.

Would I try it again? Yes. I think the Impossible sausage links taste good and I would happily replace conventional pork sausage with these in future meals. But, unfortunately, those craving that traditional sausage snap won’t find what they’re looking for with Impossible’s plant-based alternative.

Impossible’s New CEO Will Need to Navigate a Fast-Changing Plant-Based Meat Marketplace

This week Impossible Foods announced that founding CEO Pat Brown is stepping down from his current role and assuming the new role of Chief Visionary Officer. The company’s new CEO will be longtime Chobani exec Peter McGuinness, who recently served as the yogurt pioneer’s president and COO.

Explaining the move in a company blog post, Brown said that as Impossible has grown in size and scale, he’s had less time to devote to strategic initiatives, communicating the company’s mission to the public and policymakers, and guiding R&D for new products. Brown said the demands on the role of CEO at Impossible Foods will only continue to grow, which means now is the time to appoint a proven executive to lead the execution of the company’s day-to-day business.

From the post:

Peter and I will work together to lead Impossible and its long-term strategy, combining our complementary strengths and experience. Peter will be our CEO and a director, and will report to the board. I will continue in my role as Founder and director, and take on the role of Chief Visionary Officer reporting to the board, leading research and technology innovation, strategic initiatives, public advocacy and, most importantly, our mission. 

McGuinness comes aboard at a time of uncertainty for the plant-based meat industry. Starting last fall, we began to see signs of a potential slowdown in sales across the segment. This year, companies like Kellogg’s are warning of continued soft sales and predicting a possible shakeout.

It’s important to note that Impossible has signaled their sales are doing fine. They very well could be, but there’s no way to have 100% certainty around the health of Impossible’s income statement since we don’t have any real visibility into the company’s numbers since they are still private. Still, it’s hard to see how Impossible could completely sidestep what seems to be a growing set of concerns for the space.

One potential concern is consumers’ growing questions about the ingredient lists for plant-based meat. With Impossible’s genetically engineered heme and a long list of other ingredients, they are one of the companies whose products might get a hard look from a segment of consumers who are looking for simpler, clean ingredients.

There’s also growing evidence of consumer apathy towards plant-based meat. At this point, most alt-meat curious consumers have tried it out, and some are not coming back for seconds. This might be for various reasons, including they don’t like the taste, the higher price tag or they just prefer animal meat. Whatever the reason, plant-based meat companies need to figure out how to make their products a mainstay on the weekly grocery shopping list.

Finally, while a large pipeline of interesting plant-based (and cell-cultured) meat products is coming to market, there’s been an over-saturation in a few categories like burgers and chicken nuggets. While Impossible is likely a market leader in the burger category and seems to hold a decent shelf share for their nuggets, there’s lots of competition for their flagship products.

All of which brings us back to Pat Brown. By clearing his schedule of running the company day-to-day, Brown can now focus on what he is no doubt good at (and I assume probably prefers) in innovating new products. The company has teased new products ranging from whole cuts to a new milk product, and imagine we might see even more as Brown sets his sights full-time on building out the product roadmap.

And while he’s famously opinionated, Brown is also one of the industry’s best ambassadors. The plant-based meat industry owes him a debt of gratitude for much of the early excitement built around the category, so having him focus on messaging could help both Impossible and the rest of the industry as consumers cast a more discerning eye on plant-based meat.

Impossible has raised a massive amount of money, and its investors have big expectations of seeing a return on their capital through the equity markets. I am pretty sure this is one of the rationales for transitioning to a food industry executive with experience in growing a brand. And so, while McGuinness has his work cut out for him running a company that has exited the honeymoon phase of the market, his job will no doubt be made easier by letting Pat Brown do what he does best.

Impossible Foods Opens a Burger Stand in Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena

Nowadays, if you want an Impossible Burger, you have your choice of thousands of fast food joints or grocery stores to pick up the plant-based patty.

But last night, the Impossible Burger showed up in a new kind of place: its own.

This week Impossible and Climate Pledge Arena, the world’s first net zero-carbon sports arena, announced that the Impossible patty had been named the venue’s official burger. They also announced Impossible is opening two branded food stands in the home of the NHL’s newest franchise, the Seattle Kraken.

Called Impossible Market, the new plant-based burger stands feature a menu with the Impossible Burger, Impossible chicken nuggets, and other items made with Impossible plant-based beef like chili fries and street tacos.

While the Kraken is the main attraction at Climate Pledge, the newest NHL team did not play last night. Instead, the debut event at the arena and for the Impossible Foods Market was the Foo Fighters concert. Since I was at the show with my wife to do “research,” I figured I’d stop by and check out the Impossible new burger stand.

The Impossible Market is viewable from the concourse.

The Market features a large selection of drinks, packaged food like candy and popcorn, and ready-to-eat warm items.

Food from the kitchen sits under a warmer ready to be picked up and purchased.

You can watch the cook flip Impossible burgers and buns on the grill.

Warm dishes like the chicken nuggets and street tacos sit next to the grill, ready to be picked up by customers.

The prep and cleaning stations

The menu with sports venue pricing: $15 for an Impossible Burger, $16 for the cheeseburger. The prices reminded me of the early days of Impossible Burger when you had to pay $15 or more for the plant-based burger.

The Impossible Marketplace is just one-feature of the new net-zero venue. Throughout the arena you could see an emphasis on creating a more climate-friendly place to watch live entertainment.

And in case you were wondering, it was a pretty good concert.

While Impossible has been showing up at ball parks for some time, this week’s opening of the Impossible Marketplace marks the first time Impossible has its own restaurant in a sports venue. I have to wonder if it’s the first of many.

Rise of the Plant-Based QSR

This is the web version of our restaurant tech newsletter. Sign up today to get updates on the rapidly changing nature of the food tech industry.

Those of us of a certain age will remember a time when eating “vegan” at a QSR meant the Wendy’s salad bar. 

Fast forward to 2021, and advances in both food technology and the restaurant biz have made the concept of eating vegan (which we now call “plant based”) much more palatable to the mainstream. The names “Beyond” and “Impossible” are on most major QSR’s menus today. Eat Just’s plant-based egg products are in a growing number of fast-food breakfast items. And recently, two more announcements from major QSRs dropped that indicate we’re at fast approaching a major turning point for menus in the QSR realm.

On its most recent earnings call, Starbucks said it had turned one of its Seattle, Washington locations into a test area for a “100% plant-based food menu.” Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson suggested that this test site is in response to what he sees as “the most dominant shift in consumer behavior,” which is the move to plant-based foods. The shift, said Johnson, is evident in both food and beverages. 

The move to offer plant-based meals to customers isn’t entirely new for Starbucks. The chain debuted Beyond Meat products in China last year and carries Impossible sausage sandwiches at its stores in the U.S. It also offers a number of plant-based milk alternatives. 

But this new test store in Seattle is the first time the chain has gone full-tilt on a plant-based menus. All food items on the Starbucks menu will be vegan, with animal-based proteins being replaced by plant-based counterparts. 

Also recently, McDonald’s announced it’s finally testing its McPlant burger, a vegan offering the mega-QSR developed with Beyond Meat. While this is less of a monumental change than overhauling an entire menu, McDonald’s has up to now has made few moves when it comes to introducing plant-based foods to its menus. (A brief trial in Canada is the exception.) Though this McPlant pilot is pretty limited right now — Denmark and two cities in Sweden — it is also likely also in response to a growing consumer demand for plant-based proteins.

All that said, demand shows up differently in different parts of the world. Sweden and Seattle are obvious choices to test plant-based wares, given the demographics that reside in those areas. In the U.S., at least, seven in 10 people classify themselves as “meat eaters,” according to recent data, and there are undoubtedly parts of the country where a plant-based Starbucks would fail harder than the Wendy’s salad bar expansion did in the ‘90s. 

For now, that is. As more tests like that of Starbucks are conducted, and major chains like McDonald’s introduce more plant-based items, the concept of a full-vegan fast-food meal will grow less foreign to more customers. I doubt it’s long before we see plant-based QSR locations popping up in certain markets like, NYC, San Francisco, and even newly popular cities like Austin and Denver. How the plant-based QSR fares in these markets will tell us a lot about when it will head to other parts of the country.

The Restaurant Robots Are Coming

Of course we’ll know we’ve really hit a turning point when vegan Starbucks locations start delivering our plant-based breakfast sandwiches via robot.

I just made that up, but as The Spoon’s Editor in Chief Chris Albrecht points out in his new Spoon Plus report, we will soon see these delivery bots rolling about our sidewalks, college campuses, and city streets.

Chris’ report breaks down the different companies currently leading the space, including Starship, Kiwi, Nuro, and Refraction, and where these players’ opportunities lie in making robot delivery more common for the average consumer.

In the restaurant realm, there are a few advantages to robot delivery. It’s first and foremost a more contactless delivery method, which is an obvious plus at a time when COVID-19 vaccines aren’t widespread. Robots can also work continuously without the need for a break and could potentially be cheaper for restaurants. The flip, of course, is that widespread robot deployments would take jobs away, a point that cannot be ignored in any discussion about restaurant robots.

Chris delves into all of this and much more in his report, which you can access by becoming a Spoon Plus member. Spoon Plus members get access to all of our market reports, maps and deep dives that give you an advanced understanding of where the food tech industry is headed. Get the goods right here.

Restaurant Tech From Around The Web

Luckin Coffee, one of China’s largest coffee chains and Starbucks’ main competitor in that market, is filing for bankruptcy. The company is still dealing with the fallout from a fraud scandal from 2020. Luckin said that stores would remain open for business.

The California Supreme Court has declined to hear a lawsuit filed this week seeking to overturn Proposition 22, the controversial ballot measure that passed in November and exempts companies like DoorDash and Uber from classifying workers as employees. the Court suggested plaintiffs refile the case in a lower court. 

If it feels a little off to you that third-party delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats are spending millions on themed Super Bowl ads (Cookie Monster and Wayne’s World, respectively) while restaurants and restaurant workers continue to struggle, check this quick read from the folks at Eater Chicago. In the words of Eater writer Ashok Selvam, “can you imagine Wayne and Garth using a third-party service to order from Stan Mikita’s Donuts? Game off.”

Impossible Is Prototyping a Plant-Based Milk Product

At a press conference today, Impossible Foods revealed a prototype for a plant-based milk alternative as part of its ambitious plans to eliminate animal protein from the food supply chain. The product will be called Impossible Milk and will look and function just like cow’s milk. 

To illustrate the differences, Impossible showed its prototype off alongside other alternative milks at the press conference, even mixing it with a cup of coffee to demonstrate how it does not curdle as other plant-based milks do.

Though the milk won’t be available to customers at any point in the near future, It is part of Impossible’s plan to diversify its products to include a range of plant-based alternative proteins. The company is also working on alternatives to chicken and steak, and CEO Pat Brown told MIT Technology Review that Impossible is on a mission to “completely replace the world’s most destructive technology by far, which is the use of animals, by 2035.”

“We will succeed or fail based on whether we build a complete technology platform that creates all the foods we get today from animals,” he added.

To help realize that lofty goal, Impossible also said at the press conference that it intends to double the size of its R&D team over the next year and launched the “Impossible Investigator” project to entice scientists to join the team.

Today’s news follows Impossible’s just-announced expansion onto retail store shelves in Hong Kong and Singapore. And overall, 2020 has been a busy year for the company. It raised another $200 million in August, expanded distribution of its products to Walmart, Trader Joe’s, and other food retailers, and launched a direct-to-consumer e-commerce store. 

The company’s ambitions to branch out from faux beef into dairy, fish, poultry, and other areas of alt protein comes as the entire sector is seeing enormous growth and investment. Impossible’s chief rival Beyond hasn’t exactly rested on its laurels this year, either, having also expanded its product line, launched its own D2C store, and launched products at retail stores in China.

One area we won’t see Impossible branch into, at least for now: cell-based meat. Pat Brown didn’t waffle about at SKS last week when he said the idea of commercially produced meat from a lab was never going to happen. Of course, the company could always change its stance. For now, though, expect Impossible ton continue its focus on plant-based proteins for the foreseeable future.

Good Food Institute: Plant-Based Food Consumers Spend 61% More in Food Retail

We’ve known for a while now that the current spikes and surges in demand for plant-based protein are in large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on our food system. Now there are some new numbers that back those claims up and give insights into just how big plant-based products have gotten in the food retail sector, thanks to the Good Food Institute (GFI). 

GFI’s new report, “Plant-Based Strategies for Retail: An overview of leading plant-based assortment, merchandising, and marketing tactics at top U.S. retailers,” lays out some of the growth statistics of the plant-based meat sector, and examines the forces driving such a rapid adoption in the retail space. 

For context, the report notes that U.S. retail sales of plant-based food were worth $5 billion in 2019. While we don’t yet have the full sales numbers for 2020, GFI notes in its report that “plant-based sales are growing 14 times faster than total food sales” and that consumers who buy plant-based food products tend to spend more: 61 percent of plant-based food shoppers are considered “valuable,” and spend 61 percent more than the average shopper. 

All of those numbers are pre-pandemic, which means this time next year, figures will likely be even higher. It’s an understatement to say the pandemic has had a major impact on plant-based meats. According to GFI’s report, nearly one quarter of consumers surveyed report eating more plant-based meals because of COVID-19, with Millennials and Gen Z being the largest age group in this percentage. Both groups (41 percent for Gen Z and 37 percent for Millennials) reported they “will be less likely to buy [traditional] meat” because of COVID-19 fears, compared to 25 percent for all age groups. The report cites health concerns (physical and mental), an intent to buy more health-related items, and general fears around the spread of COVID-19 as plausible reasons for this uptick.

Meat alternatives, in particular, saw positive increases. GFI’s report outlines some figures from some of the major plant-based meat companies: 

  • Beyond’s retail sales increased 194.4 percent over the second quarter of 2020; the company currently has products in roughly 25,000 retail stores across the U.S.
  • Impossible saw a 500 percent increase in grocery stores selling the Impossible Burger during the pandemic months, and the company’s products are available in 9,200 stores nationwide.
  • Morning Star farms saw a 66 percent increase in March sales.
  • Gardein sales increased by 65 percent from March 13 to April 19, 2020.
  • Tofurky sales increased 40 percent from February through April of 2020. 

It’s likely the plant-based foods sector would have seen these high numbers even without the pandemic — only over a much longer timeframe. For example, Impossible would probably have reached that 500 percent increase in grocery retailers eventually, but it likely would not have happened in a matter of a few short months had there been no pandemic.

Exactly how long it would have taken sans pandemic we’ll never know, but regardless, sales of plant-based foods aren’t going to subside once COVID-19 does. As GFI’s report notes, this demand for plant-based foods “is a consumer shift, not a fad.”

That in turn means we’ll see more food retailers (and restaurants) selling these products, more alt-protein companies setting up direct-to-consumer e-commerce stores like those of Beyond and Impossible, more food tech accelerators dedicated to alt-protein, and, of course, far more investment in the coming months.

Chile’s NotCo Raises $85M to Bring Its Plant-based Proteins to the U.S.

NotCo, a Chilean food tech company known for its alternative protein products, announced today it has closed an $85 million Series C round. The round was led by Future Positive, L Catterton Partners, and General Catalyst. Existing investors include Kaszek Ventures, The Craftory, Bezos Expedition, Endeavor Catalyst, Indie Bio, Humbolt Capital and Maya Capital.

The new funds come as NotCo plans to scale its operations and expand internationally, starting with a move into the U.S. The company said in today’s press release that it is evaluating both retail and restaurant partnerships in the States.

Rather than focus on a single food category, NotCo is developing meat, dairy, and egg alternatives at the same time. The company currently has its NotMilk, NotBurger, NotIceCream, and NotMay in stores around Chile, Brazil, Argentina. It also has deals with Burger King and Papa John’s in Chile. 

To make its plant-based protein products, NotCo uses artificial intelligence to match animal proteins with their ideal plant replacement, pulling from a library of thousands of plant profiles the company has stored up. The idea is to make combinations of plants that will most closely mimc not just the taste of meat or dairy but also the texture, smell, and mouthfeel, among other factors.

This approach has made NotCo one of the biggest players in plant-based protein in Latin America. However, an expansion to the U.S. means NotCo will have to compete with some serious competition in an already crowded alternative protein space that includes some of the industry’s biggest names: Beyond and Impossible in the plant-based meat sector, Eat JUST for eggs, and Perfect Day for dairy. 

International expansion, whether to the U.S. or from it, is a major development in the alternative protein space of late. Beyond, Impossible, and Eat JUST have all announced plans to move into other markets, including Canada and China. Those expansions make sense, given the amount of cash flowing into the sector. The entire alternative protein category has seen an enormous amount of investment in 2020: over $1.1 billion so far, with more than $907 million of that going to plant-based protein.

For its own expansion, NotCo co-founders, Matias Muchnick (CEO) and Karim Pichara (CTO), will be based in the U.S. The company said in a recent interview that it wants to be a $300 million company by 2024, with 70 percent of that business in the U.S.

Noops Closes $2M Pre-Seed Round, Launches Oatmilk Pudding in U.S.

Noops, a new company that makes plant-based pudding snacks from oat milk, today announced its U.S. launch online and in some retail locations. The company also announced it has closed a $2 million pre-seed round led by 25madison, with participation from Unovis/New Crop Capital and Siddhi Capital. 

Noops said in today’s press release it will use the funds to further develop its product, expand into more retail and foodservice outlets, and expand marketing efforts.

On its website, Noops lists oat milk, date paste, and sunflower seed protein as the main ingredients of its pudding snacks. All ingredients are organic, and the puddings contain zero added sugars. Noops says each serving contains five to seven grams of protein, five to seven grams of fiber, and half the carbs find in regular pudding snacks at the grocery store. 

Starting today, the snacks are available to pre-order online, and the company will launch at certain retailers (specifics weren’t named) and via Instacart later this month. Right now, the products are only available in the U.S.

Like many products derived from plants and alternative ingredients, Noops’ snacks ring up high in terms of price point right now. An eight-pack of 135g cups costs$39, while a 24-pack costs $84. That’s considerably higher than, say, a three-pack of 115g Swiss Miss puddings that will run you about $3.50 bones. It’s less astronomical, though, than something like Magic Spoon’s $40 for a four-pack of 7-oz. alt-sugar cereal.

On the whole, demand for plant-based products products continues to rise. And Noops is wise to sell its wares directly to consumers via its website. Since the pandemic hit, many companies have taken this route to reach customers who prefer e-commerce to mingling with strangers at the grocery store. Noops joins the likes of Impossible, Planterra, Beyond, and other plant-based brands in offering or planning to offer their products via e-commerce shops.

Impossible Goes the Meal Kit Route With Home Chef Partnership

Meal kit company Home Chef announced today it is partnering with Impossible Foods to offer the latter’s plant-based burgers in its kits. This is the first time Impossible has shown up in the meal kit realm, and it comes at a point when consumer demand for plant-based meat is rapidly growing.

Home Chef will offer multiple recipes that give customers the option to swap out regular ol’ protein for Impossible’s burger, which will come as a 12-oz, package of ground meat for use in a range of recipes that would ordinarily call for beef.

The addition of Impossible to the Home Chef roster is part of the meal kit company’s new “Customize It” feature, which lets users adjust their weekly order to fit their needs, whether that’s extra protein, more veggies, or additional servings. Think Chipotle for meal kits. It’s also the latest way in which the Kroger-owned meal kit company is trying to diversify its offerings to meet different consumers’ lifestyles.

Meal kits are just the latest expansion for Impossible, which up until recently had only been available in restaurants. The company launched its direct-to-consumer online store in June. Those in the lower 48 states can buy bulk orders of Impossible products through it.

But while Impossible may be ahead of its rival Beyond in terms of D2C (Beyond has announced but not yet launched its own e-commerce site), it lags behind in meal kits. Beyond has been available in Blue Apron and HelloFresh kits for some time.

Since the start of the pandemic, Impossible has grown its grocery store footprint by more than 30x and its products are now in about 5,000 grocery stores. Meal kits are another road into consumers’ homes, an important destination seeing as how a lot more people are staying home these days. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the long-struggling meal kit market is actually making something of a comeback.

Report: Plant-based Meat Sales Increased 23 Percent When Sold Next to Real Meat

Sales of plant-based meat products increased 23 percent when those products were sold in the same department as traditional meat, according to a newly released study from the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) and Kroger.

The study ran from December 2019 to February 2020 in 60 Kroger test stores across three states: Colorado, Illinois, and Indiana. Plant-based meat products were placed “in a three-foot set within the meat department,” according to the study. 

Results varied by region. In the Midwest stores, where widespread adoption of plant-based meat is only just beginning to catch, sales were up 32 percent. Stores in the Denver, CO area, which the study says “already had a high concentration of plant-based consumers,” saw a 13 percent increase.

Other notable stats from the study include:

  • Shoppers purchasing a wider variety of plant-based meats increased by 33%
  • Shoppers increased their number of purchase occasions by 34%.

This rise in purchases of plant-based meat products isn’t too surprising, given the recent overall spike in demand. But retailers are still determining which section of the grocery store plant-based meat products belong in, and depending on where you go, they could be int he vegan section, with the organic meat products, or with regular ol’ Big Meat. 

Despite demand, plant-based companies have gotten pushback over the last year or so from Big Meat over labeling their products as “meat.” In 2019, the PBFA actually sued Mississippi over the state’s restrictive labeling rules, which originally prevented plant-based meat companies from using terms like “burger” or “hot dog.” Those laws were overturned in Mississippi, but Arkansas, Missouri, and other states have passed similar legislation. What labeling laws are in any given state will inevitably affect where plant-based products wind up in the grocery store.

Of course the debate of where to put plant-based meats may be rendered less important if current trends in grocery shopping continue. Online shopping is still popular, and the uptick in coronavirus cases may ensure it stays high for some time longer. At the same time, leading plant-based meat companies like Impossible and Beyond have launched or are planning to launch direct-to-consumer sites. Though to be honest, you’d have to be a pretty dedicated fan of those products to take the time to buy in bulk directly. For plant-based meat companies looking to reach newer flexitarians and casually curious consumers, the grocery store aisle — and specifically the meat aisle — remains their best bet.

Motif FoodWorks and University of Illinois Are on a Quest to Find the Perfect Texture for Plant-based Meat

Food ingredient innovator Motif FoodWorks announced today it has struck partnerships with two universities to further research the properties of plant-based foods and develop technologies to improve elements like texture. For the research, Motif will work with the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana.

Today’s announcement comes on the heels of Motif forming a partnership with the the University of Guelph to research plant-based fats in order to make them more like the real thing.

Fat is a key part of what makes meat taste good. And so is texture and mouthfeel. Achieving better versions of those latter two elements in plant-based meat is the driving motivation behind Motif’s partnerships with the University of Illinois. As we’ve written many, many times before, texture is one of the keys to making plant-based meat more appealing to mainstream consumers. 

In its press release today, Motif’s lead for food science, Stefan Baier, said that in order to get textures more precisely like those of actual meat, “we need to continue to evolve the way we approach food design” rather than relying on decades-old tools and technologies that might work for meat-meat but not so much for alt-meat.

Baier will lead the two-year-long project with UIC and UICU, working with the schools’ experts on advanced rheological techniques from the fields of mechanical and chemical engineering.

This isn’t the first time Motif has partnered with higher education to solve the texture riddle. In 2019, the company said it was working with the University of Queensland in Australia on improving texture of plant-based meats.

Motif’s quest to make plant-based meats replicate the properties of animal meat comes at a time when demand for plant-based meat is steadily on the rise. Many companies in the space are expanding in response. Impossible launched its direct-to-consumer site recently, and its chief rival Beyond has plans to launch a similar e-commerce store. And other companies are tackling the texture issue, too, from Redefine Meat‘s 3D-printed steaks to Ecovative’s mycelium scaffolding to Emergy’s fermented fungi steaks.

One thing Motif will need to consider in its research is just how closely consumers actually want their plant-based staples to replicate the real thing. Catherine Lamb, the Spoon’s former expert on all things plant-based meat, often said plant-based meat was too meaty. This nine-year-old concurs. But Catherine is a longtime vegetarian and the nine-year-old is, well, nine. Which is to say, adults who’ve been eating real meat for decades may prefer a more exact replication. At the moment there isn’t too much data out there on this subject, but it’s one Motif and others will most definitely need to tackle on the quest to make the perfect plant-based meat.

Beyond Meat Arrives at Alibaba Stores in China

Beyond Meat continues its expansion in China, this time into the retail sector. The company is bringing its Beyond Burgers to Alibaba’s Heme supermarkets, first in Shanghai, then elsewhere in the country later this year, according to TechCrunch. 

Beyond debuted in China earlier this year with a Starbucks partnership, selling its plant-based meat products in cafes across the country. Availability of Beyond products expanded to the Yum China empire, where they were at Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell for a limited time.

The company’s arrival in Alibaba stores is its first foray into retail in China. Though it makes sense. China has the world’s largest population and is also the world’s largest consumer of meat. The Chinese government has been urging citizens for some time now to cut down their meat consumption, which makes China a lucrative market for plant-based meat products.

This move is also the latest salvo in what has been a busy few months of back-and-forth expansion news for both Beyond and its main plant-based rival, Impossible Foods. Impossible launched a direct-to-consumer sales channel at the beginning of June. Shortly after, Beyond released bulk packaging that narrowed the price gap between its burgers and traditional meat. Beyond also announced plans for its own D2C site, which has yet to launch. Then earlier this week, Impossible announced that its Impossible Sausage is now available to all restaurants in the U.S. 

This latest deal with Alibaba helps bolster Beyond’s foothold in China. Impossible is not yet in Chinese markets, though the company has suggested in the past it plans to eventually launch products there. As demand for plant-based meat offerings has surged since the start of the global pandemic, it’s a safe bet to expect the back-and-forth news from both companies to continue throughout the year.