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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

plant-based

Emergy Foods Makes Very Realistic-Looking Steak Alternatives From Fermented Mushroom Roots

Today Boulder, CO-based startup Emergy Foods announced the release of its first alternative meat brand, Meati Foods.

Meati Foods will focus on making whole cuts of meat from fermented fungi, also known as mycelium. Unlike most plant-based meats, Meati Foods’ offerings are free of pea, wheat, and soy. According to Emergy Foods CEO Tyler Huggins, who I spoke with over the phone today, opting for mycelium allows Meati to mimic the look and mouthfeel of whole cuts of protein, such as steak and chicken breast, which is difficult to do with other proteins.

In addition to better being able to replicate the texture of meat, mycelium has some inherent nutritional benefits. “It has the same protein profile of meat, and the same quantity [of protein] as chicken or steak,” Huggins told me. It also comes with fiber, which traditional meat doesn’t have.

Photo: Emergy Foods

At first Meati Foods will sell to high-end restaurants in order to build their brand. Huggins said that their products will likely be priced on par with traditional meat at these spots. As they scale he expects they’ll be able to match wholesale meat prices for chicken and beef, They plan to move into retail soon, but are currently limited by production capacity.

Founded in 2016 by two PhD students, Emergy Foods announced back in July that it had closed a $4.8 million funding round and currently has a team of 10.

If you want to try Meati’s realistic-looking steaks, you might not have much longer to wait (provided you’re in the Colorado area). Meati is preparing for a beta launch at the end of 2019 and is expecting to launch in restaurants in early 2020.

Emergy Foods isn’t the first brand to leverage mycelium as a magical ingredient to mimic meat. Prime Roots uses ‘shroom roots to make a variety of animal product alternatives, from bacon to crab cakes to chicken breast. Though it chiefly sells in Europe, alt-meat giant Quorn uses fermented fungi as the base for its wide array of products. There’s also Atlast Foods, a spinoff of Ecovative, which makes mycelium-based scaffolding for use in a myriad of meat alternatives, both plant-based and cell-based.

Based off of their product offerings and target demographics, it looks like Prime Roots will be Meati Foods’ biggest competitor. When I asked Huggins how he’ll differentiate himself, he said that Meati uses a “unique strain of mycelium” which can really accurately imitate meat.

Both companies are looking to begin selling their products in early 2020, so soon we might be able to put both products to a taste test. But with demand for protein alternatives on the rise, there’s plenty of room for more than one player in the fungi-meat game to put down roots.

Future Food: I Tried the Dunkin’ Beyond Sausage Breakfast Sandwich

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. Subscribe to get the most important news about alternate and plant-based foods directly in your inbox!

I’m visiting New York this week, and as I was walking through the Financial District yesterday trying to get my bearings without head butting people walking upstream, I saw it. A sign from Dunkin Donuts for The Beyond Breakfast Sandwich. Great taste, plant-based and made with 10 grams of protein.

I had just had lunch mere minutes ago, but I had to try it. So I ducked in and ordered.

The first thing I noticed was how hard Dunkin’ is pushing the sandwich. It’s one of the most prominently featured menu items, and all of the employees were sporting t-shirts featuring the sandwich.

I paid my $4.78 (including tax) and unwrapped the sandwich. It looked kind of unremarkable — but no more so than a typical fast food sausage-egg-and-cheese breakfast muffin. However, the sausage patty was noticeably thicker than a typical meat one. The texture was spongy, similar to the Beyond burger, with a bit more chew. It was a grey color that resembled sausage more than the bright pink interior of a cooked Beyond burger resembles that of a medium-rare beef burger.

As far as taste goes, however, it was spot on. The patty was lightly spiced, salty, and fatty. True, this is coming from a vegetarian. So in the pursuit of journalistic excellence, I shared the sandwich with a carnivorous friend who said that if she didn’t know, she probably wouldn’t be able to tell that it wasn’t made of meat. “I think it’s better than the burger,” she said. “More similar to the product it’s imitating.”

Despite how hard Dunkin’ was pushing the sandwich, I didn’t see anyone else order it while I was there. Fair — it was 12 PM, and the sandwich is definitely more breakfast fare. I asked my cashier if people liked the Beyond Sausage Sandwich, and she said it was slowly getting more popular and that orders had really picked up over the past few weeks.

Dunkin’ is clearly counting on its popularity to keep rising. This week the chain announced it was rolling out the sandwich to all of its locations across the country starting next month. Though that’s no guarantee that they won’t pull them off menus at any time, like Tim Horton’s did in Canada.

Selfishly, I hope that doesn’t happen. I really enjoyed the Beyond Sausage sandwich and think it’s an important step for Beyond — and plant-based meat in general — to break into the fast-food breakfast space. Next up, maybe they’ll swap out the egg for a JUST Egg patty. Now that would definitely make it impossible for me to walk by a Dunkin’ without stopping in for a snack.

Gene editing our way to more protein

In this newsletter we talk a lot about alternative proteins meant to imitate (or replicate) meat, dairy, or eggs. It can be easy to forget about all of the other protein sources that might be sitting right under our noses.

Literally — look down at your shirt. This month the FDA approved a new gene-edited cotton plant whose seeds, which are protein-rich but typically contain a dangerous toxin, are safe to eat.

I know, lots of folks out there are GMO haters. But let’s put that can of worms aside for a moment and just think about the potential of gene-editing technologies — like the oft-mentioned CRISPR — to open up brand new protein sources. Or perhaps just make ones we already love more plentiful and better for the planet.

What other overlooked proteins are right under our noses?

Photo: Pizza Hut

Protein ’round the web

    • One Pizza Hut location in Arizona will be testing out a new pizza topped with plant-based meat from Morningstar Farms’ Incogmeato line.
    • Hawaiian gas station and convenience chain Minit Stop will swap in Impossible Foods’ “beef” for all of its traditional beef products (h/t VegNews).
    • Swiss startup Planted, which makes plant-based chicken, has raised 7 million Swiss francs (~$7 million USD), according to Crunchbase.
    • The Good Food Institute has awarded $4.5 million to accelerate research in plant-based and cultured meat in 2019.

That’s it from me this week! I’m off to get another Beyond Sausage Sandwich because… research?

Eat well,
Catherine

Dunkin’ Accelerates Timeline for Nationwide Release of Beyond Meat Breakfast Sandwich

Dunkin’ is speeding up the nationwide rollout of its plant-based Beyond Sausage sandwich, which was developed especially for the breakfast chain by Beyond Meat.

Dunkin’ first launched the Beyond Breakfast sandwich in 164 Manhattan locations back in July. According to CNBC, the chain was planning to roll out the new offering throughout the U.S. sometime in January. However, today news broke that the nationwide release will happen a lot sooner — November 6, to be exact.

It may only be three months earlier than expected, but moving up the release timeline indicates that Dunkin’s Beyond Breakfast sandwich is selling well — or at least better than expected. In fact, Dunkin’ told CNBC that the plant-based sausage offering was their number two selling sandwich in the test Manhattan locations and that sales were more than double Dunkin’s original forecast.

We don’t know what the initial forecast was for the Beyond Breakfast sandwich, but its popularity is no surprise. Plant-based meat sales are booming across the country, especially in quick-service restaurants, where new faux meat items are leading to upticks in sales, media attention and long, long lines. It’s no wonder that Dunkin’ wants to capitalize on this trend and establish itself as a purveyor of Beyond breakfast sausage before other QSR’s roll out their own breakfasty plant-based offerings.

However, just because the Beyond Breakfast sandwich is heading out across the country doesn’t mean it’ll stay there. Last month Canadian fast-food chain Tim Horton’s abruptly stopped serving Beyond Meat items in all but two provinces, just a few months after it rolled out the plant-based meat in roughly 4,000 of its 4,800 locations. The chain did not disclose why it decided to dramatically cut back on its alt-meat offerings.

Dunkin’s nationwide effort with Beyond Meat might have brighter prospects. At present, it’s the only QSR with Beyond breakfast sausage on the menu, which could help it differentiate itself from other fast-food companies peddling alt-meat offerings — especially in the morning.

Maybe next we’ll see Dunkin’ lean into the plant-based trend even more with a JUST Egg patty.

Impending Global Pork Shortage Could Mean Big Things for Plant-Based Bacon

Bacon lovers, prepare to tighten your belts. According to Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, the U.S. could experience shortages of ham and pork bellies as early as 2020 (h/t Bloomberg).

The shortage is due to an epidemic of African Swine Flu, which is rampaging through China’s pork industry. It’s so severe that NPR estimates that by the end of 2019, China’s pig population could be cut in half. Since China currently cultivates roughly half of the pork in the world, the outbreak will have some serious ripple effects on global pork consumption — ones that we will feel in the U.S. in the form of rising prices in the pork section of the grocery store.

That’s bad news for people who loves their bacon, ham, and pork chops. But it could be very good news for the growing number of companies producing plant-based pork products, especially bacon.

Several companies are developing their own alternative versions of the popular breakfast meat, or making technology to help others do so. Startups Hooray Foods and Prime Roots are both in the (very) early stages of commercializing their alt-bacon, and there have been murmurs that Beyond Meat is adding bacon to its product roadmap. Ecovative makes mushroom root scaffolds for meat alternatives, which it has successfully tested to create vegan bacon. Even Big Food is getting in on it: just last week, Nestlé announced it had developed its own version of animal-free bacon to complement its plant-based Awesome burger.

When it comes to other pork products, however, there are fewer options. Beyond makes a plant-based sausage, and there are products peddling jackfruit as an alternative to pulled pork. Right Treat in Hong Kong sells Omnipork, an alternative to ground pork geared towards Asian palates. However, we could start seeing new players creating a variety of plant-based pork products if China’s shortage continues.

According to the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world. That means that there’s not only a huge opportunity for companies to develop pork alternatives, but also a pressing need for them to do so if outbreaks like the one in China continue.

Bacon seems a tasty place to start.

From Nestlé to Trader Joe’s, Six New Plant-Based Burger Brands Have Popped Up in the Last Month

A year or two ago, when you wanted to taste one of the new, ultra-meat plant-based burgers you could basically choose between Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods — assuming you were in one of the areas where one or both was available. A few months ago, you’d have a couple more options, like Lightlife and Meatless Farm.

But over the past four weeks alone (yes, just September), the faux burger space has virtually exploded with new players, all trying to take advantage of consumers’ burgeoning desire for plant-based meat. Six, to be exact. To help you keep track and figure out which alt-meat burgers to keep an eye out for in the grocery aisle, we’ve rounded ’em up for you:

“Protein Patties” from Trader Joe’s
A few weeks ago a Trader Joe’s employee posted on Facebook that the beloved grocery chain would soon launch its own meaty plant-based burger called “Protein Patties.” According to VegNews, the patties will contain 18 grams of protein each, and two-pack of the 4-ounce burgers will cost $4.99. The price is notable: the vast majority of meaty plant-based burgers out there, like Lightlife and Beyond Meat, cost $5.99 for a two-pack. Trader Joe’s can push its faux burgers in its store, which attract droves of consumers — especially millennials and Gen Z — because of its low prices, cheery staff and cult-status snack products.

“Better Than Beef” from Don Lee Farms
News broke last week that Costco would start selling Don Lee Farms’ Better Than Beef plant-based burgers in select locations. According to a press release, the new burgers will be available at Costco stores in six Western states, Texas grocery chain H-E-B and other retailers. No numbers were provided, but the same release stated that the burgers will have “the lowest calories, fat and saturated fat compared to other leading brands.” Don Lee Farms was one of the original copackers for Beyond and is now involved in a lawsuit with the plant-based meat company.

“Incogmeato” from MorningStar Farms
Earlier this month MorningStar Farms, a subsidiary of the Kellogg Company which has been making meat alternatives for over 40 years, announced it would launch a new line of meatier plant-based meats in retail in 2020. Called “Incogmeato,” the new line includes faux beef burgers as well as frozen chik’n tenders and nuggets. Though MorningStar Farms has been in the alt-meat biz for quite a while, their Incogmeato burger will be its first cook-from-fresh product, which will be sold in the refrigerated section of the grocery store.

The Awesome Burger by Sweet Earth Foods (Photo: Hardy Wilson)

“Awesome Burger” from Sweet Earth Foods (Nestlé)
Just last week Sweet Earth Foods, a U.S. company owned by CPG giant Nestlé, announced it would start selling its meaty plant-based Awesome Burger in foodservice and retail on October 1st. This is Nestlé’s first foray into more realistic alt-meat burgers in the U.S., but in Europe the Swiss company already sells the plant-based Incredible Burger to a variety of foodservice spots, including McDonald’s locations in Israel and Germany. The Awesome Burger has 26 grams of protein and a two-pack of the patties will likely retail for $5.99.

“Simple Truth Plant Based” by Kroger
At the Good Food Conference earlier this month Kroger, the largest grocer in the U.S., announced that it would soon debut its own line of plant-based products under its Simple Truth brand. In addition to alt-meat staples like burgers, the Simple Truth Plant Based line will also include cookie dough, creamy dips, and more, all with a pea protein base. The animal-free product line will debut at 1,800 Kroger stores this fall.

“Happy Little Plants” by Hormel
It’s not a pre-formed burger per se, but this month Hormel Foods, owner of brands like Skippy peanut butter, announced the launch of its Happy Little Plants line. Its first product will be a plant-based ground “meat” product that can be turned into meatballs, tacos, pasta sauce and, yes, burgers. Happy Little Plants are currently available in Hy-Vee grocery stores in select states.

If you want to know more about the plant-based revolution and the eater of the future, you better get one of the last tickets to the Smart Kitchen Summit {SKS} in Seattle next week! We’ll see you there. 

Is McDonalds Canada Making a Huge Mistake Naming Its New Plant-Based Burger ‘The PLT’?

Yesterday McDonald’s announced that select locations in Canada would be testing a new plant-based burger called the PLT (Plant, Lettuce, Tomato) made with a Beyond Meat patty.

The move makes a lot of sense from a trend perspective. My question is: What’s with the name?

First of all, McDonald’s chose to make an entirely new plant-based offering, instead of introducing an alternative to, say, a Big Mac. That’s a totally different approach than competitors like Burger King and Carl’s Jr., who debuted the plant-based Impossible Whopper and Beyond Famous Star Burger, respectively, based off of their most popular sandwiches.

The choice to introduce a totally new product could speak to McDonald’s hesitation to dive headfirst into the alternative meat trend — a perspective that was voiced by CEO Steve Easterbrook to CNBC earlier this year. By launching an entirely separate product they don’t risk alienating any consumers who are wary of the idea of eating an alt-meat burger and might be put off by the concept of Big Macs going vegetarian.

The bigger issue, at least in my mind, is the use of “plant.” I started thinking about this after reading a tweet from Matt Hayek, an NYU Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies.

There’s a reason that other fast-food companies aren’t including the world “plant” in their alt-meat menu offerings: it situates the product as something other than “meat.” If McDonald’s is trying to appeal to flexitarians — that is, folks that are trying to reduce their animal consumption but don’t want to go full-on vegetarian or vegan — that could be offputting.

I’m also a little unclear about the decision to call the new McDonald’s offering the “PLT.” To me, PLT –> BLT — that is, Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato. But there’s no bacon, plant-based or otherwise, involved in the product. That could be a source of confusion for consumers who see the PLT on menus, in-store or online, and are surprised when the burger shows op sans bacon.

Perhaps most interestingly, McDonald’s Canada doesn’t use the word “Beyond” or even “burger” anywhere in the name, which I think is a missed opportunity. By contact, ‘The Impossible Whopper’ is able to take advantage of Impossible’s brand recognition to draw in consumers who may have heard about the plant-based patties from the news, or even tried them elsewhere. ‘PLT’ could feature any old plant-based patty, or even just be a bunch of plants piled on a bun.

In short, it’s huge news that McDonald’s is experimenting with a plant-based burger in Canada, so close to the U.S. But they seem to be doing it in a way that sets themselves up for failure — or at least not in a way that would attract the maximum amount of new consumers, flexitarian and otherwise.

The PLT pilot will begin on September 30th in select McDonald’s locations in Ontario, Canada. Soon enough we’ll be able to see if McDonald’s is shooting itself in the foot with the name, or if consumers are eager enough to try plant-based options that they’ll look past an odd name and try the PLT anyway.

Nestlé’s Sweet Earth Foods to Launch Plant-Based Awesome Burger in US this October

Today Sweet Earth Foods, a U.S.-based vegetarian brand owned by Nestlé, announced it would begin selling its plant-based Awesome burgers and ground meat in retail on October 1.

The burgers will launch at a variety of retailers across the country, including Safeway, Fred Meyer, and more. I connected over the phone with Brian and Kelly Swette, the co-founders of Sweet Earth Foods, who told me that pricing will vary at each location but would be competitive with other plant-based burgers in retail: likely around $5.99 for two quarter pounders.

Nestlé launched its cook-from-raw vegan Incredible burger in Europe this April. Unlike the Incredible burger, which is soy-based, the Awesome burger is made from yellow pea protein. According the Swettes, relying on yellow pea protein gives their burger a higher nutrient density than most of their competitors: 26 grams of protein and 6 grams of fiber per 4-ounce burger patty, to be exact. They may win the title of the most protein per plant-based burger, but the margin is slim. For context, Lightlife and Beyond’s quarter-pound burgers both have 20 grams of protein.

Photo: Hardy Wilson

The Swettes told me they also have foodservice partners in the works, though they wouldn’t disclose who. Could it be that the Awesome Burger is headed to McDonald’s? After all, Nestlé’s Incredible burger is already on McDonald’s menus in Germany and Israel.

True, Micky D’s has been pretty vocal that it’s not ready to embrace faux meat on its menus yet, at least in the U.S. But if the Incredible Burger proves to be driving significant sales for McDonalds’ overseas, they could change their mind in the U.S. And since their competitors, such as Burger King and Carl’s Jr., and are already embracing Impossible and Beyond, respectively, the Awesome burger could be a logical choice — provided it actually tastes good.

The cook-from-fresh plant-based burger category is becoming more and more crowded by the day, as everyone from startups to grocery brands to Big Food debut their own take on a meatless burger. Within the past month alone, Impossible Foods, Kroger, and Hormel have all made an entrance into the refrigerated grocery aisle. But the Swette’s aren’t sweating it (sorry). “We think it’s an incredibly positive thing that the plant-based burger space is so dynamic,” Kelly Swette told me.

The Swettes believe that they can differentiate themselves from the competition because of the beefy taste and nutritional density of their burger. But I think the bigger advantage is their parent company, Nestlé. After all, being owned by one of the largest CPG companies in the world has its perks. Sweet Earth is able to take advantage of Nestlé’s massive R&D and manufacturing resources to bring their product to market quickly and on a large scale. They’ll also presumably be able to get into more grocery shelves by taking advantage of Nestlé’s preexisting retail partners. “It’s true — Nestlé will help give us an edge,” Brian Swette told me.

We’ll have to see if that edge is enough to help Sweet Earth edge out the other plant-based meat competition.

Looks Like L.A. is Where Impossible Foods will Launch in Retail

If you bet that Impossible Foods would be doing its retail launch in L.A., congratulations! You’re probably right.

The Spoon came across a Facebook post from Impossible Foods today advertising an event called Impossible Grandma’s House. The free event will be held on Friday September 20 from 11am-6pm at the Cabana at Westfield Century City in Los Angeles. “Come celebrate (and taste) Impossible Foods’ launch in grocery stores! Grandmas unite under one roof to #CookImpossible and share their culinary wisdom,” reads the invite.

This event also gives us a probable candidate for first grocery store to sell Impossible: Gelson’s is located in the same Westfield Century City complex as the Grandma event.

Details are pretty scant about the event itself. Is it just a PR event with free Impossible Foods grub? Will people migrate over to Gelson’s for the first Impossible retail sale? Are grandmas actually involved?

It’s the grandma bit that trips me up. Why is Impossible, a startup that’s all about leveraging technology to reinvent meat with plants, whose bright branding and hashtag-heavy PR strategy is clearly geared towards the millennial crowd, focusing so heavily on grandmas for their retail launch?

I think I get what Impossible is going for here. The company is trying to show that its plant-based meat is so versatile and delicious that even traditionalists can easily use it in their favorite family recipes. However, I think the strategy rings untrue, especially since the launch event is at a trendy, glitzy shopping mall and not, say, a community restaurant or local market.

As I pointed out in the latest issue of Future Food, it doesn’t really matter where Impossible Foods decides to do its retail launch. Eventually it’ll probably be as ubiquitous on grocery shelves as Beyond Meat — provided Impossible doesn’t come up against anything drastic like a food safety scare or another production shortage.

The bigger questions will be what products Impossible decides to roll out in retail in order to compete with competitors Beyond Meat and bigger players like Hormel, Kellogg, and, as of just two days ago, Trader Joe’s — and how they stack up, taste-wise. Impossible may have built up a recognizable brand through its many restaurant partnerships, especially fast-food ones like Burger King, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to success in the crowded retail aisle.

We’ll be doing deep dives into the Impossible retail launch and rollout on our Future Food newsletter! Make sure to subscribe.

Future Food: Impossible’s Retail Launch, Is 3D Printing the Future of Plant-Based Meat?

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. Be sure to subscribe here so you don’t miss a beat!

Ladies and gentlemen, mark your calendars. At the time of writing, Impossible Foods is heading into retail in 7 days, 23 hours, 43 minutes and 16 seconds. 15 seconds. 14 seconds.

Obviously we’re excited. We’ve been big fans of Impossible’s “bleeding” burgers for a while now and have been anticipating the retail launch ever since the company first teased the news back in November of last year.

Now, thanks to a tweet from Impossible Foods earlier this week, we know a little more about what to expect.

  1. We know their first product will be a 12-ounce ground beef-like product, similar to Beyond Beef.
  2. We know it will debut in a city that “smells like palm trees.”

My first question is, what do palm trees smell like?? My second question is, is the tweet referring to Miami or LA? My money is on LA because of its trend-setting cred and abundance of celebrities, but my colleague Chris Albrecht is placing his bet on Miami because of its reputation as a center for testing out retail innovation.

Really though, it doesn’t matter where Impossible first launches in retail. Unless there’s some sort of catastrophe it’ll eventually roll out in grocery stores around the country. What’s more interesting is what product Impossible has chosen to launch with: a 12-ounce package of ground plant-based meat.

Honestly, I think this move makes a lot of sense. By launching with fresh ground “meat,” Impossible has to jostle with far fewer competitors to stand out in the refrigerated grocery aisle, which is becoming crowded with plant-based burgers. As of now its only really going up against Beyond Beef (which, admittedly, is pretty delicious) and Hormel, who just debuted a vegan ground meat product last week.

Starting with a ground product is also an opportunity for Impossible to show off its versatility. Thus far, the vast majority of Impossible’s restaurant partners have served the alterna-meat in burger form (the notable exceptions being Qdoba and Little Ceasars). This first product is Impossible’s way of saying “Don’t pigeonhole us!”

The flip side of that strategy is that as of now, the vast majority of consumers associate Impossible with burgers. They might not think to look for a ground Impossible product in retail, or they might not want to do the work of forming the patties themselves.

Then again, I doubt they’ll have to wait too long before Impossible follows up with a pre-formed burger product. Though it’ll certainly be longer than 7 days, 23 hours, 42 minutes and 49 seconds.

Photo: Novameat

3D printing money

When I first heard about startups 3D printing plant-based meat, I thought it was a cool, futuristic-sounding technology that would likely never be affordable or practical enough to actually scale up.

It seems I might have been a little too hasty. In the past week two companies which 3D print meat alternatives have snagged funding: first Novameat announced an undisclosed amount of funding at the Good Food Conference last week, then Redefine Meat followed up yesterday when news broke that it had raised a $6 million seed round.

The two startups have a similar go-to-market strategy. Both companies are planning to sell/rent their machine and corresponding plant protein pods to third parties — Novameat to high-end restaurants and Redefine Meat to large meat companies looking to diversify their offerings. And they’re both based in Europe! Novameat in Spain and Redefine Meat in Israel.

Clearly there’s something to this whole 3D printing plant-based meat thing — or at least investors think so.

(photo: Chris Albrecht).

Much ado about processed food

This week WIRED writer Matt Simon published a fascinating dive into why people are making such a fuss about the processing it takes to make plant-based meats.

In the piece he notes that yes, buzzed-about plant-based products like Impossible and Beyond are highly processed. But so are a lot of other staple things we eat, like yogurt, beer and bread.

I think you can also flip the processing question on its head. Plant-based meats are alternatives to meat sourced from animals. And isn’t animal meat one of the most processed foods of all? Animals themselves process plants into muscle, then are butchered to become hamburgers, steaks, or what have you. Comparatively, growing some heme through genetically engineered yeast or pushing pea protein through an extruder to mimic the texture of chicken seems relatively low-key.

In short, processing does not always equal bad. Especially when the choice is between a plant-based burger and industrially farmed meat.

Photo: JUST

Protein ’round the web

That’s it from me! I’ll be off next week exploring the Alaskan wilderness so one of my lovely Spoon colleagues will be taking the Future Food reigns in my stead.

Eat well,
Catherine

Redefine Meat Raises $6M for 3D Printed Meat Alternatives

Redefine Meat, the Israeli company developing technology to 3D print plant-based meat, today announced that it had raised a $6 million seed round led by CPT Capital with participation by Hanaco Ventures, angel investors and German poultry company The PHW Group.

The startup will use its new capital to finalize its alternative meat 3D printer and ensure that it hits its timeline release goal of 2020, when it plans to begin selling its 3D printer and corresponding ingredient packs to a handful of meat processing partners and restaurants.

I covered Redefine Meat earlier this year when the startup did the first public tasting of its 3D meat to a restaurant full of unsuspecting diners. From that piece:

Redefine Meat’s “meat” is made with relatively simple ingredients: three plant protein sources, fat, and water. The secret is in the printing production method. Instead of extrusion or pressing, Redefine Meat uses 3D printing to give their products a more realistic texture and mouthfeel. “We can not only mimic the fibers of the meat, but also the way that fat and water is trapped in the meat matrix,” explained [CEO] Ben-Shitrit.

When I spoke to them then the company planned to sell its meat to restaurants and eventually develop their own retail brand. However, since then they’ve changed their go-to-market strategy quite a bit. Speaking with Ben-Shitrit earlier today he told me that now they plan to sell their 3D printing machine and shelf-stable plant protein ingredient packs to meat companies, who can then print their own products to distribute to retail and restaurants. Ben-Shitrit said that their machines currently cost about $100,000 each and only work with his company’s suite of protein packs, which will be a recurring cost for partner companies.

For now Redefine Meat is only focused on beef, though they plan to expand their repertoire to include tuna, pork and more. They will install a handful of machines with their manufacturing partners in 2020 and are planning to do a full launch in 2021.

Something must be in the air since last week another company which 3D prints plant-based meat, Novameat, also raised a chunk of funding. This flurry of investment goes to show that 3D printing might just be the key to making meat alternatives — especially larger cuts like steak — that more accurately replicate the appearance and texture of the real thing. Or at least that investors are willing to bet on it.

Impossible Foods Teases Location for Retail Launch, Reveals First Product

Mark your calendars folks. On September 20th, consumers in one lucky city will be able to purchase Impossible product from the grocery store for the very first time.

We’ve known for a while that Impossible would launch in retail sometime this month. But in a tweet yesterday, the Redwood City, Calif. based startup teased us with a few more details.

This tweet tells us exactly one and a half pieces of information.

Firstly, Impossible’s first retail product will likely be packaged ground “meat,” similar to Beyond Beef. We predicted this might be the case since the startup has been emphasizing the versatility of its product ever since it launched the new Version 2.0 of its recipe at CES this January.

Honestly, it’s a smart move. Refrigerated grocery shelves are becoming crowded with pre-formed plant-based burgers from Lightlife, Beyond, and more. And over the past month alone major players like Kroger, Smithfield and Kellogg (through MorningStar) have all announced plans to launch refrigerated alterna-burgers of their own. By entering retail with a fresh ground meat product Impossible is essentially narrowing its competition down just to Beyond Beef and Hormel.

We haven’t tried Hormel’s ground protein yet but our team is pretty smitten with Beyond Beef. However, Beyond’s ground beef has only been on retail shelves for a few months, so Impossible won’t be too far behind when it enters the category with a product of its own. Plus, Impossible has been busy building up its brand through partnerships with major fast-food chains like Burger King.

Impossible’s tweet also gave us a hint which city it will launch in: one that smells like “palm trees.” Judging from that cryptic hint, it’s likely either L.A. or Miami. (Sadly, it looks like my hometown of Seattle is out. Damn you, evergreens!)

If I was a betting gal, I’d put my money on L.A. The City of Angels loves anything new and trendy, especially if it comes in Instagram-friendly technicolor packaging. L.A. also has the advantage of being much closer to Impossible’s Oakland production facility.

Then again, it’s too soon to count Miami out of the race. As my colleague Chris pointed out, Miami — or really, Florida — serves as a testbed for a lot of new retail technology. Ford is testing self-driving cars to deliver groceries in Miami, Kroger is building its next robotic warehouse in Groveland, Florida, Walmart offers its InHome service in Vero Beach, and robotic grocery fulfillment company Takeoff works with the Sedano’s supermarket chain throughout the Sunshine State. Plus, Miami was one of the first cities to get Burger King’s Impossible Whopper after its successful pilot in St. Louis, Missouri and Florida was one of the first three states to serve Little Caesar’s Impossible Supreme pizza.

There’s still a lot of question marks surrounding Impossible’s launch. We don’t know which stores or how many of them will carry the product or what it will cost. I guess we’ll have to wait 9 days to find out.

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Novameat Gains New Funds to Take Its 3D Printed Plant-based Steak to Market

At the Good Food Conference in San Francisco last week, Novameat, a Spanish startup developing meat alternatives through 3D printing, announced it had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from New Crop Capital.

Novameat uses patented 3D-printing technology to “print” plant-based meat with the same fibrous texture of the real thing. According to founder Giuseppe Scionti, whom I talked to, the company’s special 3D printer uses syringes filled with plant protein to extrude cuts of meat that mimic the muscles of animal tissue. He said the company will use the new funding to do more demonstrations of his 3D printed steak, scale up the technology, grow his team of four, and expand beyond Europe.

Extrusion is how most plant-based meat companies make vegan protein look like real chicken nuggets, tuna chunks, etc. But Scionti told me that his machine is unique since it can make whole cuts of muscle, such as a steak or chicken breast. He also said that they could better imitate meat texture since 3D printing allows for micro extrusion on a large scale. “If you want to get material like beefsteak you want to control both micro texture and macro texture,” he told me. So instead of extruding out a piece of protein that is meant to be a whole chicken nugget, he can print out individual lines that look and chew like the network of muscle fibers that make up a large cut of meat.

Novameat’s technology also opens up possibilities for novel ingredients. Scionti doesn’t want to use wheat or soy in his printed meats for environmental reasons, and also because he said their texture isn’t quite as meat-like. His 3D printer apparently adapts to a wider range of plant proteins, such as pea (a favorite of Beyond Meat), which can be combined to take on the unique texture of almost any cut of meat.

NOVAMEAT - by EIT-Food

Instead of creating his own line of branded products, Novemeat will employ a meaty SaaS model by licensing out the technology to plant-based meat manufacturers. In addition to the 3D printer itself, his team will also work with individual partners to develop the optimal “recipe” of proteins to create their ideal meat substitute.

Scionti even told me he’s envisioning partnerships with high-end restaurants. He would rent them the machine, likely for a low cost, and provide them Nespresso-like capsules they could use to print their own custom cuts of “meat.”

Novameat hopes to bring its technology to restaurants and retail (through partners) within 5 years or so. As of now its 3D printed steaks still haven’t been put to a public taste test, so it’s too early to say if their technology will truly, as Scionti is hoping, usher in a new wave of more realistic whole cuts of meat. But if successful, it could open the door to an entirely new segment of plant-based meat products, such as whole T-bone steaks or pork chops.

However, Novameat could have some competition. In Israel, Redefine Meat is also using 3D printing to make vegan cuts of meat, including beef. They’re not using 3D printing, but Impossible Foods is also tackling plant-based steak. And new scaffolding technologies, such as the mushroom root-based ones from Atlast Food, are hoping to make it easier for meat alternative companies to make complicated cuts of meat like chicken breast and bacon.

Of course, with the soaring popularity of alternative meat right now, it likely won’t be a zero-sum game for whole plant-based cuts of meat — especially if Novameat’s 3D printing technology is really as innovative as Scionti claims.

But all bets could be off when cell-based meat, which re-creates animal tissue in the lab, comes to market. For example, Israeli startup Aleph Farms is developing cultured steak meant to taste and chew exactly like the real thing because it’s made of actual animal cells.

Then again, cultured meat is a ways from hitting the market, and even further away from creating whole, thick cuts of meat (right now Aleph Farms’ steak is only the thickness and size of a credit card). Which means that plant-based options like Novameat have a while to put their stake (er, steak) in the meat alternative space before competition becomes too fierce.