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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

plant-based cheese

Why GFA’s Unceremonious Drop of Climax is a Big Win For the Company & the Plant-Based Cheese Category

For the past week, the alt-protein world has been abuzz about the news that the Good Food Awards had quietly dropped Climax Food from the list of finalists and, according to Climax, snatched the winner’s trophy from them due to a convoluted and confusing set of rationalizations by the organization.

Washington Post broke the story last weekend in an article titled A vegan cheese beat dairy in a big competition. Then the plot curdled (is there a title for best article headlines? If so, WaPo may have just ran away with it).

The article detailed how Climax was listed among the finalists when the GFA announced them in January and how Climax was quietly informed that same month that they had actually won it all. An uproar among industry insiders ensued, fueled by a blog post from well-known cheese industry influencer Janet Fletcher, questioning whether vegan cheese is actually cheese. The post featured quotes from traditional cheesemakers who, unsurprisingly, felt that cheese not made from animal milk should not be included.

“My take is that it’s not really cheese,” said cheesemaker Mateo Kehler of Jasper Farms in the post.

The story took a turn when Climax Foods CEO Oliver Zahn was informed by the WaPo journalist working on the story that Climax had been taken off the list of finalists and, as he would soon learn, had been disqualified from the competition altogether. From there, Climax and GFA provided differing accounts of what happened, with GFA offering up a confused and convoluted explanation that seemed to hinge on the fact that Climax had included Kokum butter in its original entry, an ingredient that they claim is not designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe). Zahn claimed that the entry requirements didn’t specify that ingredients needed to be GRAS-certified, a claim backed up by the Internet archive version of the rules as stated in January.

As WaPo was working on the story, Zahn spoke to a few other journalists (myself included) about the news in anticipation of the WaPo story’s release. When I first talked to Zahn, he was worried about the impact of the news and was frustrated that his team had bought tickets and made hotel reservations in anticipation of receiving an award. However, his biggest frustration was that he felt the award would raise the visibility of his product and be an important milestone for the vegan world.

via GIPHY

Above: The Good Food Awards

As it turns out, the controversy surrounding the GFA awards and the organization’s unceremonious retraction of the winner’s trophy might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to Climax and the plant-based cheese category. That’s because it’s clear that even though Climax didn’t receive the award in the end, the publicity from GFA’s rake-step is better and more far-reaching than if the organization had actually gone through with the right thing.

Sure, Climax winning the award would no doubt have been a nice feather in their cap, but would it have gotten them featured as a bit on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert?

Meanwhile… Amazon Cat Returned | Gull Screeching Champion | Vegan Blue Cheese Beats Dairy

When I caught up with Zahn after the WaPo story had come out and dozens of follow-on stories had appeared about the news, he seemed more at peace. Of course, a jump in sales will probably do for you.

“Sales are good,” Zahn told me.

Stepping back, that a panel of judges saw a plant-based cheese as not only on par but actually better than a product made with dairy is forcing the industry and consumers to have a conversation, one in which I imagine many will side with Climax. Sure, today many in the industry are claiming distinctions without a difference when it comes to the actual final product, saying things like real cheese “has a story” and plant-based cheeses aren’t “agricultural products” (huh?). But in the long run, when consumers happily begin choosing great-tasting vegan cheese, the industry (and the GFA) will have to follow their lead.

You can watch my interview with Oliver below.

Climax's Oliver Zahn Talks About Good Food Awards Controversy

New Culture Believes Its Animal-Free Casein Will Help Grow the Alt.Cheese Market

It might sound like a scene from “Forest Gump,” but consumers love cheese–sliced, diced, shredded, spread, liquid, and chunked. Globally, according to Expert Market Research, we’re looking at a space that reached a value of about $75.46 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.8% in the forecast period of 2023-2028, reaching a value of approximately $109.85 billion by 2026. Any way you look at it, that’s a lot of cheddar.

While David-like com-compared to the Goliath dairy-based cheese world, alternative cheese—that is, “cheese” made without products that come directly from animals—is gaining steam and popularity. Future Market Insights states that the global cheese alternative market reached a  market valuation of $4.3 billion in 2022, accelerating with a CAGR of 8.3% by 2022-2032 to reach a value of $9.6 billion by 2032.

What alt.cheesemakers know is that one of the keys to producing animal-free cheese is the production of animal-free casein. Casein, which predominantly comes from cow’s milk, is a protein that is a critical ingredient in cheese-making. California-based New Culture has a solution that can make casein at scale without animal milk using precision fermentation. The company says its mozzarella will debut at pizzerias around the United States in 2023.

In a recent interview, New Culture told The Spoon about the company and its future trajectory.

How is your company different from Change Foods, which also says it is making animal-free casein?

At New Culture, we’ve proven our ability as the industry leader to produce animal-free casein at scale efficiently. This is critical in enabling us to produce delicious animal-free mozzarella, drive down cost, unlock broad distribution, and succeed in our mission to lead the change to an animal-free dairy future. We’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback from a wide range of chefs, pizzaiolos, and pizza lovers who have been able to enjoy our melty, stretchy cheese cooked in ovens up to 800 degrees.

We’re focused on creating a future with delicious animal-free cheese that positively impacts the environment and the global food system, and we’re excited about the rapidly expanding ecosystem working toward that goal. 

Are you involved in the entire process, including making the cheese or animal-free protein?

New Culture makes animal-free cheese from end to end, producing our animal-free casein protein and then turning that casein into cheese. Beginning with our mozzarella,  we combine our animal-free casein with water, plant-based fat, and a touch of sugar, vitamins, and minerals. We use traditional cheese-making to create the final product. Unlike conventional cheese, ours is free from lactose, cholesterol, trace hormones, and antibiotics.

To make animal-free mozzarella that tastes like the real deal, we use only the best plant-based fats to produce the perfect mouthfeel and consistency and a dash of plant-based sugars to match the sugar content in cheese that comes from animal milk. We also mix good vitamins and minerals such as calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin B to ensure our cheese provides the dietary profile that cheese eaters expect and the nutritional benefits they deserve.

Do you plan to be B2B or direct to the consumer?

New Culture’s first product is a melty, stretchy, animal-free mozzarella, which we’re planning to launch in pizzerias as our first market. Over time we will develop a complete portfolio of other cheese products, expand into retail (e.g., grocery stores), and sell our animal-free casein to food manufacturers as a B2B ingredient supplier.

How long before you have products in the market, and what will they be?

We are very excited that our first animal-free mozzarella will be available for consumers to taste in 2023. Mozzarella is the most consumed cheese in the US (13 Ibs consumed annually per person – everyone loves pizza!), and we will be the first to market with a pizza cheese made of casein from precision fermentation.

How do you think your product will fare with vegans, given it is animal-free but not strictly vegan?

New Culture cheese is free from all animal inputs and is entirely vegan. We are proud to make a product that vegans and cheese lovers will enjoy. We can do this by producing our animal-free casein protein – the essential protein that makes cheese cheesy – through precision fermentation. Instead of using a cow to produce milk that contains casein proteins, we get mighty microorganisms to make those same casein proteins, but without involving any animals. This food technology has been around for decades and is actually a method already used in the cheese-making process. 

Stockeld Dreamery Raises €16.5 Million for Legume-Based Alternative Cheeses

This week, Swedish plant-based cheese company Stockeld Dreamery announced that it has raised €16.5 million (~$20 million USD) in a Series A round, according to a release sent to The Spoon. Led by Astanor Ventures and Northzone, the funding round also saw participation from new investors, including Trellis Road, Eurazeo, Norrsken VC, Edastra, Gullspång Re:food, and several angel investors. This brings the company’s total funding to around $24 million USD.

Stockeld Dreamery, formerly known as Noquo Foods, launched its first product in May 2021, called Stockeld Chunk. The plant-based cheese is an alternative to feta and is made from a base of fermented peas and fava beans. Similar to feta’s nutritional composition, it contains 20 percent fat, 1.5 percent carbs, and 13 percent protein.

The company is currently hiring and is planning to use the new capital to grow its team from 22 people to about 50. In 2022, Stockeld will move into a pilot production plant and headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

Alternative milk and dairy are the largest categories in the plant-based space, with the alternative cheese category alone growing a total of 42.5 percent in 2020. Stockeld Dreamery is not the only plant-based cheese company to raise a hefty funding round this year; Miyoko’s Creamery raised a $52 million Series C round in August, and Nobel Foods closed a $75 million funding round in July.

For now, Stockeld Dreamery’s first alternative cheese product is only available in select retailers in Stockholm, Sweden. However, the press release mentioned that after moving into its new facility, the company will release new products and expand its distribution outside of the country.

Plant-based Cheesemaker Miyoko’s Creamery Raises $52M Series C

Miyoko’s Creamery, which makes plant-based cheese and butter, announced today that it has raised $52 million in Series C funding. PowerPlant Partners led the round, putting in $40 million, with participation from Cult Capital, Obvious Ventures, Stray Dog and CPT Capital.

Miyoko’s makes a range of vegan dairy products including cultured butter, mozzarella, cheese slices, artisanal cheese wheels and cheese spreads made from fermented plant-milks. The company’s products are currently available in 30,000 stores across the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong and Singapore. With its new funding, Miyoko’s said it will advance both its distribution and product innovation to get “higher nutrient density, performance and flavor.”

According to the Good Food Institute (GFI), the plant-based butter category grew 36 percent from 2019 to 2020 and the category is now worth $275 million in the U.S. GFI data also shows the market for plant-based cheese is even greater with sales of those products growing 42 percent from 2019 to 2020 to make that category worth $270 million.

And where there are growing sales, there are also startups creating products to sell. Miyoko’s is among a rising co-hort of companies offering new and improved plant-based cheeses. Nobell Foods just came out of stealth mode a couple weeks back and announced it has raised $75 million. Stockeld Dreamery launched its first feta-like plant-based cheese in Sweden in May. And Grounded Foods‘ vegan cheese sauce and spread is available for purchase as well.

In its funding announcement today, Miyoko’s said that this year it will launch a liquid pizza mozzarella that pours out like sauce and bakes up into stretchy cheese. The company is also working on a reformulation of its Medium Cheddar and Pepper Jack cheeses.

Spoon founder Mike Wolf sat down with Miyoko’s Creamery Founder, Miyoko Schinner a few months back to talk about her fascinating backstory, which includes run-ins with both the Japanese mafia and a legal battle with the state of California.

Motif Adds New Tech to Bring That Elusive Stretch to Plant-Based Cheese

Motif Foodworks, the food technology spinout of synthetic biology unicorn Gingko Bioworks, announced today that it has added a couple more tools to its plant-based food technology toolbox that will help enhance plant-based meat and cheese products and make them more like the real thing.

According to the press announcement, Motif has gained exclusive commercial rights to these technologies as a result of a collaboration announced last June with researchers at the University of Guelph and private research company Coasun.

As described in the press release, the technologies include:

  • Extrudable fat technology: Unique oleogel technology that replicates animal fat, allowing for more authentic fat textures, such as marbling, in plant-based meats—acquired from Coasun.
  • Prolamin technology: Uses plant-based ingredients to improve the texture of plant-based cheese, allowing it to melt, bubble, and stretch like animal-derived dairy—licensed from the University of Guelph.

Both these technologies address two of the most important shortcomings of plant-based products when it comes to creating realistic analogs. On the fat side, while plant-based minced meat replicas of ground beef or chicken nuggets are pretty realistic nowadays, there’s still some work to create realistic whole cut analogs. By acquiring the technology rights to the work of Dr. Alejandro Marangonia, Motif aims to help its plant-based product partners create more realistic marbling in that new plant-based ribeye steak.

For pizza lovers, the prolamin technology is exciting because it addresses one of the biggest challenges when it comes to creating realistic plant-based cheese: achieving the melty cheese “stretch” effect.

You can see the technology in action in the video from Motif below:

Personally, I’ve found some of the new generation plant-based cheeses from companies like Grounded Foods and Miyoko’s Creamery are pretty darn close to the real thing, but I’m still waiting for a good melty plant-based cheese product. With this news from Motif, hopefully plant-based cheese with that realistic stretch is just around the corner.

Food Tech Show: Building The Plant-Based Creamery with Miyoko Schinner

Miyoko Schinner has had an amazing journey as a plant-based food entrepreneur.

But that doesn’t mean it was easy. Whether it was the early days in Japan where she ran into the Japanese mafia or her initial struggles trying to scale production for her plant-based cheese recipes in the early days of Miyoko’s Creamery, Schinner’s overcome a number of challenges to get to where she is today as one of the most impactful leaders in today’s plant-based food market.

In this episode of The Food Tech Show, I talk to Miyoko about:

  • Her decision to become vegan and how that shaped her career
  • About becoming a plant-based cookbook author
  • The challenges of raising capital for her first company in the 90s
  • Launching Miyoko’s Kitchen and how it was much easier to find interest for her second startup
  • How she overcame the challenges of scaling production towards large production batches for her plant-based dairy products
  • Her work to help farmers transition towards a post-animal agriculture economy
  • Her legal battle with the state of California over the language to describe plant-based cheese and dairy products

You can hear the story by listen to the podcast in the player below, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sweden: Stockeld Dreamery Launching First Plant-Based Cheese This Week

Plant-based cheese startup Stockeld Dreamery (formerly Noquo Foods) will launch its first product, Stockeld Chunk, at select stores in Stockholm, Sweden on May 6. Daniel Skaven Ruben, an early investor and advisor to Stockeld and now the company’s Head of Strategy and Special Projects, published a Medium post today announcing the news.

Stockeld Chunk is made from fermented peas and fava beans and can be crumbled onto either hot dishes or on salad like a feta cheese. It has a similar nutritional composition to feta, with 13 percent protein, 1.5 percent carbs and 20 percent fat. Skaven Ruben is quick to point out in his post that Stockeld isn’t trying to create a “fake” version of feta, only that the product be used like feta.

Stockeld is certainly launching its first plant-based cheese product at the right time. Recent data from the Good Food Institute shows that U.S. retail sales of plant-based cheese rose 42 percent from 2019 to 2020, with 54 million units selling last year making the category worth $270 million.

Plant-based cheese is a tough product to create, as you have to get the taste, texture and melting properties just right. There have been a number of companies making vegan cheese over the years, but a new wave of startups is looking to elevate the product to new heights, and hopefully more widespread acceptance. Grounded Foods and GOOD PLANeT‘s plant-based cheeses are already available, and the more early stage Climax Foods is using machine learning to combine various plant ingredients into different types of cheese.

If you are in Stockholm and want to try out Stockeld’s take on plant-based cheese, it will be available both as part of a dish and a standalone CPG starting May 6 at Pom & Flora, BAK Bakery and cheesemonger Wijnjas Grosshandel.

Noquo Foods Rebrands as Stockeld Dreamery, Readies Launch of Its Plant-Based Cheese

Noquo Foods has rebranded itself as Stockeld Dreamery the company announced today, as it prepares to launch its plant-based cheese product in a little over a month from now.

The Stockholm, Sweden-based startup’s first product will be a feta-like cheese made from fermented pea protein and fava beans. Stockeld Dreamery cofounder and CEO, Sorosh Takavoli, told me by phone last week that his company’s vegan cheese will have a similar nutritional profile to traditional feta in terms of protein and fat, and won’t have any carbs.

Stockeld’s product is beyond the prototype phase and doing a factory launch. Initially, the production run will be limited and sold to foodservice companies and restaurants in Stockholm.

Stockeld raised a $3.6 million seed round a little more than a year ago, and as it re-brands and launches, the company plans to expand its operations as well. Takavoli said they plan to grow the headcount from six to roughly 20 over the next 18 months, and relocate to bigger facilities.

Sales of plant-based cheese lag behind other plant-based categories like milk. But creating a good plant-based cheese to replace traditional dairy cheese is a tricker proposition. In addition to flavor, non-dairy cheese needs to melt properly and have the right texture and mouthfeel. But there are actually a number of startups working to overcome these obstacles. Grounded Foods is using cauliflower to make camembert, guyere and roquefort. GOOD PLANeT makes mozzerella from cocount and potato. And Climax Foods is using data an AI to create new types of plant-based cheese.

While we won’t see plant-based cheese go mainstream this year, both Stockeld Dreamery and Grounded Foods have their cheeses coming to market, so we will definitely get a taste of what is to come.

Loca Food Makes Vegan Queso Cheese from Potatoes

With approximately 65 percent of the global population estimated to be lactose intolerant, it makes sense that the plant-based cheese market is expected to be valued at $4.42 billion by 2027. Plant-based cheeses are commonly made from ingredients like cashews, almonds, coconut, and soy, and a not-so-common ingredient showing up in alternative cheese is potatoes.

Loca Food, based in the Bay Area, is one company that uses potatoes to recreate a plant-based version of classic queso cheese sauce. The company piloted its plant-based queso in several test market outlets in 2019, including Oracle Stadium in San Francisco, the University of San Francisco, and the NVIDIA Corporate campus to name a few. Loca had plans to launch in restaurants, retailers, and ballparks in 2020, but these plans were brought to a halt when the pandemic began.

Cheese was the hardest food to give up when Loca Founder Lauren Joyner started following a plant-based diet, so she wanted to recreate an alternative queso dip that reminded her of her childhood.

“If you’ve been to the South, then you know that cheese dip is central to every gathering,” Joyner told me by phone this week, “It’s always been this food that has brought people together and represented community, fun, and positivity.”

The main ingredients in Loca’s shelf-stable queso are potatoes, carrots, and sunflower oil; all of which are non-GMO. Nutritional yeast provides both a cheesy flavor and several B vitamins. The queso sauce comes in two flavors, Mild and Spicy, and the kick comes from whole, fresh jalapenos that are blended into the sauce.

The unassuming potato might seem like an unlikely ingredient to be found in a plant-based cheese alternative. However, the starchiness of potatoes provides the thickness of traditional queso, and its neutral flavor allows for the desired cheesy flavor to shine through.

Loca’s queso is also an option for those who suffer from common food allergies as it is soy, dairy, nut, and gluten-free. A few other companies make allergy-friendly alternative cheeses from unique ingredients, including Grounded Foods (cauliflower), Noquo (legumes), Legendairy Foods (microbes), and Perfect Day (microbes).

Loca isn’t the only company using potatoes in its plant-based cheese. GOOD PLANeT makes mozzarella cheese shreds and slices from coconut oil and potato starch, and HeartBest uses potato and tapioca starch for its alternative shredded cheese and cream products.

Loca Food has so far raised an undisclosed seed round of funding led by Siddhi Capital and participation from Clear Current Capital, Rose Culinary, and several angel investors. Loca’s products are currently only available on the company’s website, and a two 12 oz jar package costs $25, while a four jar package costs $45. The company’s products will soon be available through Good Eggs (San Francisco) and Pop-Up Grocer (Chicago).

Podcast: Talking Plant-Based Cheese With Grounded Foods’ Veronica Fil

While the plant-based meat and milk space has seen incredible momentum the last couple of years, cheese has been another story.

It’s not that anyone hasn’t tried. Companies like Treeline have been making vegan cheese for a while, and they’ve certainly found their niche among vegans. Still, for those of us non-vegans who want to try some plant-based alternatives for health or sustainability reasons, there hasn’t really been anything out there that’s really close to the real thing.

Until now. Grounded Foods new line up of plant-based cheese, which will start shipping early in 2021, tastes just like the real thing. I had a chance to try some of their early prototypes in February and was blown away. It had the taste, mouth feel and true cheese funkiness that you expect from the real thing.

In short, if what I tried early last year is anything close to the final product, Grounded Foods might do for cheese what Impossible Foods did for beef.

In this episode, I talk with Grounded Foods CEO and cofounder Veronica Fil. who shares the story of how she came up with the idea for a plant-based cheese that appealed to non-vegans. She also shares how she convinced her co-founder and husband, who was running one of the top restaurants in Australia, that making cheese – not running a restaurant – was the big idea they should pursue.

If you haven’t heard Veronica Fil and Grounded Foods’ story, you’ll definitely want to give it a listen. Just click play below, download direct to your device, or find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Grounded Foods Raises $1.74M for its Plant-Based Cheese

Grounded Foods, which makes plant-based versions of different cheeses, announced today that it has raised a $1.74 million seed round of funding (hat tip to vegconomist). Stray Dog Capital led the round, with participation from participation from Rocana Ventures, Veg Invest Trust and the GlassWall Syndicate.

Grounded Foods, which is part of the Big Idea Ventures accelerator, uses a proprietary fermentation process to transform its primary ingredient cauliflower (with some help from other ingredients like hemp and oats) into versions of camembert, grueyere and feta. We tried it earlier this year and found it to be a pretty tasty facsimile of the “real” thing.

And there are very real dollars in recreating “real” cheese. The U.S. cheese market is projected to hit $45.5 billion by 2027. And according to The Good Food Institute, sales of plant-based cheese grew more than 50 percent between 2017 – 2019 to reach nearly $190 million.

But getting a plant-based version of dairy-based cheese isn’t that easy. There are a number of factors that must be overcome including flavor, texture, and meltability.

That’s why there are actually a number of companies working on plant-based cheese right now. Heartbest uses quinoa, araminth and peas and is already sold in markets. GOOD PLANeT Foods uses coconut oil and potato starch and is also widely available at retail. Noquo Foods works with a “stable matrix” of legumes. Legendairy Foods and New Culture are both trying to recreate cheese through microbes in various lab techniques.

As Grounded Foods and all of these other companies perfect their technology and improve their products, it’s easy to see how that number will continue to grow into the future.

No Whey! A Rundown of Alternative Cheese Startups

With summertime here, vegans across the country will be grilling up sizzling Beyond and Impossible burgers . While the burgers themselves may be delicious, there is still a deficit when it comes to non animal-based cheese they want to melt on there.

But the days of lackluster vegan cheese will soon be a thing of the past, as there are a number of startups working on non-dairy cheese — and raising millions to do so. Here’s a list of companies rising up to the cheese challenge:

  • Heartbest is a Mexican startup that recently raised $2 million for its plant-based cheese that uses ingredients like amaranth, quinoa and peas.
  • GOOD PLANeT Foods makes plant-based cheese from coconut oil, potato starch and natural flavorings and is widely available at retail locations like Walmart, Costco and Whole Foods . The company raised $12 million last month to expand production.
  • Grounded Foods uses cauliflower to create cheeses like camembert guyere and roquefort, and is part of the Big Ideas Ventures alternative protein accelerator.
  • Noquo Foods has ditched traditional plant-based ingredients for its product and instead relies on a “stable matrix” of legumes to better replicate cheese. The company raised $3.6 million at the beginning of this year.
  • Legendairy Foods ferments microbes in a process similar to creating insulin and has already created prototypes for mozzarella and ricotta. The German company raised $4.7 million in funding last year.
  • New Culture is also creating mozzarella cheese in the lab, using “recombinant protein technology” that also uses genetically modified microbes to make milk protein. It raised $3.5 million last year.
  • Perfect Day uses fermentation of microbes to recreate cream cheese and feta in the lab and has raised $201 million in funding so far.

Though most of these startups won’t save vegan bbqs this summer, saying (non-animal) cheese, please, is something they’ll definitely be able to do in the not too distant future.