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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

meat

Sales Through Grass Roots’ D2C Meat Marketplace are up 400 Percent Over Last Year

One of the many ways COVID-19 has impacted the meal journey this year is how we get our meat. The pandemic illustrated the shortcomings of our over-consolidated supply chain and the inequalities experienced by the people working in industrial meat-processing facilities.

If there is a “fortunately” to be found at all with the pandemic, it’s that it has come at a time where there are more options than ever for people to buy meat directly from small farms.

Grass Roots Farmers Cooperative is one of those options. Founded in 2014, Grass Roots offers an online market where consumers can buy meat that comes from small farms. Based in Arkansas, Grass Roots mainly works with farms in the southern region of the U.S., but ships directly to the lower 48 states.

I spoke with Grass Roots Founder and CEO Cody Hopkins by phone this week, and he told me that business has been up 400 percent year-over-year for the company, which now has 25,000 customers and is on track to do $7 – $10 million in sales this year.

Part and parcel with consumers looking for new ways to purchase traditional meat is an increased desire for transparency in the supply chain that gets that meat to their door. To that end, Grass Roots has taken the extra step of integrating blockchain into its supply chain, so it’s products are tracked from the farm to the table.

Grass Roots is among a number of companies, including Butcher Box and Crowd Cow, offering online marketplaces for people to buy craft meat. The bigger question for companies like Grass Roots et. al. is whether its COVID-driven boom will last after the pandemic recedes (though the coronavirus certainly doesn’t appear to be abating anytime soon). Will people still want to buy online or avoid industrial farming when they can return to the grocery store?

Speaking for myself, I recently switched to mail order meat for staples like chicken and seafood, and the whole process has proven to be extremely convenient and price competitive with my local grocer. For me, mail order meats has actually transitioned into permanent behavior.

If The End of Meat is Here, What’s Next?

The New York Times ran an Opinion piece this morning entitled ‘The End of Meat is Here” that soon had that phrase trending on Twitter. The piece was written by Jonathan Safran Foer, novelist and author of the book Eating Animals.

The full article is definitely worth a read, but here, I’ll just summarize Safran Foer’s key points:

  • Animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of global warming.
  • We don’t need animal protein to survive and thrive.
  • Family farms will not suffer if factory farming goes away.

He also dives into why COVID-19, in particular, is shedding light on the problems that come with industrial meat farming. He points to the high amounts of infection within meat slaughterhouses, and how farmers are forced to euthanize animals as said slaughterhouses close. For these reasons, Safran Foer states, the sun might finally be setting on meat.

“Our hand has been reaching for the doorknob for the last few years. Covid-19 has kicked open the door,” he writes. “At the very least it has forced us to look.”

If the time of meat is ending, what’s next?

That’s where foodtech will come in. Here’s what I envision the End of Meat could look like, based on recent shifts we’ve seen during COVID-19:

Mostly plant-based

If traditional factory-farmed meat goes away, plant-based meat certainly seems like the most viable replacement. Consumers are already familiar with it, from industry veterans like Tofurky to disruptors like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. It’s so ubiquitous that you can even get an Impossible Whopper at a Burger King drive-thru.

In fact, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, sales of meat alternatives have skyrocketed. In response that growing demand — and the fact that its restaurant partners are struggling — Impossible Foods has rapidly increased its retail footprint. Big Food companies like Cargill are also entering the space with their own plant-based plays. And smaller startups, like Rebellyous and Plantible, are taking new funding to accelerate their commercialization timelines.

Right now companies are developing technologies to make realistic plant-based versions of everything from steak to raw tuna. Are they perfect? Not yet. But with more investment, within the next decade or so consumers could theoretically buy any and every type of meat — just made from plants. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more consumers turn towards meat alternatives, the better they will be.

Finally time for blended meat?

Blended meat, which is made from a combination of animal meat and plant-based protein, could be a stop-gap on the transition away from factory-farmed meat. Consumers who aren’t ready to switch over to a diet of Impossible burgers and Rebellyous nuggets could wean off meat with blended beef burgers and chicken nuggets.

Right now there aren’t a ton of companies offering blended meat products. However, two of the biggest meat producers in the world — Tyson and Perdue — launched lines of hybrid products over the past few months. If the pandemic continues to throw a wrench into meat production, it would make sense for more leading meat companies to develop blended products to both stretch their own meat supply and lower their costs.

Photo: Raised & Rooted blended burgers from Tyson Foods

Futuristic protein sources

Not all meat alternatives will rely on plants as their protein source. Companies like Motif Foodworks are using fermentation of microbes to create bespoke proteins — and other elements — to more accurately mimic meat. Some companies, like Air Protein and Solar Foods, are even using carbon dioxide to create protein.

As the popularity of meat alternatives grows, producers will likely explore new inputs beyond just pea and soy protein. Fermentation could be a key to unlocking more evolved, more affordable alt-meat.

Coming soon: cell-based meat

We’ll know that the End of Meat is truly here when cell-based meat comes to market. Or at least when it becomes semi-affordable and accessible.

After all, if consumers can buy a steak that tastes like a cow, cooks like a cow, and is made of cow cells, will they really care if it came from a cow or from a lab? There is certainly some consumer resistance to the idea of cultured meat. But as COVID-19 sheds light on some of the less savory aspects of meat production — especially in slaughterhouses — I’m guessing that eating meat grown in sterile lab conditions could seem a lot more appealing.

Regulatory issues are the biggest hurdle for cultured meat right now. We’re at least a year from cell-based meat hitting the market, and likely a decade away from it reaching price parity with real meat. But if COVID-19 continues to cause meat prices to spike then cultured meat could actually reach price parity sooner than expected.

Photo: Impossible Foods

So what’s next?

Safran Foer’s piece argues why it’s time for the End of Meat. But how exactly will it come about? That’s a lot more complex.

Meat won’t disappear all at once with a fiery bang. Instead, we’ll likely see a gradual transition from traditional meat to meat alternatives, including plant-based and blended meat. That’s actually good news for the disruptors making alternative protein. Plant-based and cell-based meat will have to increase production astronomically to fulfill consumer demand for protein left behind by industrial meat. And once cultured meat comes into its own, the need for factory farmed meat will be all but gone.

That will be when the End of Meat can indeed transition into the Dawn of Meat Alternatives.

The Plant-based Meat Innovators and Startups Database (Spoon Plus)

But what about the constant stream of innovators bringing their products to market? Companies big and small from around the world are launching plant-based meat products of their own, trying to carve out a piece of the lucrative pie before the market becomes too saturated.

The offerings go far beyond burgers — companies are also creating plant-based seafood and developing next-generation protein ingredients to power these new meat alternatives.

To give you a clearer picture of the playing field, we’ve created a database naming the companies making plant-based meat, fish, and protein ingredients across the globe.

This sortable database includes the following fields: Company Name, Protein Category, Website, Year Founded, Region, City/State or City/Country, Company Summary, Location of Product Availability, Total Funding.

You can apply filters to search the database by keyword and also sort by category such as region, protein type and more.

The Plant-based Meat Innovators and Startups Database is available to Spoon Plus members. You can learn more about Spoon Plus here. 

Applegate to Launch New Blended Meat and Vegetable Burgers in Retail This Month

Hormel-owned Applegate will begin selling Well Carved, its frozen line of blended meat and vegetable products, in grocery stores this month, according to IngredientsNetwork. Well Carved includes hybrid beef and turkey burgers mixed with beans and vegetables, as well as blended meatballs. The new offerings feature a garden-full of plants lentils, cauliflower, spinach, parsley, and kale.

The Well Carved line was meant to debut at the Natural Products Expo West in March, but like every other event, it was postponed in response to COVID-19. Applegate decided to push the launch back to April and do it with retailers — though it hasn’t yet specified which ones, how many, or in which areas.

Applegate was actually the first Big Meat brand to venture into blended products. It launched The Great Organic Blend Burger, made from a mixture of beef and mushrooms, a year ago. That puts it well ahead of Tyson, which debuted its Raised & Rooted line of blended beef burgers and plant-based chicken nuggets in June. Soon after, chicken giant Perdue also released a line of hybrid chicken nuggets, made with plant-based protein from Better Meat Co.

Pricing may be a hurdle for Applegate. A four-pack of Well Carved burgers goes for $9.99, which is almost twice the price of a four-pack of organic beef burgers at some supermarkets. In fact, it’s almost on par with the price of Beyond Beef burgers. I’m wondering if people looking to cut their meat consumption will actually purchase a blended burger when, for roughly the same cost, they can just buy a delicious plant-based substitute?

Two things could work in Hormel’s favor, though. One, the Well Carved burgers are frozen. And in a time when people are stocking up on frozen food like nobody’s business to avoid grocery runs, that’s a good thing. Well Carved burgers also position themselves as clean label and wholesome — that is, they contain only vegetables and meat. Some critics don’t like that plant-based meat like Beyond and Impossible contains a litany of ingredients and is processed. That could spur flexitarian consumers looking to cut their meat consumption to give Well Carved a try.

It’s a prime time to drop a new alt-meat product in retail. With COVID-19 spurring sharp increases in grocery sales for both meat and plant-based meat, this is a prime time to experiment and see if blended burgers can actually make it in the market.

World’s Largest Meat Processor to Launch Line of Plant-based Burgers, Meatballs

Colorado-based Planterra Foods announced a new plant-based brand today. Called OZO, the brand will include a line of meatless burgers, grounds, and meatballs. And here’s the kicker: Planterra Foods is owned by the U.S. branch of JBS, the Brazilian corporation that processes the largest amount of meat in the world.

OZO’s offerings are made of a mix of pea and rice protein fermented with shiitake mushrooms, which, according to a press release from Planterra, makes the products more “easily digestible.” OZO’s products will be priced from $5.99 to $7.99, which puts them in line with competitors like Beyond Meat.

The plant-based products will launch in grocery stores across the U.S. in April, after which the company will begin rolling them out through foodservice partners. Well, that’s the plan, anyway. The OZO line was meant to make its debut at Expo West this week, but the trade show was postponed a day before its start due to the coronavirus. It’s unclear if the outbreak will affect the April retail release timeline.

Interestingly, the press release announcing OZO’s launch doesn’t mention JBS until the very last sentence of the last paragraph, effectively burying it at the end. Maybe they’re worried that the information will turn off vegetarians and vegans who don’t want to eat plant-based food associated with a giant meat processor.

Despite Planterra Foods’ seeming reticence around it, the JBS affiliation is what will give the company a fighting chance to stand out in a plant-based meat aisle that’s extremely crowded — and getting more so by the day. OZO can leverage JBS’ existing supply chain to easily source its plant-based ingredients, and can also tap into its retail partnerships to elbow out some shelf space.

However, JBS isn’t the only Big Meat company hoping to leverage its retail connections to carve out a space for its plant-based branch. Tyson, Hormel, and Smithfield Foods have released their own meat alternatives over the past year as well. And just last week Cargill, another food and agriculture giant, announced its own plant-based burger, which will also be hitting retail shelves in April.

All this goes to show that the alterna-meat boom has finally made it all the way up to the largest players — even those specialize in meat. And with demand for plant-based food growing 11 percent year-over-year, it’s likely that JBS won’t be the last Big Food company we see trying to get in on the alternative meat action.

Impossible Foods Cuts Price to Reach Goal of Replacing Meat by 2035

Impossible Foods is now taking concrete steps towards its goal of replacing animal agriculture by cutting the price of its plant-based “bleeding” burgers. The Redwood City, California-based startup said today in a press release that it was slashing prices an average of 15 percent across all U.S. foodservice products (not including retail). The company is also rolling out new products, including quarter-pound and third-pound versions of its plant-based “bleeding” burger patty.

If you’ve ever ordered an Impossible burger out at a restaurant, odds are you’ve had to pay an upcharge. At fast-food spots like Burger King, subbing an Impossible patty is a roughly $1.75 add-on — but I’ve seen upcharges as steep as $5 at some higher-end burger joints. That premium poses a significant hurdle for Impossible Foods, whose long-term goal is to reach price parity with even industrially produced “cheap” beef.

Dr. Pat Brown, CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, hasn’t been shy about his company’s goal to usurp industrial animal agriculture. “Today’s price cut is just the latest step toward our goal of eliminating animals in the food system,” Brown stated in the press release. He also said that the company would continue to drive down prices through economies of scale until they could undercut the cost of conventional ground beef from cows.

That’s ambitious, for sure. But Impossible is certainly doing its darndest to establish its largest footprint possible. Over the past year, the company has forged new partnerships at an astounding speed, especially with high volume, fast-food chains. Its plant-based burger is now on menus at thousands of restaurants, including Burger King, Qdoba, White Castle, and, as of last month, Disneyland Resorts. The startup has also set its sights on international expansion in both Europe and Asia — including China.

With great fast-food growth comes great responsibility. (That’s how the expression goes, right?) The more partners Impossible gains, the more damaging it would be if the company hit another embarrassing product shortage. Impossible has for some time been aware of its need to dramatically increase production capacity in order to avoid future shortages. It seems that in doing so, the company is already beginning to reap the benefits of economies of scale —namely, cheaper plant-based beef for you and me.

When we interviewed Brown at CES in 2019, he called out price cuts as a key step in achieving Impossible’s goal: to replace traditional animal agriculture by 2035. Price parity is critical if plant-based meat is ever going to usurp cheap, delicious beef. Flexitarians — which are the target demographic for Impossible Foods — might try the Impossible burger once or twice out of curiosity, but it’s hard to convince them to make a behavioral change that will end up costing them significantly. Especially since Impossible burgers aren’t really healthier than their meaty counterparts.

Restaurants are conscious of this barrier. For example, Burger King added the Impossible Whopper to its 2 for $6 deal. I’m sure that BK and others are hoping that the Impossible price cuts will mean not only cheaper plant-based meat for all, but also more repeat customers coming in their doors.

Cargill Challenges Beyond Meat with New Meatless Burgers to Debut in April

There will soon be a new entrant in the plant-based meat shelf, and it’s a big one. Today Cargill, the global food and agriculture giant, announced that it would release its own meatless patties and ground products in early April. The new offerings will be sold both through retailers and restaurants.

According to Reuters, Cargill’s new faux meat will be made of both pea and soy protein. Beyond Meat is made of pea and Impossible of soy, so it’s intriguing that Cargill has chosen to combine the two to try and differentiate itself and nail the flavor of meat.

Flavor aside, Cargill has one advantage over newer upstarts like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods: its massive supply chain. The corporation has been operating for 155 years and is one of the world’s largest privately held companies. With its size and scope, Cargill can scale quickly and likely won’t face any supply hiccups, which have plagued both Beyond and Impossible in the past.

These are the first plant-based meat products from Cargill, but the company has been bulking up its alternative protein involvement over the past few years, including investments in pea protein producer Puris (which supplies Beyond Meat) totaling $100 million.

That is just a drop in a bucket compared to the $7 billion Cargill has invested in animal protein in the last five years. Despite dipping its toe into the alt-protein space, the company is still known globally for its involvement in animal agriculture, including the trade of beef’s two main feed sources: corn and soy.

Cargill is far from the only Big Meat company diversifying into alternative protein. Tyson and Perdue have both rolled out blended meat products; that is, offerings that are a mixture of meat and plants. Last year pork producer Smithfield debuted a line of plant-based ground meat and patties. Others, like Nestlé and Unilever, have taken the acquisition route and bought Sweet Earth Foods and the Vegetarian Butcher, respectively.

Like this growing list players, Cargill claims it’s not moving away from meat, but rather diversifying its offerings to meet the growing demand for protein of all stripes. Brian Sikes, leader of Cargill’s global protein and salt business, summed it up in the release: “Whether you are eating alternative or animal protein, Cargill will be at the center of the plate.” Come April, we’ll see if the global company’s new products have the taste to make that statement true.

Crikey! Australia’s v2food Raises $35M for Plant-Based Meat

Australian startup v2food announced late yesterday that it has raised a $35 million Series A round. The round was led by Main Sequence Ventures and Horizon Ventures (which has also backed Impossible Foods), with participation from Sequoia Capital China and Marinya Capital.

According to a press release, v2food will use their new dollars to expand R&D and build a new production facility in Australia, which they plan to open in 2020.

The startup claims that theirs is the largest Series A investment in plant-based food to date, and not just in Australia.

v2food works with Australia’s national science agency CSIRO to develop a range of plant-based meat products meant to accurately mimic the real thing. The company’s first product, a meatless patty, is currently sold in the Rebel Whopper at Hungry Jack’s, Australia’s version of Burger King. Next up, they plan to develop their brand and sell to more outlets, though the release didn’t specify if they would be targeting foodservice or retail.

Jack Cowin, founder of Hungry Jack’s, invested $1 million to help v2food and CSIRO develop the plant-based patty for the Rebel Whopper. When we covered the news back in May, I was skeptical that one million would be enough to actually create a good-tasting meat alternative. It seems that the other shoe has dropped, and it’s filled with lots and lots of money.

Right now the Australian alternative protein market is pretty sleepy. Beyond Meat and Moving Mountains are available Down Under, but the region doesn’t have many companies actually developing their own plant-based meat products. So v2food has a clear runway to become the biggest local alternative protein brand.

However, the startup has ambitions outside of its home country, too. In an interview with Smart Company, v2food’s CEO Nick Hazell said that he wants to expand into the Asia-Pacific region over the next 12 months. Considering how gigantic the market is there, and the impending meat price hikes in the wake of China’s African Swine Flu outbreak, that’s a smart idea. But it will require massive cash inputs for scaling and marketing, especially as players like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat make good on their promise to break into Asia.

In short, v2food will need every one of its new $35 million dollars to make it happen.

Tyson Expands Raised & Rooted Footprint, But Will Anyone Actually Care about Blended Burgers?

On its earnings call this week, Tyson Foods gave some updates on its Raised & Rooted alternative protein brand which it announced in June. According to the call, the brand’s plant-based “chicken” nuggets, made with plants and egg whites, are now available in 7,000 stores. Tyson also stated it would begin shipping its blended burgers — made with a mixture of beef and plant protein — later this month.

Since there are already plenty of faux chicken nuggets in the frozen grocery aisle, it’s the blended burger bit that’s more intriguing to us at The Spoon. Especially since Whole Foods just named “blended, less beefy burgers” one of its top 10 food trends of 2020.

In theory, blended burgers seem like a good idea. Replacing part of the beef with plant protein is an easy way to cut down on animal products without being too radically “anti-meat” or alienating hardcore carnivores. And in settings like cafeterias, where people might not even know that they’re eating meat cut with plants, that approach might work out.

Blended meat is still pretty new so it’s too soon to say for sure how these blended offerings will resonate (or not resonate) with consumers. But I’m not optimistic. My guess is that in trying to appeal to so many people, companies making blended burgers might actually end up appealing to very few. Carnivores will continue to choose meat, health nuts will go with lower-fat turkey, and those with strong environmental or ethical motivations will likely opt for plant-based options.

All of which is to say, despite the stamp of approval from folks like Whole Foods, I’m not sure that blended meat is actually a juicy enough offering to draw in consumers. When we already have plant-based offerings like Impossible and Beyond that taste pretty darn close to the real thing, what’s the point of getting something that’s not quite meat but not quite plants? It seems like flexitarians would be more keen to choose one path or the other.

There is one edge that Raised & Rooted’s burgers have over Beyond and Impossible though, and that’s health. Tyson’s blended patties contain 40 percent fewer calories and 60 percent less saturated fat than typical beef burgers. Plant-based options from Beyond and Impossible, however, are comparable to beef in terms of calorie content and fat — something they’ve attracted a lot of flack about lately. Then again, if consumers want a meaty burger option with fewer calories than beef or plant-based beef, they could always opt for turkey or bison burgers.

Tyson isn’t the only Big Meat company betting on blended meat. Rival Hormel sells Blend Burgers, in both turkey and beef, under its Applegate brand. Chicken behemoth Perdue announced a line of blended chicken products — half white meat chicken, half plant protein — shortly before Tyson unveiled Raised & Rooted. Our Head Editor Chris Albrecht tried the nuggets (as did his eight-year-old) and liked them just fine, but said there wasn’t enough of a value add to entice him to purchase them again. Instead, he’d rather just feed his kid nicer chicken and vegetables, separately.

I think that ambivalence will hold true for the blended meat space overall. Blended burgers are just fine — but when so many companies are vying to be your protein pick in the grocery aisle, fine just isn’t good enough.

A Win for Veggie Burgers: Mississippi to Table Rigid Plant-based Meat Labeling Restrictions

In a win for free speech and veggie burgers everywhere, yesterday Mississippi officially revised its restrictive labeling rules around plant-based meat. The original regulations restricted companies from using traditional meat terms like “burger,” “hot dog,” and indeed “meat” on their packaging, even when preceded by terms like “vegan” or “plant-based,” arguing that the lingo could confuse consumers. This despite the fact that we’ve been buying veggie burgers for decades.

Mississippi’s restrictive meat labeling legislation went into effect in July of this year. In response, the Plant Based Food Association (PBFA) and member company Upton’s Naturals immediately sued the state, claiming that the new rules were a violation of the First Amendment. As a result of the lawsuit, the Mississippi Department of Agriculture proposed a new regulation in September that would let plant-based meat companies use terms like “veggie burger” and “vegan hot dog.” Yesterday that regulation took effect.

Mississippi wasn’t the only state to institute such strict labeling rules over the past year or so. Arkansas, Missouri, and a dozen other states have also banned a myriad of meat labeling terms. Under many of the states’ rules, each “offense” could be punishable by a $1,000 fine or one year in jail.

But plant-based meat wasn’t going to take these restrictions lying down. In August of last year the PBFA, Tofurky, the ACLU, and the Good Food Institute formed a coalition to sue Missouri, arguing that the new rules violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The group also challenged similar laws in Arkansas.

Jaime Athos, the CEO of Tofurky and President of the Board of the PBFA, spoke with me about the labeling issue in depth at SKS 2019 last month. There he told me that these labeling bills are a result of pressure from meat lobbies, which are threatened by the recent astronomical growth of the plant-based meat sector. They don’t actually serve the consumer. In fact, he argued that they could actually end up confusing the consumer, since people have been buying veggie burgers and vegan hot dogs for decades.”It’s insulting to the consumer,” he said.

It seems that at least in Mississippi, Tofurky has successfully netted a win for plant-based meat. But there are still many other battlefronts they have to win. “We hope that other states that introduced similar legislation in the past year, including Arkansas and Missouri, take note of Mississippi acknowledging and accepting already-used, clear qualifying terms such as ‘meat-free,’ ‘meatless,’ ‘plant-based,’ ‘vegetarian,’ and ‘vegan’ to describe plant-based protein products,” Athos wrote in an email statement to The Spoon.

Months ago, Athos told me that he and the coalition were fighting to establish a precedent with one of their three suits which would eventually kill all plant-meat labeling laws. This latest win with Mississippi could be just the precedent they were hoping for.

Impending Global Pork Shortage Could Mean Big Things for Plant-Based Bacon

Bacon lovers, prepare to tighten your belts. According to Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, the U.S. could experience shortages of ham and pork bellies as early as 2020 (h/t Bloomberg).

The shortage is due to an epidemic of African Swine Flu, which is rampaging through China’s pork industry. It’s so severe that NPR estimates that by the end of 2019, China’s pig population could be cut in half. Since China currently cultivates roughly half of the pork in the world, the outbreak will have some serious ripple effects on global pork consumption — ones that we will feel in the U.S. in the form of rising prices in the pork section of the grocery store.

That’s bad news for people who loves their bacon, ham, and pork chops. But it could be very good news for the growing number of companies producing plant-based pork products, especially bacon.

Several companies are developing their own alternative versions of the popular breakfast meat, or making technology to help others do so. Startups Hooray Foods and Prime Roots are both in the (very) early stages of commercializing their alt-bacon, and there have been murmurs that Beyond Meat is adding bacon to its product roadmap. Ecovative makes mushroom root scaffolds for meat alternatives, which it has successfully tested to create vegan bacon. Even Big Food is getting in on it: just last week, Nestlé announced it had developed its own version of animal-free bacon to complement its plant-based Awesome burger.

When it comes to other pork products, however, there are fewer options. Beyond makes a plant-based sausage, and there are products peddling jackfruit as an alternative to pulled pork. Right Treat in Hong Kong sells Omnipork, an alternative to ground pork geared towards Asian palates. However, we could start seeing new players creating a variety of plant-based pork products if China’s shortage continues.

According to the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world. That means that there’s not only a huge opportunity for companies to develop pork alternatives, but also a pressing need for them to do so if outbreaks like the one in China continue.

Bacon seems a tasty place to start.

Novameat Gains New Funds to Take Its 3D Printed Plant-based Steak to Market

At the Good Food Conference in San Francisco last week, Novameat, a Spanish startup developing meat alternatives through 3D printing, announced it had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from New Crop Capital.

Novameat uses patented 3D-printing technology to “print” plant-based meat with the same fibrous texture of the real thing. According to founder Giuseppe Scionti, whom I talked to, the company’s special 3D printer uses syringes filled with plant protein to extrude cuts of meat that mimic the muscles of animal tissue. He said the company will use the new funding to do more demonstrations of his 3D printed steak, scale up the technology, grow his team of four, and expand beyond Europe.

Extrusion is how most plant-based meat companies make vegan protein look like real chicken nuggets, tuna chunks, etc. But Scionti told me that his machine is unique since it can make whole cuts of muscle, such as a steak or chicken breast. He also said that they could better imitate meat texture since 3D printing allows for micro extrusion on a large scale. “If you want to get material like beefsteak you want to control both micro texture and macro texture,” he told me. So instead of extruding out a piece of protein that is meant to be a whole chicken nugget, he can print out individual lines that look and chew like the network of muscle fibers that make up a large cut of meat.

Novameat’s technology also opens up possibilities for novel ingredients. Scionti doesn’t want to use wheat or soy in his printed meats for environmental reasons, and also because he said their texture isn’t quite as meat-like. His 3D printer apparently adapts to a wider range of plant proteins, such as pea (a favorite of Beyond Meat), which can be combined to take on the unique texture of almost any cut of meat.

NOVAMEAT - by EIT-Food

Instead of creating his own line of branded products, Novemeat will employ a meaty SaaS model by licensing out the technology to plant-based meat manufacturers. In addition to the 3D printer itself, his team will also work with individual partners to develop the optimal “recipe” of proteins to create their ideal meat substitute.

Scionti even told me he’s envisioning partnerships with high-end restaurants. He would rent them the machine, likely for a low cost, and provide them Nespresso-like capsules they could use to print their own custom cuts of “meat.”

Novameat hopes to bring its technology to restaurants and retail (through partners) within 5 years or so. As of now its 3D printed steaks still haven’t been put to a public taste test, so it’s too early to say if their technology will truly, as Scionti is hoping, usher in a new wave of more realistic whole cuts of meat. But if successful, it could open the door to an entirely new segment of plant-based meat products, such as whole T-bone steaks or pork chops.

However, Novameat could have some competition. In Israel, Redefine Meat is also using 3D printing to make vegan cuts of meat, including beef. They’re not using 3D printing, but Impossible Foods is also tackling plant-based steak. And new scaffolding technologies, such as the mushroom root-based ones from Atlast Food, are hoping to make it easier for meat alternative companies to make complicated cuts of meat like chicken breast and bacon.

Of course, with the soaring popularity of alternative meat right now, it likely won’t be a zero-sum game for whole plant-based cuts of meat — especially if Novameat’s 3D printing technology is really as innovative as Scionti claims.

But all bets could be off when cell-based meat, which re-creates animal tissue in the lab, comes to market. For example, Israeli startup Aleph Farms is developing cultured steak meant to taste and chew exactly like the real thing because it’s made of actual animal cells.

Then again, cultured meat is a ways from hitting the market, and even further away from creating whole, thick cuts of meat (right now Aleph Farms’ steak is only the thickness and size of a credit card). Which means that plant-based options like Novameat have a while to put their stake (er, steak) in the meat alternative space before competition becomes too fierce.