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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

plant-based meat

Juicy Marbles Launches a (Very Expensive) Plant-Based Filet Mignon

At this point, plant-based burgers that re-create the look and feel of animal meat are nothing new. Creating ground “meat” is easier to bring to market because you don’t have to worry as much about creating the structure and integrity of a whole cut of meat.

Slovenian startup, Juicy Marbles however, diving into the deep end of fake meat making. This week the company officially launched its new plant-based whole cut of filet mignon, complete with marbled “fat.”

Unlike NovaMeat or Redefine Meat, which use 3D printing to create whole cuts of plant-based meat, Juicy Marbles uses something it playfully calls the “Meat-o-matic Reverse Grinder TM 9000.” Neither the press release emailed to The Spoon nor Juicy Marble’s website offers up a ton of detail. The company just said the Meat-o-matic re-creates muscle texture and fat by aligning and layering fibers of its ingredients, which include soy protein isolate, wheat protein isolate, and sunflower oil. We reached out to the company for more detail.

Juicy Marbles is not the only startup working on plant-based whole cuts of meat right now. In addition to the previously mentioned NovaMeat and Redefine Meat, companies like Emergi Foods and Meati Foods are using fungi to create steaks.

The question all of these startups face however, is whom their products are for. For many vegans/vegetarians, plant-based meat is so close to the real thing that it’s a turn-off. On the other end of the spectrum, meat eaters will just eat meat, which is still more affordable. But as whole cuts of plant-based steaks get better and more “realistic,” they could convert people more interested in the environmental benefits of avoiding meat.

Regardless, if you want to try out Juicy Marbles’ steak, it’s available in the 48 contiguous United States and Europe — but it’ll cost you. The company is selling 600 grams of its raw, unseasoned tenderloin for $150 on its website.

Swiss Startup Planted Raises $18M for Plant-Based Meat Alternatives

Switzerland-based alt-protein startup Planted has raised $18 million in Series A funding, according to TechCrunch. The round was co-led by Vorwerk Ventures and Blue Horizon Ventures, with participation from soccer player Yann Sommer as well as previous investors.

Zurich-based Planted makes meat alternatives from pea protein and other plant-based ingredients, such as sunflower and oats. Currently, the company’s lineup includes chicken, kebab, and pulled-pork products. A steak analog is also on the way. 

The company sells to around 3,000 food retail locations across Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, in addition to having a direct-to-consumer e-commerce site for those markets. Additionally, Planted has numerous restaurant and foodservice partnerships.

Part of the company’s new funding will be used to expand into other markets. Planted told TC that said expansion will first be into neighboring countries before moving further into Europe and then overseas. At this time, the company hasn’t named any specific countries.

Worldwide, the plant-based protein segment is expected to reach $85 billion by 2030. While Europe doesn’t yet get the same attention the U.S. or Asia do, its market for plant-based meat is growing rapidly and expected to reach €7.5 billion (~$8.9 billion USD) in the next five years. The number of startups in the space is growing, too, and now includes The Meatless Farm Company, THIS, and Vivera, among many others. International giant Beyond Meat also has a sizable presence in that region, recently boosted even more by a partnership with QSR giant McDonald’s.

Planted said today that in addition to expansion, its new funding will also be used to further build out the company’s tech stack and increase the manufacturing capacity of its products to half a ton per hour. 

Beyond Meat Going More Mainstream with McDonald’s, Yum Brands Deals

Beyond Meat announced global distribution deals yesterday with McDonald’s and Yum Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell) that will help push plant-based meat further into the mainstream.

Beyond and McDonald’s had previously revealed that they were working together on the appropriately named “McPlant” sandwich back in November. The McPlant debuted in 2019 in Canada and is currently being tested in select markets around the world. The two companies will extend their collaboration beyond plant-based burgers, as the McPlant is actually a “platform” for a variety of different products. Beyond will work with Mickey D’s to create plant-based options for chicken, pork and egg.

Likewise, Beyond’s deal with Yum Brands builds on an existing collaboration between the two companies. KFC introduced the plant-based Beyond Fried Chicken in Atlanta in 2019, and has since expanded that pilot to other U.S. cities. Last year, Pizza Hut launched the Beyond Italian Sausage Pizza and Great Beyond Pizza nationwide.

Beyond has been on a bit of roll with high-profile partnerships this year. Last month Beyond partnered with PepsiCo to form the PLANeT Partnership joint venture that will develop plant-based snacks.

All of these deals are obviously huge news for Beyond Meat, specifically, as it looks to grow its plant-based empire. It also alters the competitive landscape with its plant-based burger rival, Impossible Foods. Throughout 2020, Beyond and Impossible made back-and-forth news announcements around expanding retail, launching direct to consumer channels, and restaurant partnerships. For its part, Impossible, which launched its burgers at restaurants, has deals with Burger King, White Castle and Starbucks here in the U.S.

But Beyond’s expanded partnerships with giants like McDonald’s, KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut is perhaps even bigger news for plant-based meat in general. Though sales of plant-based meat are on the rise and steadily gaining traction, being on the menus of these huge, global QSR chains will help give the entire sector a massive boost both in terms of sales and recogntion.

Singapore’s Next Gen Raises $10M Seed Round for Plant-Based Chicken

Next Gen, a Singapore-headquartered food tech company, announced today it has raised $10 million in seed funding. The round was led by Temasek, K3 Ventures, the New Ventures arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board, and NX Food. Funding follows an earlier $2 million investment from Next Gen’s founder, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

The company will use the funds to launch Next Gen’s plant-based products brand, TiNDLE, to consumers in Singapore in March 2021. To start, the product line, which will debut with a chicken item, will be available in select restaurants. Other Asian cities will follow. Funding will also go towards further research and development around future plant-based products. 

TiNDLE chicken is made with soy protein, wheat gluten, wheat starch, as well as sunflower and coconut oils. On its website, the company says each each serving contains 17 grams of protein. The first application of the product will be TiNDLE Thy, a plant-based take on chicken thighs the company says can be used in a variety of dishes and cuisine types.

The forthcoming launch is arriving at a time when global demand for alternative protein is higher than it’s ever been before. The plant-based protein segment is expected to reach $85 billion by 2030, according to UBS. Asia is an important market in this growth, and one that is catching up to growth in the U.S. Demand in Asia for plant-based products is expected to jump to over 200 percent within the next five years.  

There is also a growing number of companies bringing products to market in the APAC region now. Some of those companies, like Green Monday in Hong Kong and HERO in China, as well as U.S.-based brands that have recently moved in, notably Impossible and Eat Just. Also, Beyond Meat is building two production facilities in Asia, both in China.

For its part, Next Gen is now looking towards a Series A funding round as well as diversifying its product portfolio and expanding into Europe and the U.S. The company said today it is already “laying the groundwork” for the latter. 

Redefine Meat Raises a $29M Series A Round for its 3D-Printed Plant-Based Meats

Israeli plant-based meat startup Redefine Meat announced today that it has closed a $29 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Happiness Capital and Hanaco Ventures with participation from CPT Capital, Losa Group, Sake Bosch, and K3 Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by Redefine to $35 million.

Redefine Meat uses 3D-printing technology along with ingredients it calls “Alt-Fat,” “Alt-Muscle,” and “Alt-Blood” to create whole cuts of plant-based meat that mimic animal-based meat. The company has also mapped out 70 sensorial parameters that let it control factors such as texture, juiciness, fat distribution and mouthfeel.

Last June, Redefine Meat announced that it had achieved high-production of its industrial-level 3D-printing capabilities, allowing the company to print 50 steaks in an hour. In its press announcement today, Redefine Meat said its new large-scale production facility will be completed later this year.

Last month, Redefine Meat announced that it had partnered with Israeli meat distributor Best Meister, which allowed Redefine’s 3D printed meats to be distributed across Israel. Through that arrangement, Redefine said would bring its plant-based meats to market in Israel sometime during Q1 of this year, starting with high-end butchers and restaurants.

February has actually been a pretty active month in the world of 3D-printed alternative proteins. Revo Foods (formerly Legendary Vish) announced it is using its 3D printing technology to create salmon sashimi. And cultured-meat startup Aleph Farms said that it had successfully 3D-bioprinted a ribeye steak.

Redefine Meat is working on other cuts of plant-based meat and said it will use its new funding to expand its meat portfolio, support its commercial launch and international growth throughout this year.

VeggieVictory Closes Pre-Seed Round, Aims to Bring More Plant-Based Meats to Nigeria and Africa

VeggieVictory, Nigeria’s first plant-based protein startup, has completed an undisclosed pre-seed round for its plant-based meat products. Green Queen was first to break the news. The round included participation from Sustainable Food Ventures (SFV), Capital V, Kale United, and Thrive Worldwide.

Lagos, Nigeria-based VeggieVictory will use the new funds to expand its roster of plant-based meat products, which right now includes a number of different soy-based products. The company’s flagship product, Vchunks, is a plant-based meat analogue the company says mimics the mouthfeel of beef or chicken and can be used in a variety of dishes.

Currently, Vchunks is sold in 12 different states across Nigeria. With its new funding, Veggie Victory plans to increase its presence in those markets and elsewhere in Nigeria, and eventually expand to other African countries, the U.S., and Europe. As far as new products go, VeggieVictory will next release a vegan beef jerky called Killshi. 

Meat consumption is on the rise in Africa as more people enter the middle class and have more access to meat and dairy products. At the same time, the continent’s population is growing rapidly. By 2100, five of the world’s 10 largest countries by population are projected to be in Africa, according to data from the United Nations. Nigeria tops the list after India and China. 

Those factors present a huge market opportunity for companies making plant-based proteins, though few exist yet. Infinite Foods, a subsidiary of Botswana-based Accite Holdings, distributes well-known international plant-based brands, including Beyond Meat, throughout Africa. Elsewhere, the market is open for new startups, and as such, Veggie Victory has an opportunity to be a leader in this space.

This week’s round follows VeggieVictory’s undisclosed Angel investment from August 2020. 

China: HERO Raises $850,000 for its Plant-Based Meat

HERO, a Shanghai-based alternative protein company, announced today that it has raised an $850,000 pre-seed round of funding. Global commodities and co-manufacturing company, Cremer, as well as Lever China Fund and various restaurant executives all participated in the round.

According to the press announcement sent to The Spoon, HERO’s first product lineup will include a number of different plant-based beef and chicken products. HERO’s plant-based meats will be formulated specifically for the Chinese market. The company is made up of former R&D execs at Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, Gardein, Lightlife and Morningstar (so, basically, all the big players in the North American plant-based meat space).

HERO is making its plant-based meat through the use of “high moisture extrusion technology,” which, the company says, is common in the West, but has not been used by Chinese brands. High moisture extrusion helps reproduce the juiciness and mouthfeel of meat.

China is a bit of a holy grail for alternative meat companies with its large consumer market and growing demand for protein. Beyond Meat is building two production facilities in China and launched a minced pork product there. Hong Kong-based Green Monday’s Omnifoods label has launched plant-based meats at retailers throughout China and raised $70 million to expand its efforts.

Plant-based meat experienced a surge in interest last year, thanks to the pandemic. COVID exposed problems with the meat supply chain, ethical issues around meat production, and the specter of zootropic disease associated with eating animals. At the same time, the technology for producing plant-based meat continues to get better at replicating the “real” thing, which makes eating plant-based burgers and such much more palatable.

McDonald’s Starts Testing McPlant Burger in Europe

McDonald’s plant-based burger, co-developed with Beyond Meat, is officially on the chain’s menus in Denmark and Sweden, according to a company press release (h/t LIVEKINDLY).

As with other Beyond products, the primary protein ingredient in the McPlant is pea protein, with rice protein a secondary ingredient. The product is for sale as a burger topped with lettuce, cheese, tomato, pickle, onion, mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup. 

Staunch vegans beware, though: according to Bloomberg, the patty is cooked on the same grill as McDonald’s regular beef burgers. For those trying to avoid any kind of animal-based protein, this will likely be a major turnoff, though customers buying plant based patties for more environmental reasons may not find the situation as problematic. Burger King faced a similar issue with the Impossible Whopper, and customers can now request their plant-based order be cooked on a different grill. It is unclear if McDonald’s will offer a similar choice.

McDonald’s is one of the last of the major QSRs to offer a plant-based option on its menu, outside of a test the chain did with Beyond in Canada in 2019. When McDonald’s made the initial announcement around this new burger back in November, it was unclear that Beyond was even involved as the supplier. While that issue has been clarified for now, it’s equally unclear whether Beyond will continue supplying the plant-based patties for a wider McPlant rollout, or if/when said patties will be coming to the U.S.

The McPlant trial is currently taking place until March 15 in Sweden (in Linköping and Helsingborg) and April 12 in Denmark. Few details have been offered as to whether Beyond will continue to be the supplier as McDonald’s releases plant-based menu items to a wider audience.  

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.

Future Meat’s CEO on Price Parity, Cultured Chicken in the U.S. and Raising $26.75M

Future Meat Technologies announced today it has brought the production cost of its cultured chicken breast product to under $10. The company has also raised an additional $26.75 million in capital to scale up production and get its product into market in the next 12 to 18 months.

Reaching cost parity with traditional meat is a vital step in the process of bringing cultured meat to the wider public. Speaking via a video chat today, Future Meat CEO Rom Kshuk said that getting to price parity with traditional meat has been part of his company’s mission statement from the start. Future Meat, he said has been able to “decrease cost by 1,000 times over the last three years.” As of now, a quarter-pound serving of its cultured chicken breast costs just $7.50 to produce.

Future Meat differs from many alt-protein companies in that it uses a blend of cultured and plant-based ingredients for its products, rather than choosing one or the other, as most companies do. This, Kshuk explained, is something of a “low-hanging fruit” approach since companies can typically get to market faster with a blended product as opposed to developing one that is 100 percent cultured. Kshuk said that right now, Future Meat will “use the best of both worlds” where these two approaches are concerned, though that balance will skew more towards exclusively cultured meat products in future.

For plant-based proteins, the company uses a mixture of the leading products on the market (soy, pea, fungi). Plant-based protein tends to provide a better texture and nutritional profile to food items than cultured protein, which is one advantage to using the former. However, the plant-based approach comes up lacking in terms of what Kshuk calls “the sensory experience” of the meat: flavor, aroma, etc. Those are elements cultured meat is better able to provide, for now at least.

At the moment, Future Meat is focused on scaling up its production, planning its approach to market, and trying to get a team on the ground in the U.S. It plans to launch in the U.S. by 2022. Initially, that will likely happen through two channels: restaurants and direct-to-consumer sales. The latter could be an especially lucrative format, given the rise in D2C commerce brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The recent fundraise will bolster all of these efforts. The $26.75 million funding round is a convertible note with participation from new investors that include German dairy producer Müller Group, ADM Capital, and CPG Rich Products Corp. Existing investors Tyson Foods, Archer Daniels Midland, S2G Ventures, Manta Ray Investors, Emerald Technology Ventures, and Bits x Bites participated, too. 

Future meat expects its pilot facility to start production in the first half of 2021 and is also seeking regulatory approval in multiple territories. 

Green Monday Brings Its Plant-Based Pork to U.K. Restaurants for the First Time

Plant-based food company Green Monday will expand its global reach beyond Asia starting with its first-ever restaurant partnerships in the U.K. The Hong Kong-based company’s OmniPork product, a plant-based version of minced pork, arrived in the U.K. this week as part of several restaurants’ Veganuary menus, according to an article from Green Queen Media.

Nine restaurants will carry OmniPork on their menus as part of their participation in Veganuary. Green Monday described these restaurant partnerships as the company’s “soft launch” into the U.K. The company will officially launch in both foodservice and retail in the U.K. later this year.

Participating restaurants this month include Plant Hustler in Bournemouth and Eat Chay in Shoreditch, as well as online delivery services Alta Foods, Viet Vegan, and Kay Kay Foods.

OmniPork already enjoys a sizable presence across Asia, including China, Singapore, Macau, and Thailand. Notably, Green Monday struck a covetable partnership with McDonald’s in 2020 to bring OmniPork to the mega-QSR’s restaurants in Hong Kong and Macau. Green Monday also raised $70 million last year, part of which will go towards further expansion of OmniPork’s geographical reach. Green Monday’s expansion comes the same week Discos, one of China’s leading QSR chains, completely swapped out chicken-based eggs for a plant-based alternative on its menu, highlighting the increasing demand from consumers for alternative proteins. By some accounts, demand for alternative protein is expected to increase 200 percent over the next five years in certain parts of Asia.

Over in Europe, the market for plant-based meat and dairy alternatives is expected to reach €7.5 billion (~$9.1 billion USD) by 2025. As in Asia, shifting consumer eating habits are the major force driving this growth.   

The U.S. remains the largest market for alternative protein, though others are catching up fast. This week’s news from Green Monday and the company’s forthcoming expansion to the U.K. and beyond is further proof of that.

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.