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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

plant-based food

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.”

Brightseed Raises $27M for its AI-Based Phytonutrient Discovery

Brightseed, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to aid food companies in the discovery of new nutritional compounds in plants, announced today that it has raised $27 million in new funding. The round was led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood and brings the total amount raised by Brightseed to $52 million.

According to Brightseed, just 1 percent of the compounds produced by plants is known. Brightseed’s Forager AI tool looks at plants on a molecular level to reveal these hidden phytonutrient compounds (examples of phytonutrients include caffeine in coffee and antioxidants in blueberries). Once discovered, Forager adds it to its database as uses that information to make predictions about any implications those new phytonutrients may have for human health.

In June of this year, Brightseed announced a partnership with Danone, which owns Silk and So Delicious Dairy Free brands, to discover new health benefits of soy.

Brightseed is actually in the middle of three converging food tech trends right now. First, sales of plant-based food has surged during the pandemic, so the ability to mine plant-based resources to excavate new, additional nutrition benefits could help sustain that growth.

Second, Brightseed is part of a growing movement of using AI to model and predict unique attributes of food. Spoonshot is using AI to help companies create whole products via data before they even begin prototyping in the real world. And Climax Foods, which recently launched, is using data and AI to develop new plant-based foods, starting with cheese.

The idea with all these AI tools is to do a lot of the heavy lifting via algorithm before experimenting in the more costly real world lab setting. We’re still very early on in this trend, so it remains to be see how effective AI modeling really is.

Finally, Brightseed is part of the food-as-medicine movement, which has people paying more attention to the types of food they consume. In particular, Brightseed is looking at how phytonutrients it discovers can help with metabolic health, cognitive health, immune health, bone health.

Brightseed’s financial health is certainly robust with today’s announcement. The company will be using its new bulked up warchest to invest in R&D of its AI and commercialization of its plant-based discoveries in the food and beverage sectors.

Beyond Meat Launches New Plant-Based Meatballs

Beyond Meat announced today that it has launched Beyond Meatballs, a new line of pre-formed and pre-seasoned plant-based meatballs that will be available at select grocers nationwide starting this week.

According to the press announcemt, Beyond’s new meatballs, which are derived from peas and brown rice have:

  • 19g of plant-based protein
  • 30 percent less saturated fat and sodium than leading brands of animal-based meatballs
  • No cholesterol, antibiotics or hormones

Beyond said this is the company’s third new retail product launch for this year, but really it’s more like two and a half. The company launched its plant-based sausage at retail in March, then launched its Cookout Classic in June, but the latter was really a bulk re-packaging of its existing burgers.

The addition of meatballs is more of a convenience play. Sure, you could make your own plant-based meatballs by forming them out of the ground Beyond Meat. But that takes more work. Having meatballs ready to go for a sandwich or spaghetti is a smart way to diversify your flexitarian menu-planning options.

Beyond’s announcement today also continues the rapid back and forth announcements that have gone on all summer long between Beyond and its main rival, Impossible Foods. As I wrote earlier, most of the announcements from the two plant-based giants have been about scale and not entirely new lines of products (i.e., new kinds of plant-based meat) and these Beyond Meatballs continue that trend.

The Beyond Meatballs will hit retailers such as Whole Foods, Stop & Shop, Kroger and Albertsons across the U.S. this week and continue rolling out through October. They will have a suggested retail price of $6.99 for 12 meatballs.

UPDATE: An earlier version of this post said that the meatballs would be available in early October.

Impossible Expands Into Canada as its Plant-Based Burger Debuts in Restaurants

Impossible Foods announced today that it is taking off to the Great White North. Starting today, the company’s plant-based burger will be available in a number of well-known restaurants across Canada. This marks Impossible’s first international expansion outside of Asia.

Impossible seems to be following the same playbook that it used to debut here in the U.S.: provide its plant-based burger to a small number of well-known restaurants first, before a broader rollout. Restaurants in Canada that are now serving Impossible include: Bymark, Maker and Patois in Toronto, Hog Shack Cookhouse in Vancouver and North & Navy in Ottowa.

According to Impossible’s press announcement, its plant-based meat will be available to all Canadian restaurants starting next month, with grocery availability to follow later this year.

Up until today, Canada was basically the domain of Impossible rival, Beyond Meat. Beyond has run a number of pilot programs in Canada including with McDonald’s, KFC, Starbucks, and Canadian staple, Tim Horton’s.

Impossible’s move into Canada caps off what has been a busy summer for both it and Beyond. Impossible quickly ratcheted up its retail presence in the U.S. through Walmart, Trader Joe’s and Kroger. It also launched a D2C channel and launched a plant-based sausage at Starbucks and Burger King in the U.S. And oh yeah, it also raised another $200 million.

For its part, Beyond Meat launched its own D2C channel as well, launched a plant-based chicken pilot with KFC in California, and expanded its presence in China.

All this expansion comes at a time when the pandemic is highlighting inequalities in the meat packing industry and spurring a surge in plant-based meat sales.

In other words, Canada will just be one of many battlegrounds around the globe where plant-based burgers duke it out.

Climax Foods Raises $7.5M for its Machine Learning Approach to Plant-Based Cheese

Climax Foods announced today that it has raised a $7.5 million seed round of funding to fuel its data science-driven approach to creating new types of plant-based foods, starting with aged cheese.

Investors in the round include At One Ventures, Mata Ray Ventures, S2G Ventures, Prelude Ventures, ARTIS Ventures, Index Ventures, Luminous Ventures, Canaccord Genuity Group, Carrot Capital and Global Founders Capital as well as other angel investors.

Unlike other companies in the non-animal cheese space that build their product around a specific base ingredients like cauliflower, legumes or recombinant protein technology, Climax Foods is creating cheese out of… data.

This idea of starting with data makes more sense when you realize that Oliver Zahn, Climax Foods’ Founder and CEO, was previously Head of Data Science for Google and formerly a lead data scientist with Impossible Foods.

“Food science is just like cosmology,” Zahn, a former astrophysicist as well, told me during a phone interview this week. “An area with rich and complex and confusing datasets growing in size every year.”

In a nutshell, Climax Foods is in the machine learning business. As Zahn explained it, the company uses a series of machine learning frameworks that crunch data sets to figure out what a set of particular raw ingredients and isolates will yield. In other words, Ingredient X + Ingredient Y will give you Z product with this type of texture and this kind of flavor and will cost this much.

By running these complex models, Climax Foods can do a lot of the heavy lifting with the research before starting work in the lab. Climax is using this approach on a number of different applications. “We are prototyping a bunch of animal products,” Zahn said. “But our focus is on aged cheeses.”

Zahn didn’t specify which cheeses his company was working on, though he did say, “Our approach is to start with people, and what they expect when they hear the word ‘cheese.’ Gouda, cheddar. Blue cheeses.”

Right now, Climax is in the prototype stage. The company will use the seed round to create a dedicated lab to study food chemistry with the goal of having some type of early go-to market product in a year. How it actually comes to market remains to be seen because of the pandemic. One path for Climax could be introducing the products to restaurants first (like Impossible did), but who knows what eating out will look like a year from now. Perhaps Climax will need to train a new algorithm to figure out where to sell its cheese.

Eclipse Foods Believes It Has The Secret Sauce for The Best Plant-Based Ice Cream

One of my favorite culinary memories was walking through the heart of Buenos Aires sampling Italian-style “helado” from myriad shops, one scoop better than the next. In going vegan 10 years ago, I had to push experiences such as that ice cream crawl away for my health and growing concern about the issues related to animal welfare. The absence of that flavorful, rich, creamy taste of goodness left a hole in my diet as I soldiered on into the vegan lifestyle.

Thanks to the founders of Berkeley, California-based Eclipse Foods, those on a plant-based diet can enjoy the look and taste of ice cream that replaces even the best dairy products available in scoop shops and freezer cases. The secret is a platform/process devised by experienced chefs in a kitchen using a form of bioengineering that blends plant-based ingredients.

Eclipse Foods believes the answer to satisfying the ice cream cravings of the plant-based food crowd is not to create a substitute, but to create a replacement. Company CEO Aylon Steinhart saw the impact Beyond Meat had on the vegan food scene, creating an actual replacement for those craving hamburgers rather than yet another bean burger that acts more of a substitute for meat lovers.

The Eclipse Food story is bigger than ice cream, its first product to hit the market. Working alongside CTO, Thomas Bowman, an accomplished chef and former head of product development for JUST, the result was to learn the characteristics of the microbe in casein, the main protein in milk, and replicate that leaving the diary properties behind.

“We figured out the magic of milk,” Steinhart said in a recent interview with The Spoon. “The secret sauce is our secret sauce.”

Eclipse has made a lot of progress since The Spoon’s Catherine Lamb wrote about the launch of the company’s limited edition flavors less than a year ago. Lamb compared the Eclipse non-dairy process to that of Perfect Day, a significant competitor in the space whose product also avoids the use of nuts.

“Unlike Perfect Day, which ferments actual dairy proteins using genetically modified microbes, Eclipse’s dairy is made from a combination of everyday plant-based ingredients that the founders claim do a much better job imitating dairy than plain old oat or almond milk,” Lamb said.

The idea to use this magic milk as a building block for ice cream was based on several factors including market opportunity and the decision, as Steinhart said, to go with a product that was “in the center of the plate, not a co-star.” With the ability to create replacements for cheese, sour cream, and cream cheese, Eclipse will likely move forward with those products after they have established a beachhead in the ice cream space. With the plant-based shoppers representing only 18% of consumers, Steinhart believes his products are not in a “winner take all market” with a lot of opportunities.

While I can attest to the sensational taste of Eclipse Foods chocolate plant-based ice cream—which is as good as any traditional dairy product—the company has gone through several blind taste tests to underscore the success of their product.

Eclipse had an independent thirty-party firm conduct a 100-person blind taste test with 73% of those sampling Eclipse versus the best selling ice cream in the U.S. said the plant-based dessert was creamier. While still early in the game, Steinhart is pleased with uptake from consumers who can purchase the product online and the growth in sales for the products on the shelves of independent grocery stores in the Bay Area. Retail has been an important part of the company’s distribution strategy with the closure of restaurant partners due to the pandemic.

 Steinhart agreed that the vegan frozen dessert space is a crowded one and given the current market conditions due to the pandemic, product marketing has its challenges. He describes marketing vision as wanting to create “an aspirational product—the best of the best.” The approach to fulfill that idea is to use leading chefs and influencers whose praise and endorsement create a trickle-down effect. The inability to offer in-store product sampling is a thorn in the side of any new product, especially one whose taste and experience is a strong selling point.

As far as a product distribution strategy goes, in addition to retail and direct-to-consumer, Eclipse has created foodservice partnerships with existing brands OddFellow in New York and Mitchell’s Homemade Ice Cream in San Francisco. And it doesn’t stop there.

“We want to be in every Sonic, Wendy’s, Dairy Queen, and Carl’s Jr.,” Steinhart said. This milk product will spin in any type of ice cream machine, meaning it can be used for soft serve and milkshakes. With time and taste on its side, plant-based ice cream lovers have a lot to look forward to.

Beyond Meat Now Sells Directly to Consumers

Beyond Meat announced today that it has launched a new e-commerce site that allows consumers to buy the company’s plant-based beef and sausage products directly from the company.

The store is open to people in the contiguous U.S., and features two-day shipping for all orders. From the press announcement, items sold on the site include:

  • Burgers & Beef Combo Pack – A carton of 10 Beyond Burger patties and two 1lb. packages of Beyond Beef ($54.99)
  • Brats & Beef Combo Pack – A carton of 10 Beyond Sausage Original Brat links and two 1lb. packages of Beyond Beef ($59.99)
  • Beef Bulk Pack – Six 1lb. packages of Beyond Beef ($71.99)
  • Breakfast Sausage Variety Pack – One 22-count carton of Classic Beyond Breakfast Sausage and one 22-count carton of Spicy Beyond Breakfast Sausage ($54.99)
  • Go Beyond Trial Pack – One package of Beyond Burgers (two 4oz patties), one package of Beyond Beef (1lb.), one package of Beyond Sausage Original Brat (four links) and one package of Classic Beyond Breakfast Sausage (six patties) ($49.99) 

Beyond mentioned the new D2C channel in June, when it launched bulk packaging of its burgers, so today’s news is not surprising. Nor is it surprising in the broader, competitive context of the plant-based meat sector. Earlier this summer, Beyond’s big rival, Impossible Foods launched its own D2C channel through which it sells its own plant-based burgers in bulk.

The timing is right for both of these companies to go directly to consumers. Sales of plant-based meat have taken off during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted inequities and inefficiencies in our traditional meat supply chain. The pandemic has also pushed people into record levels of grocery e-commerce, so buying something like plant-based meat online no longer seems like a foreign concept for many.

In addition to this D2C rivalry, it has been an incredible active summer in for both Beyond and Impossible overall. Beyond Meat has done multiple deals with restaurant chains in China, and launched a second plant-based chicken pilot with KFC in California. For its part, Impossible has raised $200 million, vastly expanded its U.S. retail presence and launched its plant-based sausage in earnest to restaurants around the country.

While summer was certainly a hot time for plant-based meats, don’t expect things to cool off in the sector any time soon. Both companies are expanding their product lines and will continue to expand their retail footprints.

Impossible Foods Now at Trader Joe’s, Plans to Expand Retail Presence 50x in 2020

Trader Joe’s, the quirky and beloved supermarket chain, announced yesterday that it now carries Impossible Foods’ plant-based ground beef (h/t to Business Insider). But TJ’s is just one stop for Impossible’s aggressive expansion plans this year as the company said as part of yesterday’s news that it plans to expand its retail presence 50x this year alone.

The company has been aggressive with its retail growth throughout this year, and that appears to be accelerating. In April, Impossible was at 1,000 retail locations. In May that number bumped up to 2,700. In June that number reached 3,000, and as part of yesterday’s news Impossible said it was now available in 5,000 stores. (Trader Joe’s has 503 locations.)

Not bad for a product that was only available at select restaurants just last year.

This rapid retail rollout across the U.S. coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic that helped create a surge in consumption of plant-based products. At the same time, the pandemic has resurfaced ethical issues around the production of animal-based meat here in the U.S., especially as meat packing facilities became hot spots for coronavirus transmissions.

In addition to being more available at grocery stores, Impossible launched its own direct to consumer sales channel, allowing consumers to buy its burgers in bulk.

It’s been a busy year all around for plant-based meats. Beyond Meat created its own bulk packaging, bringing the price of its plant-based burgers down closer to traditional meat. Beyond also launched another plant-based chicken pilot with KFC in Southern California, and started selling plant-based sausage at retail. Impossible’s plant-based sausage is now featured in Burger King and Starbucks’ breakfast sandwiches and is available to all restaurants in the U.S.

With a little less than half a year remaining in 2020, I expect the news around plant-based won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

Plant-Based Pork Rinds, Upcycled Cookies and Potato Nacho Cheese: The Best Alt. Snacks I’ve Tasted

I don’t want to brag, but being stuck at home for the past five months, I’ve become pretty good at snacking. Too good at snacking, judging from my most recent trip to the scale.

So when both Outstanding Foods and Startup CPG recently asked if I wanted to try out their wares — well, who am I to turn down free snacks sent to my door?

Outstanding makes Pig Out, the plant-based pork rinds. What’s funny to me is that when I’ve mentioned them to other people, they wrinkle their nose in befuddlement and are hesitant to try them. As if gluten-free, non-GMO, soy-free, vegan and certified kosher rinds made mostly from rice, sunflower oil and pea protein is grosser than rinds made from deep-fried pig skin.

Anyhoo.

Pig Out rinds come in flavors like Original, Hella Hot, Texas BBQ and Nacho Cheese. While the main taste is salty, they are delicious! My wife in particular was hooked on the Hella Hot flavor, lamenting that left to her own devices, she could eat the entire bag. (I could too.)

Meanwhile, Startup CPG is a service that connects emerging CPG brands with each other and investors. The company sent me 25 different products to try out, and these are the ones you should hunt and chow down as soon as you can:

  • 12 Tides seaweed snacks. Delicious puffs of organic kelp that are light, airy and satisfying. Plus the packaging it totally compostable.
  • Loca plant based nacho sauce. This potato-based cheese spread is akin to the “cheese” you find in a convenience store. I’m not going to lie — it smells to high heaven, but tastes devilishly good!
  • Renewal Mill chocolate chip cookies. Made from upcycled okara flour, these cookies are soft and chewy and a perfect sweet treat in the afternoon.
  • Kween Granola Butter. A spreadable granola with a lovely cinnamon tinge to it. My only complaint is the texture is a little gritty, but it is a nice sweet counterbalance to the saltiness of a Wheat Thin.
  • Jack and Tom jerky. I’m not usually a fan of jackfruit, but prepared and dried in this fashion, this is a great vegan alternative to meat jerky, and the spiciness is powerful, yet playful.

The sad part is that most of these snacks are more expensive than your standard CPG brands. But they are probably better for you (in moderation) and definitely better for the planet. Plus, most of these plant-based alternatives are just getting off the ground now and haven’t scaled up production to bring down prices yet.

But, since it looks like lockdowns won’t be ending anytime soon, it might be high time to invest a little more in your snack game.

KFC Bringing Beyond Meat Plant-Based Chicken to SoCal, 3D Printed Chicken to Russia

KFC announced a partnership with Beyond Meat today to bring plant-based chicken sandwiches to 50 KFC locations across Southern California. Starting on July 20, the Beyond Meat Chicken will be available for a limited time in select KFCs in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego.

This is the latest in a string of tests KFC has rolled out for the Beyond Chicken. The restaurant chain made it first available in Atlanta, GA last year, followed by tests in Charlotte, NC and Nashville, TN, as well as a one-day promotion in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. In Atlanta, the Beyond Chicken sparked long lines of customers who waited at least an hour to try the plant-based nuggets.

Today’s announcement continues the relationship between Beyond Meat and KFC parent company, Yum Brands. In addition to the previous market tests, this past June Yum China announced that Beyond’s burgers would be available at select KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell stores in mainland China for a limited time as well.

The timing of KFC’s move into California is actually coming at a good time. Sales of plant-based meat, which have been growing over the past few years, have surged even higher during the pandemic, as COVID-19 highlighted limitations of our meat supply and shone a light on the working conditions of meat packers.

But plant-based chicken wasn’t the only alternative protein news to come out of KFC today. Over in Moscow, KFC Russia announced that it was “launching the development of innovative 3D bioprinting technology to create chicken meat in cooperation with the 3D Bioprinting Solutions research laboratory.” In other words, KFC is looking to develop lab-created chicken nuggets. The company says it will receive a final product for testing this fall.

Outstanding Foods Raised $5M for Plant-based Pork Rinds

Snack company Outstanding Foods announced yesterday that it has raised a $5 million round of funding led by SternAegis Ventures.

Outstanding currently makes Pig Out, a plant-based “pigless pork rinds,” in flavors like “Hella Hot,” “Nacho Cheese,” and “Texas BBQ.” The rinds are gluten-free, non-GMO, soy-free, vegan and certified kosher. The main ingredients in the rinds are rice, sunflower oil and pea protein, with a bunch of spices thrown in.

This funding round comes at a good time for Outstanding Foods, which sits at the nexus of a few trends happening right now. First, Outstanding is creating a plant-based alternative to an animal product at a time when sales of plant-based food are taking off, so there is definitely a receptive market for pigless pork rinds.

Second, this pandemic has driven people to stock up on snacks. The NPD Group recently found that snack food consumption is up 8 percent during this time of COVID as we all look for comfort foods.

Finally, while Pig Out is available in select stores, Outstanding also sells directly to consumers via its website. This is an increasingly common tactic for nascent food brands that are able to create a direct relationship with consumers through a variety of online channels like Twitter and Instagram. Magic Spoon cereal is only available online and Impossible Foods recently launched its own D2C channel.

The only issue for Outstanding Foods might be if its pigless pork rinds taste too much like the real thing. While this verisimilitude may appeal to flexitarians, the more ardent vegan and vegetarian community may be turned off by this realism, having given up meat and pork for a reason. Plus, just because something is plant-based doesn’t make it healthy — there’s still plenty of processing that goes into making these treats.

Regardless, with $5 million in fresh funding in the bank, now is the time for Outstanding to, err, pig out on its expansion plans.