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plant-based

April 5, 2019

Want a Veggie ‘Disc’? EU Cracks Down on Plant-Based Meat Labeling

If you’re in the E.U., time might be running out for you to order a veggie burger or vegan sausage link.

The Guardian reported this week that the agriculture committee of the E.U. banned the use of meat labels (like “steak,” “sausage,” or “burger”) to describe vegetarian products. The measures will be voted on by the full European parliament after May’s elections, and then will be put to a vote by member states and the European commission.

This decision follows a similar E.U. judgment which impacted plant-based food labeling in 2017. The European court ruled that vegan products aren’t allowed to be called “milk,” “cheese,” or “yogurt.”

According to The Guardian, a proposed replacement for the term “burger” is veggie disc. Which sounds only slightly more edible than “veggie cardboard.” One hopes they can be a little bit more creative when it comes to naming.

European meat corporations were apparently not involved in the ruling, but they’ve got to be happy about this. Allied Market Research projects that the plant-based meat market will reach $7.5 billion by 2025. But a big reason for meat alternative companies’ success is their ability to market to flexitarians — and they’ll have a much harder time doing that by selling veggie discs and plant-based links.

This same fight is being fought in the U.S., too. Animal agriculture corporations are lobbying states and even the President to crack down on what can and cannot be called “meat.” More than a dozen states have introduced meat labeling laws of their own. The FDA is also considering enforcing rules over what can and cannot be called “milk.”

Meat companies do kind of have an argument when it comes to plant-based meat. After all, it’s really just plants that are mimicking meat — though don’t tell that to Impossible Foods or Beyond Meat. Where the issue will really get sticky, however, is when cultured meat comes to market. This new product is biologically meat — animal muscle, fat, and connective tissue — but doesn’t come from a slaughtered animal.

The FDA and USDA are still figuring out how to regulate cell-based meat. And we likely have a few years before it’ll be sold in the U.S., so those regulatory bodies still have some time to decide. But if there’s one thing this E.U. issue has shown is that some people — farmers, meat companies, and even governments — are very protective of what can and cannot be called meat.

It makes sense that Europe would be even more sensitive to this than the U.S. After all, many regional specialty foods have something called Geographic Indications, meaning that a product has to be from a specific region in order to label itself as such (think: Champagne, Parmesan, etc.) Raw meats and dairy products are both categories of protected items. With its historied pride of food, it’s not surprising that European countries are leading the way on meat and dairy labeling crackdowns.

The issue will likely get more controversial as companies get better at making meat (and meat-like) products without the animal. Let’s just hope we never have to eat Veggie Discs. Ever.

April 4, 2019

Eclipse Foods Wants to Become the Impossible Foods of Plant-Based Dairy

When it comes to plant-based alternatives, the dairy sector is lagging woefully behind: there’s a plethora of pretty amazing plant-based sausages and burgers, but most plant-based dairy products still taste like a compromise.

A new Bay Area-based company called Eclipse Foods is trying to change that by creating a line of animal-free products made with a new proprietary plant-based milk that they think could disrupt the dairy industry.

Rather than just “milking” nuts or oats, however, Steinhart and Bowman are developing a new type of plant-based milk that has micelles, or microscopic structures that help their product mimic the real thing. In addition to having a more milk-like flavor, their product is apparently more versatile than other alternatives out there and can be used to make a wide range of dairy products.

“Basically, we want to become the Impossible Foods of dairy,” co-founder and CEO Aylon Steinhart told me over the phone. Meaning: they want to make plant-based dairy delicious enough that even non-vegans want to eat it. “We won’t change the world without getting flexitarians on board,” explained Steinhart. “The mainstream has to want it.”

Eclipse Foods cream cheese on a bagel.

Steinhart wouldn’t disclose exactly what kind of dairy alternatives Eclipse would be making, but said that they were currently developing roughly a dozen prototypes based off of their next-gen milk. He mentioned ice cream, cream cheese, and sour cream.

I haven’t tried their products yet so I can’t speak to the taste, but Eclipse Foods seems to be coming along at just the right time. First of all, the demand for plant-based protein is sky-high and on the rise. According to research firm Nielsen, alternative protein sales increased by 20 percent in 2018. Plant-based milk sales increased by 9 percent, and sales of other plant-based dairy products (yogurt, ice cream, etc.) grew by a whopping 50 percent.

Unlike meat alternatives, however, there haven’t been clear front-runners in the plant-based dairy space. Sure, big producers like Danon and Chobani have launched their own products, as have bigger startups like Ripple Foods, but from my tasting experience at least, none of them have been able to tempt me away from the real thing. In fact, some are actually pretty bad.

Steinhart is aware of this hole in the market. “There’s no product that truly appeals to the mainstream,” he explained to me. He hopes that Eclipse will make that product.

Looking at the pedigree of the two co-founders, the company does seem to have a good chance of making products that actually taste good. Steinhart’s co-founder Thomas Bowman is a James Beard Award-nominated chef who helped develop plant-based mayo, cookie dough, and more for JUST (formerly Hampton Creek); Steinhart worked in biz dev for alternative protein nonprofit the Good Food Institute.

Steinhart said it was too soon to say when their products will be available, or how much they will cost. He also wasn’t sure if they would launch in retail, restaurants, or both. To truly follow the Impossible model, Eclipse Foods would have to start selling their goods in high-end restaurants before moving into fast food, and, eventually, grocery stores.

Eclipse Foods was only officially incorporated in January of 2019, so it’s quite young. They’re also part of the prestigious Y Combinator 2019 Winter Class. Steinhart and Bowman are currently Eclipse Foods’ only full-time employees, but they’re about to embark on a hiring spree. Steinhart told me that the company had closed their seed round but wouldn’t disclose details.

All of Eclipse’s plant-based innovation might be rendered moot when startup Perfect Day releases their animal-free dairy made using fermentation. After all, no matter how good an alternative is it’s hard to make it taste as good as — or act just like — the real thing. But until then, there’s room for someone to disrupt the dairy market like Impossible did with meat. And that someone just might be Eclipse Foods.

April 1, 2019

Impossible Foods Makes Next Big Fast Food Move with Burger King

At Burger King, having it “your way” could soon mean making that whopper 100 percent meat-free.

Starting today, the fast food chain will offer a Whopper made with plant-based “bleeding” patties from Impossible Foods (h/t New York Times). Called the Impossible Whopper, the burger is now available at 59 stores in the St. Louis, Missouri area. If all goes well, the meatless Whopper will eventually be on the menu in all 7,200 Burger King locations in the country. According to CNET, the Impossible version will cost one dollar more than a typical Whopper, making it roughly $5.20 per burger.

Being on the menu of all Burger King’s in the U.S. would be a huge step into the mainstream for Impossible Foods — and meat-like meatless burgers in general. Impossible is already in roughly 6,000 restaurants globally including roughly 380 White Castles and 570 Red Robins. Rolling out to all of Burger King’s locations would double their presence. Beyond Meat, which makes a similar meaty plant-based patty, is on the menus at over 1,000 Carl’s Jr.’s and over 500 Del Taco’s.

Partnering with a place like Burger King means that not only is Impossible growing quickly and going mainstream, but so is the demand for plant-based meat in general. According to the NPD Group, shipments of plant-based protein to foodservice operations increased by 20 percent in 2018 alone.

For Impossible though, the Burger King partnership could help them get more name recognition before they head to retail in 2019. That is, if they can continue to successfully scale up their miracle ingredient, heme, which gives the burgers their trademark “bloody” look and taste, and which Impossible makes through genetically engineered yeast.

March 30, 2019

Food Tech News: Vegan Powdered Eggs, More Vertically-Grown Lettuce & India’s Red Hot Cloud Kitchen Market

Happy weekend from sunny Victoria, Canada! I took the ferry from Seattle for a quick weekend of high tea, touring gardens and whatever else one does in the capital of British Columbia.

But first, this week’s food tech news. We’ve got stories about blockchain, vegan eggs, and vertical farming to get your Saturday started right. Enjoy!

Gotham Greens expands to Providence, RI
Indoor agriculture company Gotham Greens announced plans to expand into Rhode Island this week. The company currently operates four farms: three in the New York City area and one in Chicago. The new 110,000 square foot greenhouse farm in Providence will open in early fall of 2019 and will operate year-round, serving local residents and foodservice establishments. Gotham Greens estimates the new facility will produce around 10 million heads of lettuce and leafy greens annually.

 

South America’s biggest egg producer creates a vegan egg
This week Grup Mantiqueira, South America’s largest producer of eggs, announced it had developed a vegan egg product in collaboration with nonprofit the Good Food Institute (h/t Livekindly). Called N.Ovo, the plant-based product is made of pea starch and comes in powdered form packaged in a traditional egg carton. (Cute, but is it practical?) N.Ovo will debut March 31st at the Rio Super Expofood event.

 

Photo: Pixabay

Ripe.io teams up with FlavorWiki
Ripe.io, the company developing a blockchain for the food industry, has partnered with digital sensory platform FlavorWiki. Basically, ripe.io will be able to access FlavorWiki’s collection of data around consumer flavor, texture, and aroma preferences, and in turn Flavorwiki will store its database on ripe.io’s blockchain-based platform.

That’s a lot of jargon. Essentially, food producers and sellers will be able to use the data from FlavorWiki and ripe.io to better understand how things like seasons and soil conditions impact customers’ taste perceptions. In theory, this improved transparency will be able to help producers make better-tasting foods.

 

Box8 raises $15 million in India’s red hot cloud kitchen market

India’s Box8 is the latest startup to benefit from the rapid growth of a food delivery market that is fueling investment in cloud kitchens across every region of the globe. The Mumbai based startup, which has 110 kitchens across five cities, just raised $15 million for its series C. It’s the second big raise for an Indian cloud kitchen startup in just one month, with Pune-based Faasos raising nearly $16 million in a series D earlier this month.

Box8, which currently serves 1 million meals a month across Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and Gurgaon, plans to use the new funding to expand to open 100 more kitchens over the next 12 months and expand to five more cities.

Did we miss anything? Tweet it out to us @TheSpoonTech!

March 26, 2019

Frozen Plant-Based Meal Co. Alpha Foods Raises $7M

Today Alpha Foods, a plant-based meal company, announced that it has raised $7 million in funding, led by New Crop Capital and AccelFoods (h/t Fortune). The Glendale, CA-based companies makes frozen meat-free meals, like chik’n nuggets and vegan pot pies.

In a world where companies like Impossible Foods have raised over $387 million in funding and Beyond Meat is preparing to go public, a $7 million raise for a frozen plant-based meat company isn’t all that much. It just goes to show what we already know: investors are eager to get in on the exploding popularity of meatless proteins.

But Alpha Foods has an added draw — its products are frozen. Frozen foods are having a renaissance: consumers love the convenience of being able to stockpile frozen meals to heat and eat when they want, without being beholden to the expiry dates of fresh food. Frozen food offerings have also expanded, going way behind frozen pizza and microwaveable mac & cheese with higher-quality offerings and even meal kits (though I still love me some Stouffer’s).

Alpha Foods isn’t the only one in the frozen meat-free food space. Just last week mega frozen food company Bird’s Eye launched Green Cuisine, a new line of plant-based meats like sausages and meatballs. Freezer section standbys like Annie’s, Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine also offer frozen vegetarian meals.

However, what sets Alpha Foods apart is the convenience factor. They make complete, ready-to-eat meals, most of which — like handheld pot pies or vegan burritos — are meant to be eaten on the go. No extra preparation or ingredients needed.

For consumers convenience is king, and Alpha Foods seems like it’s in a good place to capitalize on that as well as the plant-based eating trend.

March 25, 2019

Will Impossible’s Massive Restaurant Rollouts Help it Beat Beyond Meat in the Grocery Aisle?

Today fast-casual burger chain Red Robin announced it will be offering plant-based Impossible burgers at all 570 of its U.S. locations starting April 1.

In and of itself, this isn’t huge news. Impossible is already in over 5,000 restaurant locations, ranging from high-end spots like Momofuku to the White Castle fast-food chain. But in light of the Redwood City-based startup’s impending move to retail shelves, it begs the question: will Impossible’s hefty restaurant presence translate to brand recognition in the grocery aisle?

Impossible’s key retail competitor is Beyond Meat, whose plant-based burger patties have been a mainstay in grocery stores since they launched in Whole Foods in 2013. Beyond Meat is in even more restaurant locations than Impossible: almost 11,000 in total. Just this week Del Taco, with whom Beyond had been doing a pilot program, decided to offer the plant-based meat as a taco option in all of their 594 U.S. stores. And back in January Beyond slid onto the menu at over 1,000 locations of the fast-food join Carl’s Jr.

At the end of the day, I don’t think any of Impossible’s recent restaurant expansions will give it a leg up on Beyond in the grocery aisle. Instead, the real differentiators will be selection, taste, and pricing.

Beyond has the upper hand when it comes to variety: in addition to their patties, they also offer plant-based sausages, crumbles, chicken strips, and will soon come out with a ground beef-like product as well as breakfast patties. Impossible hasn’t officially stated what meaty product it will launch at retail, but it’ll likely either be patties or a ground beef replacement.

Taste-wise, both Beyond and Impossible have unveiled 2.0 versions of their signature meatless burgers in 2019. We liked Beyond’s, but Impossible’s blew us away when we sampled it at CES.

The biggest question mark is pricing. Since Impossible and Beyond are both pretty darn good, I imagine many shoppers (myself included) will reach for the option that’s easier on their wallet. Impossible also hasn’t released any pricing information yet, but if they’re smart, they’ll undercut Beyond — which, at $5.99 for two patties, isn’t super cheap.

Taking a macro view, there’s plenty of room for multiple meat-like meat alternatives to be successful in the grocery aisle. The demand is plant-based meats is certainly there: a new study from Dupont Nutrition and Health indicates a growing consumer interest towards meat alternatives, with more than half of Americans increasing their plant-based food intake.

At CES this year Impossible Foods’ CEO Pat Brown also downplayed the competition between meat alternative companies. “If other people are making great [plant-based] products — and this is not B.S. — we love it,” he said.

Of course, competition is competition. People likely won’t be tossing both Beyond and Impossible burgers into their grocery carts. But if plant-based meat sales continue to soar — and I bet they will — I think that more high-end meat alternatives in the grocery aisles will equate to more sales for all involved.

March 20, 2019

These 10 Food Tech Startups from Y Combinator’s Latest Cohort are Ones to Watch

If you want a hint about what cool new startups and innovations are coming around the corner, look to Y Combinator. Twice a year, the accelerator, which has helped launch tech giants like AirBnB and DropBox, invests money and time to mentor a cohort of young startups.

With over 200 companies, the Y Combinator’s recently-announced Winter 2019 class is its largest yet. And we’re pleased to note that the group contains quite a few food tech startups. We’ve sifted through the list to highlight the top 10 companies we think are ones to watch.

Shef

A few months ago California passed AB-626, opening up a new market for the sale of home-cooked food. Dishdivvy was the first to jump on this opportunity, connecting Southern California home cooks with hungry diners, but clearly it’s not the only startup realizing the opportunity here. Shef is a new service that lets Bay Area-ites order refrigerated meals made by nearby home cooks, which are delivered to their door. Hungry folks can order four, eight, or twelve meals per week, which cost between $6.50 and $7.50 a meal.

Habitat Logistics

Habitat Logistics is a delivery-only service that helps restaurants get online orders to their customers. The company promises to take a lower commission than other aggregation/delivery services, like GrubHub or Postmates, while also dealing with staffing issues and responding to customer complaints.

Photo: Taali Foods.

Taali Foods

Taali foods is a new natural snacking company. The company’s first product, Water Lily Pops, is a popcorn-like snack made of popped water lily seeds. The snacks come in flavors like Tangy Turmeric and Sriracha Spice, and have significantly less fat and calories than regular popcorn. I sampled some Water Lily pops while at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco this winter, and I have to say, they were pretty tasty.

Shiok Meats

Shiok Meats, the Sinapore-based startup that is making cell-based shrimp and other crustaceans, is the first cultured meat company to participate in Y Combinator. Co-founder Dr. Sandhya Sriram told The Spoon that they’re planning to roll out their products in Southeast Asia, and expect to have their first cell-based product to market in three to five years.

Maitian AI

Based in Sinapore, Maitian AI makes high-tech vending machines that it calls “autonomous stores.” Hungry people download Maitian’s app and scan a QR code on their phone to unlock the store’s doors. They can pick up and examine the selection of fresh products (yogurt, salads, etc.) before choosing what they want, after which they shut the door and are charged for their selections. The company doesn’t disclose which technology they use to track customer selections, but the whole operation sounds a heck of a lot like Byte Foods. Maitian AI currently has two stores operating in a WeWork in Singapore.

Bensen

Restaurants can license Bensen technology to let customers place their orders via voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant. Restaurant partners upload their menu to Bensen, which builds out a voice ordering interface. The voice technology can be used in drive-thrus (like Valyant AI and Clinc are already doing), or even on restaurants’ apps or website.

Eclipse Foods

Eclipse Foods makes plant-based dairy products that it claims are indistinguishable from their animal dairy counterparts. With co-founders Thomas Bowman from JUST (who spoke at last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit) and Aylon Steinhart of the Good Food Institute, Eclipse Foods has quite the plant-based pedigree. Details are scant on what exactly Eclipse’s first product will be, but the team told Techcrunch that it would debut in pilots with SF-based Wise Sons deli and Humphrey Slocombe ice cream.

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Taobotics

Startup Taobotics makes a self-driving robot that roves around supermarkets to help retail brands promote their products by putting them on their circular, tiered shelves. To me this sounds kind of annoying, but there’s no denying that shoppers are more prone to buy something when it’s right in front of them (damn you, Twix bars at checkout). Taobotics is currently operating in Chinese grocery stores and, according to Techcrunch, recently closed a Letter of Intent for 1,000 retail robots.

Releaf

Releaf is developing machines to help affordably scale the processing of raw food materials in Africa. In their website, the company claims that food factories are operating under-capacity because they can’t secure enough consistent, high-quality raw food ingredients. The company didn’t give specifics on how they will scale to supply better raw materials, but the website stated that they’ll start by tackling the Nigerian crude vegetable oil industry.

Bottomless

There’s no worse feeling than getting ready to brew a pot of morning coffee and realizing you’re out of beans. Startup Bottomless makes a connected scale which, when placed under a bag of coffee beans/grounds, tracks users’ coffee supply and re-orders when they’re about to run out of joe. Bottomless users get an alert 12-24 hours before the system reorders, and can opt to get the same bag every time or switch it up. In addition to the bag of coffee, users also pay a shipping fee and a membership fee.

March 19, 2019

Questlove Partners with Impossible Foods to Launch Plant-Based Cheesesteak

Questlove, legendary drummer and frontman for The Roots and bandleader for The Tonight Show, took to Instagram today to announce a new, non-musical project: a sandwich.

Dubbed “Questlove’s Cheesesteak,” the sandwich is a vegetarian version of a Philly Cheesesteak made with Impossible’s plant-based meat 2.0. Livekindly reports that the sandwich will not be 100 percent vegan, as it will have dairy cheese.

It will be available starting March 28th at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park during all home Philadelphia Phillies baseball games. Over the next few months, it’ll roll out on menus of 40 Live Nation-owned event spaces across the U.S., including concert and sporting venues. This comes a year after Live Nation put the Impossible Burger on the menu at 35 of its music venues.

This isn’t Questlove’s first foray into the food world. He wrote a James Beard-nominated culinary nonfiction book, Something to Food About: Exploring Creativity with Innovative Chefs, and has been on a number of food-focused TV shows.

Though not a vegetarian, the musician wrote on Instagram that he fell in love with Impossible Foods several years ago. In fact, he invested in the plant-based meat startup in 2017. He’s also from Philadelphia, so, as he puts it, “i gotta know #Cheesesteaks right?”

Both Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have been accumulating quite a roster of celebrity endorsers and partners. My colleague Chris recently wrote about Beyond’s posse of high-profile athletes and musicians that have partnered with or endorsed the company. In addition to Questlove, Impossible also has investments from “Harold and Kumar” actor Kal Penn, and has been endorsed by celebs like Miley Cyrus and Chrissy Teigen.

These celebrity supporters could help both companies continue to gain influence with vegans and flexitarians alike. In the case of Beyond Meat, it could also help the company’s impending IPO pop — which might in turn make it easier Impossible and other plant-based meats to go public down the road.

As a vegetarian, I know how hard it can be to find a decent meat-free meal option at a sports arena or concert hall that’s not just french fries. That’s why this Questlove-Impossible sandwich is a win-win: Impossible gets to target the captive audience (literally) at huge venues, and LiveNation gets to add a vegetarian option to its menus and look cool. As an investor in Impossible, Questlove has an obvious motive to help the startup sell more of their meat 2.0.

If you get a chance to sink your teeth into Questlove’s Cheesesteak, drop us a line and let us know how it is!

March 19, 2019

Cultured Meat Will Likely Debut in Asia, Not Silicon Valley. Here’s Why.

It’s no longer a question of whether or not we can make meat without the animal. We can, and there are taste tests to prove we can do so and still make it taste and feel like the real thing. What is still up in the air is what this new product will be called, when exactly you’ll be able to buy it, and where it will be available.

The “where” is getting clearer: Asia. JUST, the San Francisco-based company racing to be the first to bring cell-based meat to market, announced in a CBS San Francisco interview last month that they would debut their first product — a cultured chicken nugget — in Asia sometime this year. The exact country was not specified.

This news surprised me. The majority of startups developing cell-based meat are in Silicon Valley, Europe, or Israel, so I naturally assumed cultured meat would launch in one of those spots.

But when I sat down to think about it, there are actually quite a few good reasons why Asia is the ideal launch grounds for this new food.

New startups

Asia is an up-and-coming hotspot for cellular agriculture, the technology behind cultured meat. These past few months alone we’ve seen a flurry of new cell-based activity in the geographic area:

  • Shiok Meats, a startup based in Singapore, is developing cultured crustaceans, like shrimp and crab. Co-founder Dr. Sandhya Sriram told us last year that the company is planning a taste test of its cultured shrimp later this month in Singapore and will roll out its products in Southeast Asia in a few years. The startup also just became the first cell-based meat company to be accepted into the prestigious Y Combinator.
  • In Hong Kong, Avant Meats is in the early stages of developing a cultured-fish product. In an interview with the Good Food Institute (GFI), Avant Meats founder Carrie Chan said their product will be “tailored for the preference and consumption behavior of consumers in China and Asia,” and will likely launch there.
  • Japanese biohacking hobbyist club Shojinmeat is enabling anyone to grow their own meat by open-sourcing cellular agriculture technology. It also has a spinoff startup, Integriculture.
  • A few weeks ago, the GFI announced they would partner with the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) to set up a research center for cellular agriculture in Mumbai. They plan to set up a lab in the city by 2020 and construct a larger facility the following year.

This recent uptick in cellular agriculture activity in Asia isn’t out of the blue. In fact, there are a couple of reasons why Asia is a more fertile launching ground for cell-based meat than, say, the U.S.

Regulations

Before cultured meat can get to our plates, we need to figure out how to regulate it. In fact, regulatory clearance — the official stamp that cell-based meat is safe to eat — is probably the biggest hurdle to getting clean meat to market.

In the U.S., we have a path in place — mostly. The USDA and FDA decided last year to jointly regulate cell-based meat. However, the two organizations left a lot of things open-ended — including the question of labeling. Until labeling is sorted out, cultured meat won’t be approved by the FDA and can’t be legally sold in the U.S.

Of course, cell-based meat will have to pass muster by regulators in Asia as well before it can be sold. But in a phone interview, Shiok Meats’ Sriram told me that “Asia seems to be pushing the regulators within to come up with a framework sooner than the West.”

In particular, Hong Kong seems a likely spot for the launch of cultured meat. “Hong Kong is … a free market where many industries are not heavily regulated, including food,” Elaine Siu, GFI’s Managing Director of Asia-Pacific, told me in an interview. While the regulatory landscapes of the E.U. and China are extremely stringent, Hong Kong is comparatively more flexible — at least for the moment.

The Impossible Burger.

Consumer Interest

A 2018 study from Kadence International showed that 66 percent of Americans would try clean meat, as would 75 percent of people in Belgium and the Netherlands.

There’s less data out there on Asian consumers’ openness towards cultured meat. However, one study by Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems cites higher levels of consumer acceptance in China and India than the U.S. — almost two-thirds of Chinese people were very or extremely likely to purchase cultured meat. Indeed, Sriram seems confident that there’s more demand for clean meat in Asia than in the U.S. “People in Asia are super interested and intrigued by the concept of clean meat,” she told me.

She referenced the recent launch of the Impossible burger in Singapore as a use-case for the demand for meat alternatives. “1000’s of people queued up for a taste of it!” she wrote to me over email, referencing the “bleeding” vegan burger. Plant-based meat is less controversial than cell-based meat, sure. But the success of Impossible in Singapore backs up a report from Allied Market Research which cites Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing market for meat alternatives.

GFI’s Siu also noted that, at least in Hong Kong, people are “comfort[able] with trying new products” and have a wide-ranging and diverse palate. That, plus the relatively high spending power of Hong Kong inhabitants, could make its population the perfect test ground for cell-based meat.

Investment Interest


In order to continue developing better iterations of cell-based meat — better texture, cheaper production methods, etc. — researchers need some serious capital.

So far a wide variety of investors have gotten involved in the space, from celebrities like Bill Gates and Richard Branson to major meat companies like Tyson and PHW Group (one of Europe’s largest poultry producers).

In certain Asian countries, the government is eager to get involved. The Singaporean government has “publicly announced its interest and investment into the cell-based agriculture space,” according to Siu. She told me that Japan has also expressed interest. Having government support could not only be a financial boon, but could also help cellular agriculture companies expedite the tricky regulatory process for cultured meat.

One thing might make investment tricky though, at least in China. In 2017 the country signed a $300 million agreement with Israel promising that the country would import cell-based meat from Israel companies SuperMeat, Future Meat Technologies, and Meat the Future. That could hinder China’s ability to invest in/import clean meat from nearby Asian countries, though it wouldn’t necessarily quench Chinese investors’ thirst for meat alternatives. 

JUST’s cell-based chicken nuggets.

Manufacturing Capabilities

One of the obvious advantages of producing clean meat in Asia is its wealth of manufacturing resources. They have the necessary production infrastructure in place to scale clean meat, making it affordable and more widely accessible faster. According to Deloitte, five Asia-Pacific nations are expected to be in the top 10 global manufacturers by 2020.

This might not be relevant to producers in the immediate future. For now, cultured meat production is happening on a relatively small scale, usually in research labs. But as cellular agriculture technology improves and demand increases, as I assume it will, manufacturing for cell-based meat will scale up quickly. At that time, Asia’s wealth of production facilities — and manufacturing prowess — will become a huge help.

—

Despite the recent uptick in cellular agriculture activity in Asia, as of now there are many more cell-based meat startups in the U.S. and Europe. “But if we are looking into a few years from now, then the answer may be different,” Siu predicted.

That’s not to say that there won’t be any cellular agriculture developments in the U.S. or Europe. There will be. But if JUST indeed launches its first clean chicken nugget in Asia, I believe that that’s where we’ll see some of the more exciting cultured meat innovations over the next few years. Critically, it’s also where we’ll get the first data points about consumer reactions to cultured meat.

All this to say that when it comes to the future of cellular agriculture, I’d spend less time watching what’s happening in Silicon Valley, and more time watching Hong Kong.

March 12, 2019

Later, California Rolls. New Vegan Sushi Options are Trying to Mimic Raw Fish

For most vegetarians, sushi options are limited to all-too-often lackluster California rolls. Maybe a tamago egg, if they’re lucky.

But as of late, vegetarians and vegans — or consumers who are just concerned about ocean overfishing — have several new options to swipe through their soy sauce. Ones composed entirely of plants, but which are made to fool you into thinking you’re eating raw fish.

Photo: Ima.

First up is a new product from Ima, a plant-based food company. Just last week Ima released a sushi roll with a salmon substitute made of konjac, an Asian root vegetable with a gelatinous texture. Ima has twelve other products, including a vegan sushi burrito (sushi-rito?), but this is their first offering that’s really trying to imitate fish. We can’t speak to the taste, but the look is spot-on. Ima’s plant-based sushi is sold in U.K. retailers Planet Organic and Sourced Market.

For those who are more into tuna, Ocean Hugger Foods has “ahimi”: an alternative to raw ahi tuna made out of tomatoes, which they process to mimic the taste and texture of raw fish. Ahimi is available in roughly 90 sushi/poke restaurants and grocery retailers (including Whole Foods) across the U.S.

Photo: Ocean Hugger Foods.

I got to sample sushi with ahimi a few months ago at the Alternative Protein Show in San Francisco. While it hit the same basic flavor notes as sushi — savory, clean, and just a tiny bit sweet — I wouldn’t say it would fool me into thinking it’s actually made of tuna. But compared to a bland California roll, ahimi sushi is light years more exciting.

Plant-based seafood innovation isn’t just happening on the raw side. Good Catch recently launched their plant-based tuna at Whole Foods, Sophie’s Kitchen has a canned “toona” made of konjac (the same ingredient in Ima), and New Wave Foods has a vegan shrimp product.

Of course, all these plant-based fish might become irrelevant once cultured seafood comes to market. Finless Foods has claimed it will start selling its cell-based bluefin tuna by the end of this year, and Wild Type is developing cultured salmon. On the crustacean front, Singapore-based startup Shiok Meats is about to have the first taste test of its cell-based shrimp.

But it’ll be a while before cultured fish hits the market and even longer before it’ll show up in our supermarket sushi. Until then, Ocean Hugger and Ima are smart to capitalize off of the booming plant-based food trend, especially in a space like sushi which currently has relatively few animal-free options. There are plenty of vegan burgers, sausages, and even canned fish (see above), but there hasn’t been a lot of innovation in making alternatives to raw fish.

Fair, it’s a lot harder to imitate the taste and texture of a slice of fatty raw tuna than a tin of cooked tuna fish. But early movers like Ocean Hugger and Ima have the chance to really get in on the ground floor stake a claim in what will likely be a booming market: plant-based fish.

If you get the chance to try ahimi or Ima’s new “salmon” sushi, give us a shout and let us know how you liked it!

March 6, 2019

Alpro Lets You Have Your Plant-Based Fried Chicken (and Eat the Bucket, Too)

I went vegetarian a few years ago, but one meaty food I still miss is fried chicken. The good news is that starting tomorrow, I’ll have a plant-based option to feed that craving — if I’m willing to take a flight to the UK, that is.

In honor of Plant Power Day — which is apparently a thing and falls on March 7 — British vegan food company Alpro will unveil a Plant Based Bucket (PBB), which is essentially a meatless take on the ubiquitous UK staple of fried chicken and french fries (or as the Brits say, “chips”). The meal will include nuggets made of mushrooms and Alpro’s almond milk, as well as sweet potato fries and a creamy vegan garlic dip (h/t Metro).

But the culinary experience doesn’t stop with what’s inside the packaging. The actual bucket is edible, too, made of a combination of nuts, spices, and seeds. Watch the video below to see how the feast is made, plus some nice footage of a hungry diner digging first into the meal and then the bucket it came in.

Alpro is a CPG company that makes plant-based dairy and doesn’t have any brick-and-mortar stores. Therefore, the PBB will be available only through Deliveroo. Diners in London and Manchester can snag an edible bucket of their own for £5 ($6.59). The company hasn’t specified if the PBB will just be available for Plant Power Day or if it will become a longer-term offering.

They’re not alone when it comes to reinventing traditional meat products using plants. In both the UK and the U.S., a couple other companies are taking advantage of plant-based-mania and making vegan versions of fried chicken. Seattle Food Tech makes plant-based nuggets to sell in institutional dining halls, and the Cap’n himself is hopping on the fried chicken bandwagon: KFC is reportedly developing a vegan fried chicken option which will roll out on U.K. menus as early as this year.

The PBB also highlights another trend in the food world: eco-friendly packaging. A lot of fast-food packaging isn’t recyclable, which means it ends up getting tossed into a landfill. To address a growing outcry over the massive amounts of plastic in said landfills, QSR and major food corporations like McDonald’s and Starbucks are scrambling to develop recyclable or biodegradable packaging. Even KFC has promised to convert to renewable plastic sources by 2025 (though sadly they haven’t made any promises about edible fried chicken buckets). By going beyond just recyclable and making their packaging edible, Alpro is getting itself some sustainability points — as well as a “wow” factor.

I’m not sure how good the bucket will actually taste, or if I’d want to eat something that had been hanging out in a random Deliveroo courier’s bag and seems to have the Alpro logo painted on its exterior. But nonetheless, edible/biodegradable packaging is certainly an interesting concept, especially when it comes to food and meal kit delivery. I wonder if the PBB will start a trend that turns into more bread bowls for soup or lettuce leaf-wrapped sandwiches.

Until then, it might be time to hop on a plane to London to try this PBB out for myself to see if it satisfies my fried chicken cravings. And my bucket cravings.

March 6, 2019

JUST Rolls Out Plant-Based Egg in Whole Foods

If you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs — unless you use JUST Egg.

Today JUST, makers of plant-based food products that include mayo and cookie dough, announced it will launch its vegan JUST Egg in Sprouts nationally this month and Whole Foods nationally in April. JUST Egg first debuted in retailers in the Midwest, expanded to Albertsons nationwide last month and is currently available at a number of local grocery chains and natural grocers.

The pale yellow liquid, made of mung beans, comes in a bottle and scrambles pretty darn similarly to eggs. The suggested retail price is $7.99, which is a lot pricier than a carton of eggs, even free range/organic ones.

But JUST Egg can likely get away with its higher price since it’s the first product of its kind. For vegans, there’s an obvious draw: nothing else out there scrambles like eggs. For flexitarians, there’s the appeal of the new.

While JUST may be continuing its march into retail, I think its real potential could be in QSRs and large-scale food operations, like corporate cafeterias, hospitals, airlines, and sports stadiums. So far, JUST Egg is available in the fast-casual chain Veggie Grill, and here and there at individual restaurants. But there’s room for a lot more growth, especially in places like school cafeterias.

Consumers are looking for more convenient flexitarian options — as we’ve seen from the success of Impossible’s sliders at White Castle and Beyond’s burgers at Carl’s Jr. — and JUST Egg would fit the bill nicely. Their eggless patties (not available in retail) are practically begging to be slipped into a breakfast sandwich that college kids (because you know millennials/Gen Z love to eat flexitarian) could grab at the cafeteria on their way to History 101, for example. [Update: JUST Egg is currrently available at UIUC, UC Berkeley, Michigan State and a few other universities.]

In addition to the U.S., JUST’s eggless scramble is now available in Hong Kong and China, and has partnered with Eurovo to bring the product to Europe. I have no doubt we’ll hear a lot more news about JUST expanding the availablility of its vegan egg in the months to come, in retail and out.

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