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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

plant-based chicken

Beyond Meat Expands Its Chicken Tenders Footprint to Get a Leg Up

California-based Beyond Meat continues its drive to satisfy plant-based consumers by expanding the presence of its chicken tenders in high-profile retailers. Beginning April 12, Beyond will add Albertsons, CVS, Sprouts, and Whole Foods Market stores nationwide to its roster. Krogers and its brands (Fry’s, Food 4 Less, QFC, Ralph’s) will add the product throughout April. Beyond’s September 2021 announcement of the new product revealed an initial slate of retail partners led by Walmart.

The plant-based chicken market is highly competitive, given the riches at stake. SPINS, a data technology company, reported that the plant-based chicken market grew from $230.7 million in May 2020 to $271.8 million one year later. Others in this crowded space include Singapore’s TiNDL; Impossible Foods; Rebellyous Foods; Nowadays; Gardein; among others.

Beyond the supermarket shelf, food service in fast-food joints and restaurants has become a crucial channel to market for plant-based chicken. Beyond Meat’s poultry is in regional players such as Flyrite, Next Level Clucker; Plow Burger; Panda Express; and KFC (fried chicken). Globally, Beyond Meat products, including the Beyond Burger, Beyond Beef, and Beyond Sausage, are available at approximately 130,000 retail and foodservice outlets in more than 90 countries.

“Building on the positive momentum of our recent chicken launches, we’re excited to significantly expand the availability of our Beyond Chicken Tenders by showing up in more places for our consumers – from their favorite supermarket or drugstore to large warehouse clubs – making delicious, nutritious and sustainable plant-based meat more accessible than ever before,” said Deanna Jurgens, Chief Growth Officer, Beyond Meat in a company release.

Beyond Meat’s chicken nuggets are made primarily from faba (fava) beans with breading comprised of wheat and rice flour. They also contain pea protein, wheat gluten, spices, oil, and a mix of natural flavors. They are soy-free (although the label says they may contain soy from shared manufacturing facilities).

The plant-based chicken market has the potential to be a giant, ticking time bomb. While all matters of faux poultry hit grocery store shelves and eateries, not far off in the distance are a host of cultured products that will rival—and possibly outperform—their plant-based predecessors (provided the newer alternatives can scale). With governmental approval possible by the end of the year, companies such as Eat Just’s GOOD Meats division will be able to sell their cultivated chicken products in the U.S. The San Francisco-based company received approval from Singapore to sell its new product in Singapore, one of two countries where cultured or lab-grown meat is legal. The Netherlands recently allowed samples of this futuristic form of meat to be distributed.

As far as Beyond’s entry into the lab-grown or cultivated meat and poultry market, the company says its current commitment is to plant-based food. “We remain focused on our mission to create products that address the four growing global issues of climate change, human health, the constraint on natural resources, and animal welfare,” a company spokesperson told The Spoon. “We are incredibly proud of our approach to building meat from plants as an accessible and delicious way for consumers to make a positive impact on these areas.”

TiNDLE Plant-Based Chicken is Coming to the US Soon. But How Does It Taste?

Next Gen Foods of Singapore launched its flagship plant-based chicken product, TiNDLE, just 11 months after its founding in April 2020. Three months later, the company began its international expansion—bringing TiNDLE to over 130 restaurants worldwide, from Hong Kong to the U.A.E.

Now, Next Gen is introducing TiNDLE in the U.S. This week, the company will offer a sneak peek of the product at the Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival. The team is currently working with chefs to bring TiNDLE to restaurant menus next year.

This week, I met up with company co-founder and CEO Andre Menezes at Next Gen’s New York City tasting room to learn more about the anticipated launch—and try TiNDLE myself.

According to Menezes, the Wine & Food Festival sneak peek is part of Next Gen’s international strategy, which hinges on building partnerships with sought-after food names and brands. “We’re working toward launching in food havens around the world,” he said. “We’re targeting the coolest places, the best chefs, the restaurants consumers love to visit.”

I tasted the two dishes featured at the festival: a lotus leaf bao wrap with veggie slaw and a parm slider on a brioche bun. TiNDLE appeared as a breaded patty in both dishes, although there are other ways to cook the product.

Both dishes were flavorful, creative, and fun to eat. The TiNDLE was satisfyingly crunchy, with none of the wet sponginess that I associate with fast food chicken patties. It had a defined, fibrous texture, an appealing bite, and a rich, convincingly chicken-y taste. A more chicken-y taste, I thought, than some actual chicken products. Menezes said that that’s because the company didn’t set out to recreate the taste of a chicken breast; they wanted their products to taste more like a wing or a thigh.


In developing TiNDLE, the team wanted to figure out what people love about chicken and then develop a food ingredient that would maximize those beloved qualities—which turned out to be chicken’s fibrous texture, smell and taste, and versatility.

The fibrous texture is achieved via extrusion. To mimic the flavor of chicken, the team uses a proprietary, sunflower oil-based emulsion called Lipi™. “As an emulsion, it goes within the fibers just like fat does,” said Menezes.

As for versatility, Menezes said the team wanted to create “a product that chefs can really play with, like Playdoh.” Rather than offering preformed products like burgers, they’re working closely with chefs to see what TiNDLE can do.

One of the items on Next Gen’s tasting room menu, a miso ramen dish, incorporates TiNDLE in noodle form: instead of chicken and noodles, an actual (plant-based) chicken noodle. Menezes mentioned a chef who rolled the product out like dough and cut it into flower shapes, and another who put it on top of a sushi roll, then cooked it with a torch.

Menezes said that the company has developed the technology to manufacture whole cuts as well as nuggets and tenders, and that one day, they’ll explore those options. But first, they’re working on growing their brand worldwide through restaurant partnerships.

“We believed that if we really wanted to drive food system change, we needed to be global from day one,” he said. At the outset, the team wanted to address both current meat consumption in the U.S. and Europe, and fast-growing consumption in Asia.

Next Gen focuses on controlling product development, branding, and operations internally. The company builds local teams as it expands, and partners with external contract manufacturers and distributors. Production is currently based in the Netherlands, but Menezes said the team is interested in partnering with U.S. manufacturers, and potentially using the U.S. as an export platform for Canada and Mexico.

The company will use its $30 million extended seed investment to build global operations and supply chains this year. In 2022, they plan to launch at restaurants in the U.S. and Europe. After that, they may eye other plant-based spaces, like dairy and seafood.

How will Next Gen compete in the diversifying alternative protein industry? According to Menezes, Next Gen is all about expanding the plant-based category, and the team doesn’t see other companies as rivals. “Our competition isn’t other startups,” he said. “Our competition is birds.”

Why Plant-Based Nuggets are Gold

When I think of chicken nuggets, I think of my young son. More specifically, I remember how at one point I surreptitiously replaced his animal-based chicken nuggets and tenders with plant-based ones… and he didn’t notice (or didn’t care). That small bit of deception is why I think the plant-based chicken nugget market could be a very big deal.

Plant-based chicken nuggets are nothing new. Companies like Quorn, Morningstar and Gardein have been selling them in the frozen aisles of grocery stores for years now. But things really heated up this month when both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods jumped into the faux poultry ring. Beyond, which had previously piloted plant-based chicken with KFC, announced a couple weeks back that its new tenders are available at 400 restaurants across the country. That announcement was quickly followed by the news that Impossible was unveiling its nuggets to potential restaurant customers this week for a fall rollout.

While both of their plant-based chicken products will debut at restaurants, it’s a no-brainer that their nuggets will eventually make it to store shelves. Both Beyond and Impossible spent a great deal of time last year vastly expanding their national retail sales footprint, all the heavy lifting of getting into stores in done, they now just need to roll out their nuggets.

And it’s on the store shelves where things get interesting, as there will be ton of competition. Not only are the stalwarts like Quorn, Morningstar and Gardein already there, but giants like Tyson has its Raised & Rooted plant-based nuggets, and Target has its own Good & Gather brand. Not to mention there is also a new crop of plant-based nugget startups like Rebellyous, SIMULATE, Nowadays, and Daring Foods competing for your dollar.

Competing for your top dollar, that is. Right now, you have to pay extra for plant-based chicken. A quick look at Safeway shows that an 8-ounce package of Raised and Rooted nuggets is $4.99, compared with a 32-ounce package of traditional animal based nuggets for $7.79. That’s almost four times as much food for a few dollars more.

But this is where Beyond and Impossible can help. While both of their burger products are still more expensive than traditional meat, consumer prices for Beyond and Impossible have steadily come down over the past couple of years. It’s a safe bet that the same will happen for their chicken products. With the brand recognition both Beyond and Impossible have, they should be able to quickly gain market share at retail and exert price pressure on other players in the space.

Another big opportunity for plant-based chicken nuggets and tenders is in schools cafeterias, where nuggets are menu staple. The USDA reports that schools served 5 billion lunches in fiscal year 2019, so it’s no surprise that schools were actually one of Rebellyous’ primary markets before the pandemic shut everything down last year. Also consider that this past May, Impossible received the Child Nutrition (CN) Label authorized by the USDA, which will make it easier for schools to purchase the Impossible Burger. With Impossible running pilots programs with a number of school districts across the U.S., it’s a safe bet the company will get the same regulatory approval for its nuggets.

But the big reason plant-based chicken nuggets and tenders will be huge goes back to my son. Nuggets and tenders are really more of a kids’ food (though, who doesn’t love a good nugget?), and if you can create a reasonable facsimile, they aren’t going to care. It’s not like trying to replicate a filet mignon at a fine dining establishment. Creating a plant-based filet requires “muscle” and fat structures. Plus, consumers have a heightened expectation around what a filet is and should be, so the uncanny valley is much greater. Nuggets, on the other hand, are junk food. (I say that with love) There doesn’t need to be a ton of complexity to make a good nugget. Bread it, flavor it, make sure it looks enough like meat on the inside and there you go. Kids will knock ’em back no fuss no muss.

Until now, burgers have been the star of the plant-based meat world, but don’t be surprised if next year plant-based chicken nuggets take center stage.

Photo from Nature’s Fynd website

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Nature’s Fynd Raises $350M Series C for its Microbial Protein – The protein originates from a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park.

Gathered Foods is Bringing Plant-Based Options to Long John Silver’s – Five locations in California and Georgia now serve Good Catch’s Crab-Free Cakes and Fish-Free Fillets

Multus Media Raises $2.2M for Cultured Meat Serum Replacement – The company says its growth media lasts twice as long as existing serum.

Mzansi Meat Co. is Bringing Cultured Meat to Africa – Representing the food and farming culture of Africa is important to Mzansi Meat Co., and the company will be extracting cells from indigenous cattle breeds.

Impossible Foods Unveiling Plant-Based Chicken Nugget Next Week

Impossible Foods will unveil a new plant-based chicken nugget product next week, with plans to launch to launch it at restaurants in the fall, according to a story on Bloomberg this morning. The nugget will be made from soy protein and sunflower oil, but will not include heme, an ingredient used in its plant-based burgers to make them “bleed.”

Honestly, it would be more surprising if Impossible didn’t make a plant-based chicken nugget because everyone is getting into that game nowadays. In addition to the smaller upstarts like Rebellyous, Daring, SIMULATE and Nowadays, Impossible’s big plant-based burger rival, Beyond Meat, just announced its own chicken tenders for restaurants last week. With two well-known brands in Impossible and Beyond now getting into plant-based nuggets, what will that mean for those other companies just starting out?

Chicken is the most consumed meat in the U.S., and the Good Food Institute reports that sales of plant-based meat have grown 72 percent over the past two years, with the market now worth $1.4 billion. Combine those two data points and it’s no wonder so many companies are vying for your dollar. The opportunity in plant-based nuggets is also slightly different than plant-based burgers. Kids eat a lot of chicken nuggets and are (at least in my experience) less likely to notice a plant-based substitute. Burgers, however, are enjoyed by kids and adults alike, and adults are less likely to be “fooled” by a plant-based burger analog (or may even be hesitant to try them out at all). Nuggets could also be the tip of the spear for both Impossible and Beyond to get into other breaded chicken products like patties.

Of course all of that hinges on these nuggets reaching price parity with traditional animal based ones. Though the price of Impossible’s burger has come down over the years, it’s still more expensive than actual beef.

An Impossible rep told Bloomberg that unlike with its burgers, the company isn’t using heme for its nuggets because they are a white meat product. Also worth noting in the Bloomberg story is that Beyond’s new chicken tender uses titanium dioxide as an additive, which the In May, the European Food Safety Authority no longer considers safe.

Bloomberg writes that Impossible will be showing off its new nuggets to potential customers next week at a trade show. Like it did with its Impossible burgers, the plant-based nuggets will then first appear in restaurants this fall before heading to retail. One big difference this time around is that Impossible now has an extensive retail network already in place that will make the launch of its nuggets that much easier and faster.

Next Gen Foods Raises $20M, Will Bring its Plant-Based Chicken in the U.S.

Next Gen Foods, which makes a plant-based chicken brand TiNDLE, announced yesterday that it has raised a $20 million extension of its seed round. This extension includes new investors such as Global Fund GGV Capital, Bits x Bites, Yeo Hiap Seng, as well as existing investors Temasek and K3 Ventures. This latest round follows Next Gen’s $10 million raise in March of this year and brings the company’s total amount of funding to $30 million.

Singapore-based Next Gen Foods first launched its TiNDLE brand through restaurants in the spring of this year. TiNDLE is made from soy protein, wheat gluten, wheat starch, and sunflower and coconut oils, and contains 17 grams of protein per serving. The company says TiNDLE is now sold in more than 70 restaurants in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau.

With its new money, Next Gen says it will expand into the U.S. market and hire more than 50 employees that will primarily be based in the San Francisco Bay Area. At the same time, Next Gen will continue its expansion across the APAC and Middle East, and establish a research and development center in Singapore.

Next Gen Foods is entering the U.S. market at a time when there are more plant-based chicken options than ever. Other startups making forays into the plant-based chicken space include SIMULATE, Rebellyous, Daring, and Nowadays. Not to mention Beyond Meat, the publicly traded plant-based giant, which just launched its own plant-based chicken tenders for restaurants this week.

That so many companies are vying to create a plant-based chicken alternative isn’t surprising given that chicken is the most consumed meat in the U.S., Next Gen’s product could help it stand out in that competitive field however, because its chicken isn’t a nugget or a tender. It’s more of a meat analog that the company says can be prepared using a number of different techniques (grilling, frying, etc.) across a range of cuisines.

SIMULATE, Maker of NUGGS Plant-Based Chicken, Raises $50M

SIMULATE, the company behind the NUGGS plant-based chicken brand, announced today that it has raised $50 million in Series B funding. The round was led by SEVEN SEVN SIX, with participation from Chris & Crystal Sacca, NOMO Ventures, McCain Foods, Imaginary Ventures and Day One Ventures. This brings the total amount of funding raised by SIMULATE to $61 million.

The company’s first product, NUGGS, is a pea protein-based “chicken” nugget the company launched through mail order two years ago. In March of 2020, SIMULATE launched its nuggets at retail, and in July of last year it introduced its second product, the DOGGS faux hot dogs. SIMULATE has since expanded its lineup with SPICY NUGGS and DISCS (fake chicken patties). According to the press announcement sent to The Spoon, NUGGS are now available at more than 5,000 retail locations. The company will add another 10,000 retail locations by the end of this year.

SIMULATE’s funding comes at a time of growth for the plant-based meat category. According to the Good Food Institute, U.S. sales of plant-based meat increased by more than $430 million from 2019 to 2020, with the market now worth $1.4 billion.

However, it also comes at a time of increased competition, especially in the fake chicken nugget space, and SIMULATE will need its bulked up warchest to compete. The company faces pressure from smaller players such as Nowadays, which just raised $2 million, and Rebellyous, which just expanded its retail presence throughout the Northwest. Then there are the larger players such as Target, which recently launched its own line of plant-based nuggets. Meat giant Tyson has its own line of plant-based nuggets as well.

SIMULATE says it will use the new funding to triple its team, speed up the development of new products, scale up manufacturing, expand its retail presence and expand internationally.

Nowadays Raises $2M and Launches First Product, a Plant-Based Chicken Nugget

Max Elder had a pretty good day job. As a former futurist for the appropriately named Institute for the Future, he got paid to look into a crystal ball.

Then he decided to throw that all away to make a difference in the world.

To that end, he left his job last year and went into stealth mode to start a company, the details of which he just unveiled this week.

Elder and his cofounder Dominik Grabinski, a long-time food industry executive, have founded Nowadays, a company which makes plant-based meat, specifically chicken. The company, which raised $1.5 million raised $2 million (editor note: while Tenacious Ventures indicated they’d raised $1.5M, Elder emailed to clarify Nowadays has raised $2 million in total) in pre-seed funding from a group that included Tenacious Ventures and other early stage venture firms, plans to roll out its first product, a plant-based chicken nugget with pea-protein as the primary ingredient, this year in California via direct-to-consumer channels.

To find out more about the decision to start a new career as a plant-based meat entrepreneur, I interviewed Elder yesterday on Clubhouse (where else?).

I asked him how Nowadays is different than other startups in this space. Elder pointed out that most consumers aren’t thinking about saving the world, but just about getting something on the table and, if they can do it in a healthy way, all the better.

“Nowadays was really born out of this assumption that most consumers don’t really want just plant based meat, that removing animals from these products isn’t enough,” said Elder. “The majority of people who are flexitarian, who are looking for an occasional plant based meat alternative, are doing it for health. And nowadays was really started to make plant based meat that is as good for you as it is for the planet.”

In the announcement, Nowadays made clear they would be focused on making healthier, plant-based versions of what is typically categorized as “junk food”. Nuggets clearly fit, but still I wondered why Elder decided to start off in a category where there are already a couple players offering plant-based products.

“Nuggets have a very emotional pull on a lot of American consumers, but they’re also full of junk,” said Elder. “And everyone knows that people who feed their kids nuggets know that they’re junk food. People eat nuggets despite what they are not because of what they are, and to me that’s the best type of category to enter.”

When I asked him directly about rivals like Rebellyous and Nuggs, Elder pointed to Nowadays’ emphasis on a simple and clean ingredient list, while also making clear he doesn’t see these companies as his primary competition.

“I think what we have is a nugget that has the best nutritional profile, and the cleanest ingredient list of any nugget,” said Elder. “I don’t think of our competitor set as Rebellyous and Nuggs. If you’re fighting for 1 percent of the market, you’re in the wrong ring. We’re going after chicken nuggets.”

One of the things I was wondering about is whether Nowadays plans to create other types of meat analogs, and what that might be. Elder made clear that they’ll be sticking with chicken.

“We’re focused on chicken,” said Elder. “I’m deeply concerned about chicken. I’m deeply concerned about the suffering of broiler chickens around the world. We kill about 66 billion of them globally. I also just think that there is a huge environmental crisis.”

Elder said they plan on creating a gluten free version of their nuggets, but then will also explore other types of plant-based chicken products beyond the nugget.

“We are focused on other formats of chicken products using our proprietary blend of of pea protein and ingredients to extrude whole cuts of meat. So the next product is going to be a tender. “

Beyond that, Elder said Nowadays is exploring plant-based chicken breasts and products like schnitzels.

The company raised $1.5 million and Elder said they plan on raising a bigger seed round at the end of this year as they scale beyond their initial direct-to-consumer phase in the California market.

You can hear my full conversation with Max by clicking play below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get our podcasts.

Rebellyous Reformulates its Plant-Based Chicken, Officially Launches at Retail

Rebellyous announced today a new formulation for its plant-based chicken as well as the addition of patties and tenders to its product lineup. The company also said it is officially kicking off its retail program starting with stores across the Pacific Northwest U.S.

I spoke with Rebellyous Founder and CEO, Christie Lagally by phone this week to find out more about the company’s new formulation. Basically it’s a new ratio of soy and wheat structured in a way that shreds more like actual chicken. Lagally said the breading on the outside is new as well, a deviation from the crumb-y texture of its previous formulation. The new breading will make Rebellyous’ chicken more akin to what you would find at QSR.

Rebellyous is also officially launching its foray into retail today. The company was originally more of a B2B play, selling to places like school and hospital cafeterias as well as restaurants. When the pandemic hit last year, however, many of those outlets shut down, forcing Rebellyous to divert the product it had made into retail.

With its trio of new products, Rebellyous is now going to retail intentionally, complete with a comprehensive marketing plan. “This is our official CPG rollout,” Lagally said.

Rebellyous products will be available starting this week at 20 different store brands throughout Washington and Oregon, as well as at a number of select restaurants in the Seattle area (where Rebellyous is headquartered). The MSRP for each product is $5.99. Per package, there are 15 nuggets, six tenders and three patties. By comparison, Incogmeato’s plant-based nuggets from MorningStar cost $5.27 for 16 nuggets at a Pacific Northwest Walmart.

While the pandemic may have forced Rebellyous into retail prematurely, that may wind up being in the company’s favor. Sales of plant-based meat have grown over the past few years and shot up during the pandemic. “There is just a lot of demand for these products,” from retailers, Lagally said.

As such, Lagally said that Rebellyous is ramping up production, and will go from making a couple thousand pounds of product a week to 40,000 pounds a month over the next few months.