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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

plant-based food

Beyond Meat and PepsiCo Partner Up for Plant-Based Snacks Joint Venture

Beyond Meat and PepsiCo announced today that they are forming the PLANeT Partnership, LLC, a joint venture that will develop snacks and beverages made from plant-based protein. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

The PLANeT Partnership will lean on Beyond Meat’s plant-based protein food expertise and PepsiCo’s massive marketing and commercial sales infrastructure to scale any new product options created.

There are a couple of ways to interpret this news. First, PepsiCo’s involvement is another example of how plant-based protein is going mainstream. According to the Good Food Institute’s 2020 Plant-Based Market Overview, “grocery sales of plant-based foods that directly replace animal products have grown 29% in the past two years to $5 billion.” And those numbers were released before the pandemic, an ongoing event that’s spurred explosive sales of plant-based foods. Meticulous Research projected sales of plant-based foods would “grow at a CAGR of 11.9% from 2020 to 2027 to reach $74.2 billion by 2027.”

So it makes sense for PepsiCo to partner with a well-known brand in the plant-based food space to get in on some of that sweet plant-based money.

In addition to money, there’s another “green” aspect to the partnership: sustainability. One of the main benefits of plant-based foods is that they take less of a toll on the planet. PepsiCo isn’t exactly known as a steward of the environment (though it does run its Greenhouse Accelerator program), and creating the PLANeT Partnership allows them to get a little eco-halo effect and create a line of snacks that will appeal to conscious consumers.

I’m curious to see what role the direct-to-consumer sales channels play in all this. Both PepisCo and Beyond Meat launched D2C channels last year. Obviously PepsiCo has deep in-roads with traditional retail, and in-store is where the big money is. But as shoppers get comfortable with buying more of their groceries online, the PLANeT Partnership has an opportunity to build a robust D2C channel from the ground up and own more of its customer relationship and data.

But mostly, I’m interested to see what actual food comes out of this partnership. Having been in the Beyond Meat test kitchen, I know firsthand that its culinary team is remarkable and have no doubt they could come up with tasty treats.

Now we just need to see if this PepsiCo + Beyond Meat endeavor will get Coca-Cola and Impossible Foods to announce their own partnership.

Impossible Foods Drops its Prices, Bringing More Parity with Animal Products

Impossible Foods announced yesterday that it was cutting the wholesale prices of its plant-based burger and sausage products, giving the meat alternatives more price parity with traditional, animal-based meat.

CNBC reported that domestic food distributors will now pay 15 percent less for Impossible’s burger and sausage alternatives. International distributors will also get price cuts.

An Impossible spokesperson told CNBC that the price for Impossible Burger is now down as low as $6.80 per pound. The average price for a pound of animal beef patties at the start of this year was $5.32. This is the second price drop for Impossible meat over the past year.

Getting price parity with animal meat is essential for mainstream adoption of plant-based alternatives. According to a report from the Good Food Institute in March of 2020, sales of plant-based meat grew more than 37 percent from 2017 to 2019. Early on in the pandemic, sales of plant-based meat skyrocketed 264 percent as traditional meat supply chains were disrupted by COVID-19 and ethical issues arose around the treatment of workers at meat facilities.

Last summer, Impossible Foods rival Beyond Meat brought the price of its plant-based burgers down through its Cookout Classic SKU. That packaging made each Beyond Meat patty $1.60, compared with $2.42 per patty in its other packaging at the time.

The $1 billion plant-based meat industry is still dwarfed by the market for traditional animal meat, which is valued at $95 billion at retail. However, plant-based meat as we now know it is still a nascent category that has only been around for a couple of years, and Impossible only started making its major push into retail last year. Bringing the price of Impossible burger down to a price point the same as animal meat will remove at least one barrier for those interested in switching (or staying with) plant-based alternatives.

A Plant-Based Egg Round-Up

According to the Good Food Institute, the plant-based egg industry is worth $10 million. This is a small number compared to the plant-based milk industry, which is worth a whopping $2 billion; however, the plant-based egg industry has grown by an impressive 228% in the past two years. With the entire plant-based food industry estimated to reach $74.2 billion by 2027, there is plenty of room for the plant-based egg category to continue to grow.

Plant-based eggs are poised to become the next big thing in the plant-based space, and it can be hard to keep up with all of the companies involved in this industry. We’ve pulled together some of the emerging and bigger players in this space.

Eat Just
Funding: $220M
About: After hitting the milestone of selling over 50 million plant-based eggs earlier this year, it is clear that Eat Just is one of the leaders in this industry. The company makes its liquid egg and folded egg patties with mung beans as the main ingredient. Eat Just products are available in retailers and restaurants nationwide (U.S.), and the company announced in October that it is expanding its products into Asia.

Zero Egg
Funding: $8M
About: Zero Egg launched its plant-based egg powder alternative earlier this year in October on World Egg Day. The egg alternative is crafted from soy protein isolate and pea flour and comes in two different varieties: EGG Basics as a direct replacement for scrambles or omelets and BAKE Basics for specialty baking. Zero Egg’s products are available globally to foodservice operators and manufacturers in the US, Europe, and Israel.

Float Foods
Funding: Undisclosed
About: According to Green Queen, Float Foods is the first company in Asia to create a plant-based egg white and yolk. This new product is called OnlyEg, and it is set to become available commercially in 2022. This plant-based egg was developed using a mixture of undisclosed legumes. In September of this year, Float Foods also launched an incubator for plant-based food innovators.

Evo Foods
Funding: $335K
About: This is India’s first plant-based egg start-up, and it has said it will be launching a plant-based liquid egg alternative sometime this year. Evo Foods uses biotechnology to extract protein from lentils for its formula. The product will first be made available D2C on its website and restaurants in India, and the company has plans to launch in the US by April 2021.

Crack’d
Funding: Unknown
About: The company recently announced at the beginning of November that it will be launching its liquid plant-based egg in the UK market. The egg formula is comprised of pea protein, nutritional yeast, and black salt. According to Crack’d, its liquid egg can be used for both baking and creating traditional egg dishes.

Beyond Meat Launches Two New Versions of its Plant-Based Burger

Beyond Meat announced today two new iterations of its plant-based burger, with one version offering a more “meaty” experience and the other being a more nutritious version of it burger, according to the press release.

The new patties don’t have their own dedicated brand names, and in the press announcement are just described by their characteristics. One of the new patties, the juicier/meatier one, will have 35 percent less saturated fat than 80/20 beef. The other new burger, which is being billed as the Beyond’s most nutritious patty yet, will have 55 percent less saturated fat than 80/20 beef. Both new burgers will launch in “early 2021.”

Beyond hinted that this news was coming during its earnings report last week. On that call, Beyond CEO, Ethan Brown, said that its “Beyond Burger 3.0” would make the current version of Beyond “obsolete.”

As a quick aside, this use of “obsolete” is interesting. A little more than a year ago I wrote that as companies like Beyond and Impossible Foods continue to tweak their recipes, food was becoming more like software. From that piece:

The new version of Beyond Meat (and the sister product, Beyond Beef ground) is so much better than the first version. At least for meat eaters and flexitarians who were looking for something like meat, but less ethically and environmentally complicated. As Beyond and Impossible spend more on research and development, they will uncover new ingredients, new combinations and new manufacturing techniques to make their products even better and tastier.

The same can’t be said for traditional animal meat. Sure, there will be varying degrees of quality, but beef is going to always taste and feel like beef, chicken like chicken and pork like pork. The cow (or pig or chicken) is not going to become a different animal.

In other words, this new Beyond Burger 3.0 will one day too, become obsolete. And, there are chances that Beyond will develop the “New Coke” of burgers that people may not like as much. Something to keep an eye on, anyway.

Beyond has been on a product tear this year, debuting plant-based sausage patties, sausage links and meatballs. Oh, and it also helped McDonald’s create its new McPlant sandwich, though the exact details of that relationship remain cloudy.

The timing is certainly right for all these moves. Sales of plant-based meats are on the rise, and were pushed even higher thanks to the pandemic. As a result, both Beyond and Impossible have been in a bit of a back and forth throughout the year, releasing new products, launching D2C channels, vastly expanding at retail and growing internationally.

Given all the back-and-forth, will Impossible announce new iterations to its burgers? The year isn’t over yet…

Zero Egg Raises $5M for Its Plant-Based Egg Product

Zero Egg, which makes a plant-based egg product, announced today that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Powerplant Ventures, with participation from existing investors Unovis Asset Management/New Crop Capital and Strauss Group/The Kitchen Hub. This brings the total amount raised by Zero Egg to $8 million.

Based in Israel, Zero Egg just launched in the U.S. last month. The company’s egg product is a powder made primarily out of soy protein isolate and pea flour. It comes it two forms: the EGG Basis is used for scrambles and omelets, and the BAKE Basics is an egg replacement for baking.

Right now, Zero Egg is a B2B play, selling its egg replacement to food service companies and restaurants, though it plans to eventually sell to consumers. With the new funding, Zero Egg plans to grow its brand in the U.S. and launch new products over the coming year.

Though overall sales of plant-based foods have been growing over the past couple of years, plant-based eggs are a small category. According to the Good Food Institute (GFI), the plant-based egg category was only worth $10 million at the end of 2019. Though GFI noted that while the smallest, it is also the fastest growing category of plant-based foods.

Part of the reason for the small sales numbers for plant-based eggs is that they aren’t a suitable replacement for baking purposes. JUST Eggs, which are made from mung beans, are tasty as part of a burrito, but you wouldn’t make a cake with them. Over in the U.K., Crack’d launched its plant-based egg made from pea protein and nutritional yeast, which the company says can be used to make things like quiches and cookies (something we haven’t tested ourselves).

The Spoon’s Ashlen Weddington was sent a sample of a pre-made Zero Egg patty and thought it was pretty good. With today’s news, a lot more people here in the U.S. will be able to weigh in with their own thoughts on the eggless egg.

UPDATED: McDonald’s to Create its Own “McPlant” Burger, with an Assist from Beyond Meat

UPDATE: After publishing this post, McDonald’s sent us the following:

  • In the same way McDonald’s does not run its own farms, we are not manufacturing our own plant-based meat for the McPlant platform; we will rely on our suppliers, the third leg of McDonald’s three-legged stool (which includes the company, franchisees and suppliers)
  • Beyond Meat was our testing partner for the P.L.T. plant-based burger in Canada
  • We have not announced which suppliers we will work with on McPlant

In its corporate blog post announcing the McPlant, McDonald’s wrote:

Last year, with those customers in mind, we tested our first plant-based burger in select restaurants in Canada. Based on what we learned and an encouraging response, we’re excited to give you a sneak preview of the McPlant – a delicious plant-based burger crafted for McDonald’s, by McDonald’s, and with the kind of craveable McDonald’s flavor our customers love.

In fact, we think our culinary team nailed it. There are other plant-based burgers out there, but the McPlant delivers our iconic taste in a sink-your-teeth-in (and wipe-your-mouth) kind of sandwich. It’s made with a juicy, plant-based patty and served on a warm, sesame seed bun with all the classic toppings.

Does this mean, Beyond could be a supplier for the McPlant? We’ve reached out to McDonald’s for further clarification.

UPDATE 2: Well this tale of two tweets certainly clarifies the situation. Beyond will be helping McDonald’s with its McPlant:

Original post follows:

McDonald’s announced today that it is creating its own line of plant-based meats dubbed, appropriately enough, “McPlant.” The McPlant will begin testing in markets next year and will be applied to both beef and chicken substitutes.

There’s been a big question mark around what McDonald’s plant-based strategy would be. Sales of plant-based meats have surged over the past couple of years, making the potential flexitarian market undeniable. While QSRs like White Castle and Burger King have rolled out versions of their burgers with Impossible Foods,McDonald’s has been relatively quiet about any forays it might make, at least here in the U.S.

After some tests with Beyond Meat in Canada, and the fact that a former McDonald’s CEO sits on Beyond’s board, there was speculation that Beyond would become Mickey D’s plant-base burger provider of choice. But that turned out to not be the case and McDonald’s decided to develop its own product internally. (See update above for clarification provided after this post went live.)

Having a heavyweight jump into the faux meat space could be a rising tide that lifts all plant-based boats. One Marketplace estimate from a few years back suggested that McDonald’s potentially sells more than 2 billion burgers a year. If the company can even convert a small percentage of its customer base to a plant-based alternative, that could spur those same people to seek out and buy more plant-based meats from their grocers and elsewhere. Getting millions of people to reduce their meat intake would also have benefits to the environment and our planet.

We are in a golden age of meat alternatives, with the likes of Impossible, Beyond and more developing products that are closer and closer to the real thing. Now the question is, can the golden arches push the whole plant-based sector forward?

VEAT Raises €0.5M Pre-Seed Round, Launches Vending Machine for Plant-Based Foods

Swedish startup VEAT, which makes vending machines that dispense plant-based grab-and-go food, announced today that it has raised a €0.5 million (~$.7 million USD) pre-Seed round of funding. Investors in the round include Pale Blue Dot, Robert Ahldin, Erik Segerborg, Purple Orange Ventures, and Shio Equity.

According to the press announcement emailed to The Spoon, VEAT vending machines will offer a selection of salads, wraps, ready-to-heat meals as well as drinks and snacks. Prices for meals range from 29 Swedish Krona ($3.37 USD) to 85 Swedish Krona ($9.89 USD).

The first VEAT machine was deployed in Stockholm, Sweden earlier this month, and future machines will be placed in large department stores, co-working spaces and office buildings. The company plans to launch 10 machines before the end of the year in Stockholm.

VEAT sits nicely in the middle of a couple of trends we are following here at The Spoon. The first is the continued growth in sales of plant-based foods, which received an extra boost this year as the pandemic highlighted ethical and logistical problems with animal-based meat production.

The other trend is the evolution of vending machines from purveyors of stale snacks to mini restaurants in a box. VEAT is similar to Fresh Bowl and Farmer’s Fridge here in the U.S. All of those companies make it easier for people to access fresh foods anytime of day, and do so without interacting with other humans, something that has become more important as COVID continues to loom large across the globe and contactless retail becomes the norm.

For more information on how the vending machine space is changing, check out The Great Vending Reinvention: The Spoon’s Smart Vending Machine Market Report, available to Spoon Plus members.

And though it’s not the company’s main mission, VEAT is also helping to combat food waste by donating any unsold food to local charities.

V2food Raises $55M for its Plant-Based Meat

Australian plant-based meat maker V2foods has raised a $55 million ($77M Australian) Series B round of funding, according to Bloomberg. The round features new equity investment from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Tamasek Holdings, and brings the total amount raised by V2foods to roughly $80 million USD ($113M Australian).

Like others in the plant-based meat space, V2foods makes a ground and patty version of its plant-based beef product. The company first came on our radar last year when it provided the “beef” for Hungry Jack’s (Australia’s version of Burger King) Rebel Whopper.

According to Bloomberg, V2foods plans to use its new funds to help the company establish a foothold in Asia. It’s certainly not the only company looking to do so. Beyond Meat has made a number of deals this year to get its plant-based products in China including building two production facilities over there. Impossible Foods has called Asia “core to [its] business.” and Green Monday, which owns the plant-based Omnipork, recently raised $70 million and got its alt-pork products on McDonald’s menus across Hong Kong and Macau.

While Asia may be crowded, Australia has been less so. As we wrote last year:

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.

In Sept. of this year, V2foods signed a deal that put its products in 600 Woolworths stores across the country.

LIVEKINDLY Raises $135M to Expand Its Alt-Protein Operations in the U.S.

Alt-protein collective, LIVEKINDLY, told The Wall Street Journal this week that it recently raised an addition $135 million in funding (hat tip to Food Dive). The round was led by Blue Horizon Corporation, with Trustbridge Partners, EQT and Griffith Foods participating. This brings the total amount raised by the LIVEKINDLY collective to $335 million.

LIVEKINDLY was formed in March of this year when Foods United bought vegan media company LIVEKINDLY. The new entity re-branded as LIVEKINDLY CO. Brands in the LIVEKINDLY portfolio include alt-protein companies such as Like Meat, Fry Family and Oumph!, which LIVEKINDLY acquired in June of this year.

LIVEKINDLY is certainly striking while the plant-based iron is hot. In many ways, alternative proteins have had a banner year. Sales of plant-based meats have surged in the U.S. this year as the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted inefficiencies and inequalities in our animal-based meat production system.

Plant-based companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have responded with rapid expansion at grocery retail as well as their own direct to consumer channels. Additionally, plant-based food companies like NotCo, Climax Foods, and Better Meat Co. have all raised funding.

The alternative chicken and egg space is getting crowded. Eat Just continues to innovate its plant-based eggs, while both Simulate and Rebellyous offer plant-based chicken nuggets. Though there is still plenty of room left for more competition, especially one with the deep(er) pockets of LIVEKINDLY.

According to The WSJ, LIVEKINDLY plans to use the new funding to expand its products into the U.S. and China. Food Dive reports LIVEKINDLY will also focus on developing new plant-based chicken and eggs.

Big Idea Ventures, Ashika Group and Good Food Institute India Team Up for Alt. Protein Fund

Big Idea Ventures (BIV), Indian financial services firm Ashika Group and the Good Food Institute India (GFI India) announced today that they are teaming up to create a new investment fund and accelerator focused on alternative proteins in India.

Dubbed, appropriately enough, The India Alternative Protein Fund, the new accelerator will launch in 2021 to fund and support companies focused on “bringing to market innovative plant-based, fermentation-derived, and cultivated meat, seafood, egg, and dairy foods,” according to the press announcement.

Big Ideas Ventures already runs a $50 million international fund and two accelerators in New York and Singapore. BIV worked with GFI India for more than a year to assess investment opportunities in that country, and Ashika Group will manage the investment fund. BIV and Ashika Group have started raising a $25 million fund specifically for India, and the Mumbai-based accelerator will begin accepting applications in 2021.

This new accelerator is certainly striking while the alternative protein iron is hot. In March, the Good Food Institute in America released retail data from SPINS that showed “grocery sales of plant-based foods that directly replace animal products have grown 29% in the past two years to $5 billion.” Even those numbers might need to be adjusted, given that the pandemic caused a boom in sales of plant-based meat, plus the fact that more plant-based products like sausage, eggs and dairy alternatives continue to come out.

Additonally, we’ve also seen continued investment around the world in the alternative foods space with players such as GOOD PLANeT, Outstanding Foods, Better Meat Co., Veggie Victory, NotCo, and Green Monday all receiving funding since the end of May.

Those accepted into The India Alternative Protein Fund will receive funding, mentorship, as well as access to a network of Indian and international corporate partners, restauranteurs, retailers and more.

Beyond Meat Serves Up New Sausage Links

Beyond Meat announced today the launch of its new plant-based Breakfast Sausage Links. The new breakfast food will be available a grocers nationwide starting this month and cost $5.99 for a package of eight links.

Plant-based meat sales have enjoyed a boom during this global pandemic. COVID-19 not only has people eating at home more, it’s also highlighted limitations and ethical problems with traditional animal meat production.

Beyond has certainly kept busy during the pandemic, rolling out a number of new products throughout the past seven months. The company debuted its sausage patties, repackaged its burgers into a bulk offering, launched a direct-to-consumer sales channel, kicked off another plant-based chicken pilot with KFC in southern California, and debuted a line of meatballs.

Not to be outdone, Beyond rival Impossible Foods has been busy as well launching its own sausage, it’s own D2C channel as vastly ramping up its retail presence.

As I’ve written before, I’m a big fan of the Beyond sausage patties (FWIW, the rest of my family scarfs them down as well). However, I’m a little more leery of something like a Beyond sausage link. I prefer Beyond products as part of something more than as a standalone item. So a sausage patty sandwich with egg and cheese is delicious. But Beyond’s bratwurst just on its own is… fine, though not my favorite. I’m curious to see if the links will change my mind.

Regardless, I find that I’m doing exactly what both Beyond and Impossible want: eating less meat. And as both companies continue to roll out a wider variety of products, I don’t think that I will be going back.

New Report Calls Fermentation The Next Pillar of Alternative Proteins

A new report released today by the Good Food Institute adds a third pillar to the alternative protein sector alongside cultured meat and plant-based proteins: fermentation. 

In the last five years there’s been a “Cambrian explosion” of companies in this segment, Nate Crosser, start-up growth specialist at GFI and author of the report, told me in an interview this week. By mid-2020 there were 44 fermentation companies globally working on alternative proteins, up from 23 companies in 2018. 

“I was surprised to see how much traction was behind this segment, in terms of investment in particular,” Crosser said. Cultured meat gets all the press, but in 2019 fermentation-based protein companies raised 3.5 times more capital than cultivated meat companies, and in 2020 they’ve already raised $435 million of the total $1.5 billion invested in alternative proteins. 

Fermentation uses microbes to produce proteins and functional ingredients used in animal-free meat, egg and dairy products. Part of the allure to investors is that the technology is “commercializable today,” Mark Warner, a consultant on alternative proteins who specializes in scaling up fermentation commercialization told me in an interview on Tuesday. There are already companies and facilities using similar methods to mass produce enzymes. “The tech is generally proven. It’s the organisms that are being newly introduced.”

Because there are a myriad of organisms and approaches that can be used in fermentation, GFI breaks down fermentation companies into 3 categories in their report: traditional, biomass, and precision fermentation.

Traditional, as its name would suggest, refers to a long-established use of microbes to alter flavor, nutrition or texture—like the lactic acid bacteria used to make cheese or MycoTechnology’s plant protein with improved taste and functionality.

Biomass fermentation is all about mass producing protein. It relies on fast-growing, protein-dense microorganisms like algae and fungi. Meati uses this approach to make its mycelium-based steak. And last but not least, there’s precision fermentation, the process used to make Impossible Foods’ heme protein or Perfect Day’s whey protein. This approach, which can often rely on genetic modification, is used to produce highly functional proteins or ingredients that must be very precise but are needed in lower quantities.

The report is intended to give potential or existing investors an idea of the different approaches and state of the industry, Crosser said. Several major tech and agriculture players are already backing fermentation companies, including ADM Capital, Louis Dreyfus Co., Kellogg, Danone and Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy Venture. Meanwhile major food and lifestyle companies like DSM, JBS, Novozymes and DuPont are working on in-house fermentation-derived alternative protein products.

But it may eventually take more than private funding if alternative proteins are really going to disrupt the meat and dairy industries, Warner said. Like with biofuels, alternative proteins may eventually require government funding to really take off.  “From my perspective, [this report] is going to be vital in framing the need for fermentation for investors,” Warren said, “but also public policy and any discussion around government funding.” 

While the entirety of alternative proteins industry is in a race to market, fermentation companies are expected to do more than join the contest. A high percentage of the fermentation segment is B2B, according to Crosser. They’ll be developing the components needed for cell culture and the ingredients needed for plant-based products.  “Their success is going to fuel the rest of the industry,” he said. “Fermentation serves as a force multiplier for the entire alternative protein sector.”