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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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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.

Impossible Sausage Sandwiches Now Available at Starbucks and Burger King

Starbucks announced today that it has added the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich to its menu. The sandwich, which Starbucks says is now available at “the majority of Starbucks locations across the US,” features Impossible’s plant-based sausage.

This is the second move into breakfast for Impossible in as many weeks. Burger King, which launched the Impossible Croissan’wich earlier this year, announced last week it was going national with the item for a limited time.

Impossible is really starting to flex it plant-based muscles and it expands its heme-pire at just the right time. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused production shortages and raised new ethical concerns about eating meat, and during this time, sales of plant-based meats have taken off.

For its part, Starbucks has more than one plant-based partner on its dance card. While the company is launching an Impossible sandwich in the U.S., it has hooked up with Beyond for a breakfast sandwich in Canada, and Starbucks in China will be using Beyond meats as well.

Getting on the menu at Starbucks will certainly give Impossible’s brand a boost. And if people like Impossible, there are more options than ever for them to eat it at home. Impossible has, err, beefed up its retail pipeline over this year, and launched its own direct to consumer sales site earlier this month. Though the sausage only just debuted at CES this year (which feels like a lifetime ago), the Starbucks and Burger King partnerships show that it has scaled up production fairly quickly.

Now we’ll see if the Impossible breakfast sandwich rises and shines.

My 9-Year-Old’s Reaction to Impossible Burgers Surprised Me

To show how its new direct-to-consumer store works, Impossible Foods sent me a batch of their plant-based burgers, which arrived yesterday.

Impossible isn’t available in stores up near us, so we’ve been eating a lot of Beyond Meat during our quarantine. I was excited for the rest of my family to finally try Impossible’s take on plant-based burgers and see what they thought of it compared to Beyond. The results surprised me.

We are definitely a family of flexitarians. My son has grown up eating regular ol’ cow cheeseburgers and always liked them. And while we still eat meat regularly, as plant-based alternatives get better, we’ve incorporated more of them into our diet. Animal-based cheeseburgers, however, are a thing of the past.

So I was surprised when my son’s review of the Impossible burger was that it was “too much like regular meat.” Too much like the regular meat he had grown up eating. It was off-putting to him. He was actually “concerned” that you could play a practical joke on someone by replacing their meat hamburger with Impossible. (What the consequences of such chicanery would be, however, I’m unsure.)

But replicating the meat without the animal is the point, right? At least, it is to the tastebuds of my wife and I. The umami flavor and beefy texture of the Impossible burger are what we actually like. We both prefer Impossible to Beyond, which still has a slightly different, pea protien-y taste. But it turns out that Beyond’s slightly different flavor is what my son really likes.

My nine-year-old isn’t the only one who doesn’t dig plant-based meat that is too meaty. My former colleague, and staunch vegetarian, Catherine Lamb had a similar reaction with the Beyond Meat ground product last year, writing:

In truth, the Beyond Beef was almost too realistic for me. I haven’t eaten meat in five years, and eating a Beyond Beef burger was almost too close to the real thing for comfort. Even when I made the remainder into bolognese later in the week (you guessed it — it cooks up just like ground beef) I had trouble finishing it; the beefy flavor permeated the whole sauce in a way that was a little too strong for my liking.

Ironically, Catherine seemed to prefer Impossible.

I”m not writing this because I think my son has a supernatural palate or some deep insight into flavors. It’s more an observation as Impossible ramps up their retail operations. Will the first plant-based burger people try be the one they stick with? Will regional tastes emerge with different parts of the country preferring one over the other?

Impossible and Beyond are becoming the plant-based Coke versus Pepsi. But the twist here is that these new types of vegetarian meat are like software, meaning the recipes going into them can be tweaked and altered and re-released as new versions. Perhaps we’ll even see beefier/less beefy options a la Coke Zero or Crystal Pepsi.

Actually, let’s hope they don’t create a plant-based Crystal Pepsi.

DAIZ Raised $6M to Become ‘The Fourth Meat’

Japanese plant-based meat startup DAIZ raised a $6 million Series A round in the second half of May. According to a DAIZ press release, the round included participation from the Fisheries Growth Industrialization Support Organization fund and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. The $6 million figure marks DAIZ’s total funding to date.

While the actual funding was announced a couple weeks ago, it’s worth noting because of DAIZ’s ambitions and how the company plans to take on big-name players in the plant-based space with its so-called “miracle chips,” which are raw plant-based meat components created using DAIZ’s patented Ochiai High Pressure Method technology.

According to the press release, this germination method brings out the umami flavor of soybeans and lessens the unpleasant aftertaste that are found in a lot of vegan meat offerings right now. The soybeans are then put in an extruder, where molding technologies recreate the texture of actual meat.

With the new funds, DAIZ says it will build out one of the largest factories for plant-based meat in Japan in 2021. They also plan to raise Series B funds at some point in 2020. Initially, the company will focus on selling to major food manufacturers as well as distribution companies, and eventually wants to expand globally. 

Notably, DAIZ is aiming to become what it calls “the fourth meat” alongside chicken, beef, and pork. In other words, they have no plans to replace the real thing. Rather it aims to have plant-based meat co-exist on the table with animal-based meat. Many plant-based meat companies have similar goals that target the “flexitarian,” which means when DAIZ finally does expand internationally, it will be competing with the likes of Impossible, Beyond, Néstle, and a growing number of others in the space. 

Court Rules That Nestlé’s ‘Incredible’ Burger Name Infringes on Impossible

A European court ruled that Néstle must change the name of its Incredible burger because it infringes on Impossible’s trademarks, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

For now, the ruling only applies to European countries. Swiss CPG giant Néstle will change the name of its patty to Sensational Burger, which unfortunately doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily but also won’t potentially confuse customers — something the court cited in its ruling. 

According to the WSJ, Impossible claimed Nestlé was “trying to impede” its entry into the European market by using a similar name for its product.

A spokesperson for Néstle said that they believe “anyone should be able to use descriptive terms such as ‘incredible’ to explain the qualities of a product.” The company is planning to appeal the decision.

Néstle launched its Incredible meatless patty last year under its Garden Gourmet brand. The burger is made of soy and wheat protein and meat to compete with the new wave of plant-based meat companies, namely Beyond and Impossible. As of right now, Nestlé’s patty sells in 15 European countries as well as Australia, and in 2019 also landed in McDonald’s stores in Israel.

Impossible doesn’t actually sell its products in Europe yet. It filed with the EU in 2019 for regulatory approval. A spokesperson for the company last year told The Spoon that Impossible plans to “sell plant-based meat in every single region of the world.” That said, one of the hangups with Impossible getting its products in Europe is the company’s use of soy hemoglobin in its products, which is the molecule that gives the patties their “bleeding” flavor and appearance. As Catherine Lamb noted last year:

While technically heme isn’t genetically modified — it’s the output of genetically modified yeast — it could still throw up some red flags for the European Food Safety Authority.

Plant-based meat’s other major player, Beyond Meat, announced a new manufacturing facility in The Netherlands last year, and more recently said it would increase availability and speed for getting its products around Europe and the Middle East.

All of which is to say, the fight over Nestlés naming underscores how competitive the plant-based meat market has gotten recently. Even if Nestlé successfully appeals the court’s decision, the company has its work cut out in terms of carving out a dominant spot in the European alt-protein market.

 

The Food Tech Show: Fake Nuggets & Real Goodbyes

It was a sad week at The Spoon as we said goodbye to Catherine Lamb.

Catherine is heading off to Chicago to get her MBA at Kellogg University. After that she’ll take over the world, or at least the world of food tech.

I met Catherine for the first time when she volunteered at the Smart Kitchen Summit in 2017. More than one person came up to me during the conference and told me I really needed to hire this person. I interviewed her a couple weeks later and did just that.

If you want to hear the audio version of me getting sappy, you’ll have to listen to the podcast. In addition to saying goodbye to Catherine, we also discuss the following stories:

To listen, just click play below, download the podcast direct to your device, or find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

It Looks Like Impossible is Gearing Up for Direct to Consumer Sales

It looks like Impossible Foods, which makes the self-titled popular plant-based burger, is making a move to sell directly to consumers. This morning the company tweeted out the following.

I’m no code breaker, but a burger in a box with an arrow to a door seems like a pretty clear indication that consumers will soon be able to get Impossible’s products without having to hit up a restaurant or go to a grocery store.

If true (we reached out to Impossible for confirmation), this move makes a lot of sense and is something that the company has been inching towards for awhile.

When it first debuted a few years back, you could only get Impossible burgers at restaurants. Then last year Impossible started selling its ground “meat” at retailers in Los Angeles. In April, the company allowed restaurants to sell Impossible directly to consumers (though that seemed aimed more at helping out restaurants struggling to stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic). Later that same month, Impossible expanded its retail footprint to nearly 1,000 restaurants in different states. And finally, earlier this month, Impossible announced that it would be in an additional 1,700 Kroger locations, bringing the total number of retailers selling Impossible to more than 2,700.

The move also makes sense because during this pandemic, sales of plant-based meats have skyrocketed, with sales up 264 percent at US grocery stores. So consumers are obviously, pardon the pun, hungry for faux meat like Impossible’s.

But if that weren’t enough reason, Impossible’s D2C move is also part of a larger trend of big companies selling directly to consumers. PepsiCo launched two direct to consumer sites to sell snacks and sodas. The coronavirus spurred meal bar company Slow UP to move from B2B to D2C sales. And in January, Thirstie launched its service to help alcohol companies sell directly to consumers.

Selling direct to consumer would require some different logistics from Impossible, but the company just raised $500 million in March, so ordering those delicious plant-based burgers for delivery to my door soon seems entirely possible.

Heme Park! Disney Picks Impossible’s Plant-Based Meat for its Menus

Impossible Foods is putting the “heme” in “theme park.” The company announced today that Disney has selected the Impossible Burger as its “preferred plant-based burger,” and will be adding the vegetarian meat to its menus at Disneyland, Disney World and Disney Cruise Line.

Being associated with one of the biggest brands on the planet is definitely a nice Donald Duck-sized feather in the cap for Impossible. It will help drive brand awareness among a whole new group of people, and getting the Disney seal of approval should help Impossible score similar deals as it fights off other plant-based burger rivals for market share.

It’s worth noting that Disney is using Impossible by name on its menu. It could have just gone with some other name nameless plant-based burger option (perhaps from Cargill?), but the Mouse House is naming names, and wants people to know its serving Impossible’s product. Impossible was already one of the fastest growing brands in the U.S. last year, and teaming with Disney certainly won’t hurt.

But while Disney is a huge brand name, we should also keep the actual numbers in proper context. Disneyland drew in 18.7 million people last year, while Disney World attracted 20.9 million visitors. According to MagicGuide, Disney World serves 10 million hamburgers a year.

Burger King, another Impossible partner, on the other hand, serves 11 million people globally every day, and claims to sell 2.1 billion Whoppers around the world each year.

Obviously, there’s only a certain subsection of these audiences that will choose the plant-based option, but the bigger point is that the Disney partnership shouldn’t put a strain on Impossible’s production, like the BK deal did last year.

But what the Disney deal does do is give Impossible another direct connection with the consumer. Disney patrons will be ordering Impossible products by name, an important point as Impossible continues its moves into grocery stores.

Impossible launched its ground meat product last year at select grocery stores. But at retail, Impossible faces competition from the likes of Beyond Meat, Light Life, and a host of other plant-based meat players vying for your greenbacks.

Disney, however, with its parks and cruises, has a variety of different eateries on-site. So the relationship also gives Impossible a number of venues to show off the Impossible Burger served in ways other than a straight up patty, and even outlets to serve up the new Impossible pork product.

The bottom line though is that the happiest place on earth just got a little happier for flexitarians.

Future Food: Is the Honeymoon Over for Fast Food and Meatless Meat?

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. Subscribe to get the most important news about alternate and plant-based foods directly in your inbox!

Valentine’s Day is coming up, and love is in the air — but it looks like the once hot-and-heavy relationship between plant-based meat and fast-food is experiencing some bumps.

This week Burger King reported overall sales growth of 0.6 percent for Q4 of 2019, which fell short of Wall Street estimates. That’s a marked dip from just a few months ago, when BK’s sales increased roughly 15 percent globally, in large part due to the success of the recently-launched Impossible Whopper.

It was with a much more muted tone that Jose Cil, CEO of Burger King’s parent company Restaurant Brands International, mentioned the plant-based burger on the company’s most recent earnings call (h/t CNBC):

… the Impossible Whopper was a big highlight of 2019 and continued to be an important sales driver in the fourth quarter, generating healthy levels of incrementality at a premium price point.

The dip in excitement could be attributed to a confluence of several factors. First and foremost, the novelty of plant-based meat is starting to wear off across the QSR space. When Burger King first decided to start selling the Impossible Whopper, the news made headlines everywhere (including here). That media blitz likely attracted lapsed vegetarian/vegan consumers as well as consumers who were curious to try this whole fake-meat-that-bleeds concept. In all likelihood, at least some of those diners tried the Impossible Whopper then decided that it wasn’t worth reordering, or that they preferred their regular beefy order.

Another issue is over-saturation. Burger King was one of the first (and the largest) fast-food chains to embrace meat alternatives on its menu. Now it’s becoming the norm for QSR’s, from Dunkin’ to KFC, to serve vegetarian meat — with the noted exceptions of McDonalds (in the U.S.) and Arby’s.

We also can’t discount price as a factor in this decline. Depending on the location, Impossible Whoppers cost one to two dollars more than a regular Whopper. Overall that’s not much, but it’s a heckuva lot more significant in a fast food context where an extra buck can get you anything from fries to a large soda. Maybe the price difference didn’t scare off people who wanted to try the next buzzed-about burger, but was too much for them to justify paying on the regular.

Burger King is clearly aware that the Impossible Whopper’s cost is a problem. That’s why they recently added the plant-based offering to its 2 for $6 menu, but it may be too late for those who have already categorized the Impossible Whopper as an expensive option.

Photo: Burger King.

In a Future Food newsletter last year, just as QSRs were starting to debut meat alternatives left and right, I asked a question: Is fast food’s love affair with plant-based meat going to last?

To continue with the romance analogy, I don’t think the two are ready to split up. Instead, they’re settling into coupledom — things are less hot-and-heavy but more consistent.

So it might be time for fast food and plant-based meat to spice up their relationship and experiment by introducing new products (fried chicken! bacon!) or trying cost-saving promotions (like Burger King is doing now).

The honeymoon period might be over, but the foundation is still there. Time for phase two of the relationship.

Should we be discussing plant-based dog food?
Meatless meat may be cooling its love affair with fast-food, but it’s heating up in a very different space: pet food. According to market intelligence agency Mintel, roughly one third of all U.K. dog food buyers want to purchase more plant-based food for their pets.

I’ve considered covering meat-free pet food in this newsletter before, but something always stopped me. We at the Spoon cover human food tech news, right?

But then I read a crazy statistic, that in the U.S., dogs and cats are responsible for 25 to 30 percent of total meat consumption. If they were their own country, they would rank fifth in the world. That’s huge! And as the population grows and pet ownership increases in developing countries, the total meat consumed by dogs and cats will only go up. It might make sense to start thinking seriously about the future of pet food, after all.

What do you think? Would you be interested in coverage on pet food — new ingredients (cell-based meat!), distribution methods, etc? Tweet your thoughts to @TheSpoonTech and let me know!

Alpha Foods

Protein ’round the web

  • Alpha Foods raised $28 million for its frozen plant-based proteins and premade meals.
  • FUMI Ingredients, an ingredient developer which has made plant-based egg whites, snagged a €500,000 ($552,000) investment (h/t AgfunderNews).
  • Meatless Farm has partnered with meal kit company Gousto to create kits featuring its beef alternatives.

It’s Official: Impossible Will Not be On McDonald’s Menus (but Beyond Will)

After months of wondering which fake meat McDonald’s would finally put on its menus, we’re one step closer to an answer. Today Impossible Foods told Reuters that it was no longer trying to win a deal to supply the largest fast-food chain in the world, stating that it could not produce enough “bleeding” plant-based meat to keep them supplied.

Production is a looming concern for Impossible. At the unveil of its new plant-based pork at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, CEO Pat Brown told the audience that production capacity was the company’s “biggest challenge right now.” Nonetheless, Impossible is expanding its partnership with Burger King, which will begin serving the Impossible Croissan’wich, featuring Impossible’s new faux sausage, this month. It also told CNBC that it’s doubling its R&D team over the next year to speed up new product releases.

But that’s not all. The day after this news broke, McDonald’s and Beyond Meat announced that they were expanding their partnership in Canada. McDonald’s began testing the PLT (Plant, Lettuce, Tomato) sandwich, which is made with a Beyond Meat patty, at 28 restaurants in Southern Ontario last September. Starting this week they’re almost doubling that test to fifty-two restaurants in the Ontario area. The test will last for the next three months.

Put all of these clues together, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess that McDonalds’ in the U.S. could soon be rolling out a Beyond Meat burger. If they do, it would be a smart move for Mickey D’s. Burger King has benefitted enormously from its partnership with Impossible Foods. As more and more fast-food chains embrace plant-based meat — on all parts of their menu, including breakfast — the more notable it is that McDonald’s doesn’t have a meatless meat offering

The big question on my mind — besides when this new menu item will launch — is what a McDonald’s Beyond burger might be called. As I’ve written previously, I have some issues with the name P.L.T. because a) the sandwich doesn’t have any bacon, faux or otherwise, and b) it doesn’t leverage the Beyond brand. If they launch a Beyond offering in the U.S., McDonald’s would be smart to follow Burger King’s lead and put the Beyond name in it.

Whatever they call it, Beyond better wait to make that leap until it’s sure that it can do what Impossible could not: keep up with the massive demand of the number one fast-food chain in the world. At this stage, when alternative meat is starting to gain new audiences from QSR partnerships, a supply hiccup could put off consumers — and it might be hard to get them back. Especially with a fast-food chain that’s pretty much ubiquitous with burgers.

Beyond’s CEO Ethan Brown has previously stated that they were prepared to supply even very large restaurant partners. But will that include the largest restaurant chain in the world? With McDonald’s slowly (but surely) expanding its test of the PLT — and Impossible out of the picture — I’m betting we’ll soon find out.