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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

plant-based

Plant-Based Meal Delivery Co. Veestro Expands, Rolls out 100% Recyclable Packaging

Plant-based meal delivery service Veestro is going green(er). This week the California-based company announced that it has expanded shipping operations and, consequently, will now be offering 100 percent curbside recyclable packaging.

Founded in 2013, Veestro makes vegan frozen meals — think Red Curry Tofu and Chik’n Quesadillas — and ships them directly to consumers’ doorsteps. As of this week it can get to said doorsteps a lot more quickly. The company has begun shipping from its new East Coast distribution center in Delaware (their other center is in L.A.), which means it can now ship its meals to anywhere in the U.S. and have them arrive in under three days.

In addition to expanding Veestro’s production capacity, this new manufacturing facility allowed the company to make the shift to 100 percent recyclable packaging. The company already used compostable carton trays and recyclable plastic pouches for its meals, but now with faster shipping times it’s able to switch over to insulation that can be recycled curbside.

That’s kind of a big deal. Most if not all meal/meal kit delivery services come with a hefty serving of insulation and ice packs to keep your fresh food cold on its journey. While that insulation might technically be recyclable, it often includes a lot of extra steps. Sometimes it even has to be driven to a separate pickup facility. All of which means those cold gel packs and styrofoam insulations typically just end up getting tossed in the trash, and end up in a landfill.

Veestro specifically is capitalizing off of two major food trends we’ve seen a lot of as of late: frozen food and plant-based eating. It’s no secret that demand for plant-based food options — especially convenient ones — is on the rise. By offering frozen meals, Veestro can provide that convenience. It also allows the company to circumnavigate a few of the hurdles meal kit companies are struggling with: it puts food on the table faster (with no prep time), and gives them the flexibility to eat whichever meal they want, when they want. No being locked into having to prepare a specific dish on a specific day.

Veestro isn’t the only company capitalizing on the added flexibility that comes with frozen food. Belgian-based Mealhero sells frozen meal components, though you need its countertop steamer in order to cook them. And high-end frozen pre-prepped meals from the likes of Daily Harvest, Zoni Foods and more are bringing about a frozen food Renaissance. In fact, my colleague Chris predicted that the future of quick meals (and meal kits) just might be frozen.

A pack of 10 Veestro meals will set you back $11.70 per single-serving meal, which isn’t exactly cheap — especially when compared to supermarket frozen meals or vegan meal kit company Purple Carrot. However, since they’re opening up a second fulfillment center, it seems like demand is growing for Veestro’s plant-based meals. Now we’ll see if its new packaging initiative will bring in more green for the company.

Beyond Meat Goes Beyond Burgers with New Ground Beef-Like Product

Today Beyond Meat, the El Segundo, CA-based startup behind popular plant-based burgers, chicken strips, and sausages, announced a new product: Beyond Beef. The new product is meant to have the taste and texture of real beef, but, will have 25 percent less saturated fat and also, you know, be made of plants.

Both Beyond Beef and the Beyond Burger are made of a blend of pea, rice, and mung bean proteins. However, according to the Beyond Meat website, Beyond Beef will have a more “neutral flavor and aroma” than the Beyond Burger patties, making it a culinary blank canvas. It also has “a unique binding system” that will let it better hold shapes — like meatballs — better. Unlike Beyond’s Beef Crumbles, the new product will be raw and served in the fresh meat section of the supermarket.

The main difference is that Beyond Beef seems more versatile than the burger. Sure, you could break up a Beyond Meat burger patty and turn it into meatballs, or bolognese, or taco filling (which Beyond has clearly been doing with their Del Taco partnership). But the less creative cook might not think of that, bypassing the Beyond burgers for other meaty or plant-based alternatives.

Photo: Beyond Beef

By repackaging their burger “meat,” Beyond is opening the door to a whole slew of new preparations, as well as consumers that are looking for plant-based meat but don’t necessarily want a sausage, burger, or chicken strip for dinner.

Beyond Beef will launch in retail later this year, though the exact timing and price is still TBD. I wonder if they’ll beat Impossible Foods to the grocery shelves. Impossible is rolling out in retail at some point this year, though the company hasn’t yet announced if they’ll be selling their plant-based meat in pre-formed patties or in blocks, à la the new Beyond Beef.

Seeing as how Impossible has been placing lots of emphasis on the versatility of its product — they served it as empanadas, tartare, and tacos when they unveiled the new version of their “meat” at CES — I’m guessing it’s the latter. Which will make it all the more interesting to see if Impossible or Beyond ends up dominating as the alterna-meat ruler of the grocery aisle.

However, with the fast-growing popularity of plant-based meat, there will likely be plenty of opportunities for both companies to make their way into your meatloaf, hoagies, and dumplings.

This post has been updated with more information about Beyond Beef’s flavor profile from the Beyond Meat website. 

Plant-Based Food Co. NotCo Gets $30M from Investors Including Jeff Bezos

NotCo, a Chile-based startup that uses AI to create plant-based versions of dairy products, has raised $30 million led by The Craftory investment fund, with participation from Jeff Bezo’s Bezos Expeditions (h/t FoodBev Media).

At the heart of NotCo is Giuseppe, the company’s artificial intelligence platform that analyzes food on a molecular level to re-create the flavors and textures of traditional foods. The company’s Not Mayo is made with potatoes, peas, basil, and canola oil rather than vegetable oil and eggs.

NotCo’s mayo is currently available in more than 1,000 stores in Chile. The new money will be used to fund new products like plant-based milk and ice cream, as well as expand into new markets such as Mexico and the U.S. later this year.

Investors have shown a pretty big appetite for plant-based products like NotCo’s, and it’s not hard to see why. Increased awareness around the ethical and environmental issues associated with meat and dairy consumption have more people re-thinking their diets and sales of plant-based products are soaring. But perhaps more importantly, plant-based alternatives have gotten really good.

via GIPHY

This combination of factors have led to companies like Impossible Foods raising $387.5 million, Beyond Meat raising $122 million (and going public), and more recently, Motif raised $90 million to help even more startups use plant-based ingredients.

But it’s not just startups, BIG FOOD (as my colleague, Catherine Lamb likes to call it), is plant-based muscling in on the act as well. Nestle has introduced its own version of the Impossible burger (dubbed the Incredible burger), Unilever bought the Vegetarian Butcher, and chicken king, Tyson is planning its own plant-based food products.

NotCo is also riding another high-tech trend: artificial intelligence for food/flavor creation and molecular food construction. Companies like Tastewise, Analytical Flavor Systems and even spice giant, McCormick are using the power of artificial intelligence to power the development of new flavors.

It’s safe to say that with all this interest and investment in companies like NotCo means plant-based startups are not going to stop anytime soon.

Fieldcraft is an Online Marketplace Helping Companies Develop New Plant-Based Products

Say a bakery chain wants to add a vegan blueberry muffin to its menu. First, they’d have to find substitutes for butter and eggs — depending on their preferences, maybe even ones that are certified organic or locally made — and ensure that these producers could consistently keep them supplied.

Maybe they should take a look at Fieldcraft. The Austin-based startup, which just launched last month, is an online B2B marketplace for plant-based ingredients. Growers and manufacturers can list their products — everything from specialty grains to kale chips — on the site, and buyers can search the database by production method, certifications (organic, non-GMO, etc.), location, supplier production capacity, and more.

If buyers can’t find what they need, they can submit requests to Fieldcraft for new products or even contract out farmers to sow a certain crop, such as an heirloom grain. On the farmer’s side, this is also a win since it gives them a guaranteed marketplace and, by putting in demands for new/different crops, promotes biodiversity.

Though it’s just over a month old, Fieldcraft already has over 7,000 companies in its marketplace. Yesterday the company rolled out a new solutions tool to help people who might not be sure exactly what they’re looking for — which, according to Fieldcraft CEO and co-founder Michael Chapman, is about one-third of their users. “We want to give buyers the chance to find new products that they didn’t even know were out there,” he told me.

For example, the aforementioned bakery might not know what type of egg substitute would be the best fit for their new vegan blueberry muffins. In this case, they could search Fieldcraft for a list of plant-based egg alternatives, which include minute details about the properties of each ingredient (emulsifying, thickening, etc.), and then determine which one to purchase.

On the other hand, for those who know exactly what they’re looking for, Fieldcraft can get pretty granular. So instead of just searching for broad “egg alternatives,” users could track down a “clean-label, non-GMO upcycled aquafaba.”

With so many new players — both young startups and veteran food corporations — entering into the plant-based protein space, I think there’s certainly a market for Fieldcraft’s, well, market. It offers a couple obvious benefits: it cuts out the middleman and gives suppliers instant access to new audiences.

But Fieldcraft’s greatest asset is its opportunity for discovery. When I visited the JUST offices last year I was wow-ed by their high tech plant research center, where the company tests plants sourced from around the world to suss out their properties: if they foam, thicken, etc. A resource like Fieldcraft, with its wide-ranging database, could help smaller startups who don’t have the warchest or lab space of a JUST to discover new ingredients that could lead to better plant-based products.

There are certainly other wholesale ingredient supply companies out there, including major players like Sysco or U.S. Foods, which carry plant-based ingredients. However, Fieldcraft is targeting buyers who want a more direct relationship with their supplier or need hard-to-find ingredients with exacting specifications. As of now, they sell to CPG brands, meal kit makers, bakeries, brewers, and even food manufacturers.

From my conversation with Chapman, it seems like the size of growers and suppliers using Fieldcraft varies pretty widely. I’ll be curious to see if they ever run into the problem of a grower running out of an ingredient (or just having a bad harvest) which a supplier relies upon for its product. That being said, his cofounder (and wife) Kristy Chapman, CPO of Fieldcraft, has a background in data science, so maybe they’ll be able to set up a backend that can nimbly adjust based on suppliers’ yield.

Fieldcraft is free for buyers to use and costs $195/year for suppliers. The company currently has four employees (including the Chapmans) and has yet to seek any external funding.

Obviously, Fieldcraft isn’t for everyone. Big players like Tyson or even Beyond Meat clearly have their own ingredient supply chains nailed down. But for newer startups, or even medium-sized players looking to develop new animal-free products, Fieldcraft could be a valuable resource.

There also seems to be a new trend of pick-and-play plant-based ingredient companies, like Motif Ingredients, a new company that makes ingredients for vegan products from genetically engineered yeast. With the plant-based market as red-hot as it is — sales grew by 20 percent in 2018 alone — I imagine we’ll see a lot more food companies and manufacturers looking to develop their own animal-free products over the coming years. Fieldcraft seems to be entering the market at just the right time.

Newsletter: Yeast Could be the Key to our Plant-Based Food Future — and CBD, Too

Happy Friday from L.A., where I came for a weekend of fancy toast, museum-hopping, and sipping as much green juice as my wallet can handle.

Just a short way down the coast is the headquarters of Beyond Meat, the startup whose plant-based burgers are making their way onto the plates of vegetarians and carnivores alike, including Bill Gates. This week, the Microsoft founder curated MIT Technology Review’s annual list of Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2019, and named plant-based burgers one of his picks. (He has invested in both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods in the past.)

That wasn’t the only news around plant-based protein this week. Impossible Foods announced that it was bringing its famous “bleeding” meat to Singapore!

Impossible’s burgers get their bloody appearance from heme, which the startup’s scientists make through a process that involves genetically engineered yeast. They’re not the only ones using yeast to make better-tasting meat alternatives: New company Motif Ingredients (a spinoff of Ginkgo Bioworks), which just launched this week, uses modified yeast to “brew” proteins intended for use in plant-based foods. This could lead to an influx of new meat alternative startups, as companies would no longer need their own expensive R&D lab and team of scientists in order to develop an animal-free product.

But genetically modified yeast can make a lot more than just protein. This week, scientists from Berkeley announced they had developed a way to use genetically modified yeast to create CBD and THC.

That’s right, the active components of Mary Jane can be grown in a lab. So in addition to bread, protein, beer, and milk, we can now add weed to the list of things that yeast can make. That’s one mighty microbe.

A bloody Impossible burger.

Let’s shift gears a minute to one of our all-time favorite topics: robots. Also pizza.

This week resident Spoon robo-expert Chris wrote about FedEx’s new delivery robot which can navigate stairs to deliver packages — or a piping-hot pizza — to your doorstep. He also covered Basil Street, a company developing automated pizza vending machines that can cook a pie in three minutes flat. In non-pizza robot news, the makers of Julia, a countertop cooking robot, raised an undisclosed amount of funding this week.

Seems like there’s a lot of really exciting innovation a-brewing in the world of food robotics, eh? If you want to join the conversation, we’re having a Slack Chat dedicated to the topic of automation in food TODAY at 10:30 a.m. PST. Experts from Byte Foods, Augean Robotics, and Kiwi Technology will be joining, and it’s sure to be valuable and, most importantly, fun. Sign up for our Slack Channel (it’s free and super easy, promise) to join. See you then!

Still can’t get enough robots? (We can’t, either.) Our food robotics and automation summit ArticulATE is happening April 16 at General Assembly in downtown San Francisco. If you want a teaser, this week we spoke with Linda Pouliot, CEO and founder of Dishcraft Robotics (yep, she’ll be at ArticulATE!), about what sort of kitchen tasks robots are suited for — and which ones are best left to humans. Early Bird Tickets for the summit are on sale now — get ’em while they’re hot.

With that, it’s time to eat tacos until I can’t eat tacos no mo. Peace.

Catherine

Editor Roundtable Podcast: Forget Delivery Bots, Amazon Wants You to Keep a Robot in Your Garage

Gotta give credit where credit is due: Amazon sure has lots of ideas about how to get more stuff to your house.

While everyone thought Amazon was all about about delivery drones, pickup lockers and IoT-connected order buttons (ok, maybe not), the tech giant’s also been brainstorming about putting a robot in your garage that could go and retrieve your latest package for you.

That’s just one of the topics we tackle in this week’s podcast with the Spoon editorial gang. Other topics include:

You can listen to the podcast below, find it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or your favorite podcast app, or download it directly to your computer.

Bill Gates Names Meat-Free Burgers in Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2019

Today MIT Technology Review released its list of the Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2019, and this time they had a special guest curator: Bill Gates.

In his intro to the list, Gates wrote that he made his choices not only based on what would make headlines, but also “captured this moment in technological history.”

Among smooth-talking smart assistants and a swallowable gut-probe pill, Gates also named the “cow-free burger” as one of the Top 10.

By 2050, humans are predicted to eat over 70 percent more meat than they did in 2005. That’s bad news for the environment, since raising poultry and (especially) cattle requires oodles of land and water, and also contributes to fossil fuel emissions. Gates posits that one of the best ways to limit the environmental toll of meat is to, well, stop eating so much — and instead turn to cell- and plant-based alternatives.

Cell-based meat isn’t yet available on the market. A recent study has also raised questions about whether it’s actually that much better for the planet than conventional meat production.

But plant-based meat is here, and people are loving it. (Bill Gates himself is an investor in both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, two of the top startups pushing plant-based “meaty” burgers, as well as cultured meat company Memphis Meats.)

The potential environmental impacts of plant-based meat is significant: according to an analysis by the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan, a Beyond Meat patty would generate 90 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than a beef burger from a cow. Presumably other meatless burgers have similar environmental footprints.

As of now, the plant-based meat sector makes up just a small fraction of all meat production globally. But with more and more major food companies getting into the vegan meat space and Beyond Meat set to file for an IPO by the end of this year, odds are Bill’s right, and we’ll be biting into a lot more plant-based burgers in the future.

Big Beef Company ABP Launches Vegan Burger in U.K. Supermarkets

The largest beef processor in Ireland and the U.K. just became the latest major food company to make their own version of a meatless burger meant to look, cook, and taste like the real deal.

Ireland-based ABP Group announced this week the launch of its new plant-based food line, Equals. The first product: a two-pack of quarter-pound meat-free burgers. The burgers are made of seasoned pea and soy proteins, plus something to make them look red and meaty (maybe beet juice, like Beyond Meat uses?).

ABP has been making pre-cooked meatless products since 2011, but this is the company’s first foray into fresh plant-based foods. Britons can now purchase Equals’ products in Asda supermarkets. A two-pack will cost £2.50 ($3.30). That’s on par with other meatless burger options like Vivera, and roughly half the price of Beyond’s patties, which cost £4.95 ($6.50) for a two-pack.

There must be something in the water. Recently a wave of Big Food (and more interestingly, Big Meat) companies have been developing plant-based burgers that have an uncanny resemblance to meat. Nestlé launched the Impossible Incredible Burger in December, and earlier this month Tyson, the world’s second-largest producer of beef, chicken, and pork, announced plans to internally develop its own line of plant-based proteins. Meatless food company Lightlife also recently unveiled its own beefy-looking burger.

Big Food might have the advantage of sizeable warchests, manufacturing facilities, and existing sales channels, but Beyond Meat — which is also available in the U.K. — is set to go public this year, which means they could theoretically raise enough money to challenge Big Food.

Then again, as we’ve said time and time again, demand for plant-based protein is growing so quickly that it’s not a zero-sum game. There’s plenty of room out there for more meatless burgers, especially in the U.K. where The Guardian reports that one-third of consumers have are either vegetarian or flexitarian. Good thing: I have a feeling that over the next few months we’ll be seeing other Big Meat companies launching plant-based burgers of their own.

Motif Ingredients Launches, Raises $90M to Democratize Plant-Based Ingredients

Making a burger (or chicken nugget, or egg) out of plants that tastes like the real thing is no easy feat. It takes years of R&D, teams of scientists, and large amounts of funding, and for many small startups, the development process is a slow struggle.

A new company is working to make it easier for plant-based protein companies to develop better products. Today Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston-based biotech company (and unicorn), unveiled Motif Ingredients, a spinoff company developing ingredients to replace animal protein. The company’s off to a running start: today it also announced it has raised a 90 million Series A funding round from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Fonterra and food processing giant Louis Dreyfus Co., among others.

Motif will use engineered microbes (like yeast) to “brew” food proteins that can mimic the same ones that give animal products their unique taste and texture. The resulting ingredients can be used to make everything from regular ol’ cow milk and chicken meat to more unique offerings, like sturgeon eggs and camel milk.

Established players like Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, and JUST have their own dedicated R&D labs, filled with robots sussing out plant properties and teams of scientists with extensive backgrounds in biotechnology and food science. Big Food — along with its extensive resources — is also entering the plant-based protein space. In fact, Tyson recently announced plans to develop its own meatless products internally.

But for smaller startups, developing their own plant-based ingredients can be a prohibitively expensive and time-consuming process. By partnering with Motif, however, these companies could outsource the costly R&D process and accelerate their product development.

If successful — and with $90 million in funding and a unicorn parent company, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be — Motif’s services could help usher in a flood of new plant-based protein companies. Plant-based camel milk, here we come.

Impossible Foods Will Roll Out Its “Bleeding” Plant-Based Meat in Singapore

Earlier this morning plant-based foods startup Impossible Foods put out a juicy teaser, hinting at an impending news drop. We immediately set to speculating: Was it a concrete date for the company’s retail launch? News about new fast-food partnerships? Was the plant-based steak finally on its way?

Turns out, the news was nothing that groundbreaking. Impossible announced via Twitter that it is rolling out its plant-based burgers in Singapore. Which we already kind of knew, since Impossible CEO Pat Brown dropped the news last month after the company unveiled its new recipe at CES.

Impossible’s patties are already available in Hong Kong and Macau, so the expansion to Singapore isn’t a stretch. Especially considering that Singapore company Temasek has invested in Impossible.

The Impossible News isn’t dropping any jaws, but it does highlight how Asia — specifically Hong Kong and Singapore — is becoming a stronghold of plant-based protein innovation. Vegan meat company Omnipork has a presence in all three cities, and JUST’s eggless scramble is also available in Hong Kong. Beyond Meat is also in Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, and the company has plans to roll out in Taiwan and Korea.

According to the tweet, Impossible will head to Singapore next week. There’s no word yet on which restaurants will serve its plant-based products, but it speaks to the growing global demand for meat alternatives — plant-based and cell-based — in Asia, the world’s largest meat producer. We’ll see if Singapore is as meaty an opportunity as Impossible is making it out to be.

Good Catch’s Plant-Based Tuna Swims into Retail

Good Catch just got one step closer to changing your tune about tuna. Yesterday the company rolled out its plant-based “tuna” products in Whole Foods, as well as through grocery subscription service Thrive Market and online grocer FreshDirect.

Good Catch’s tuna is made of a “6-plant protein blend” which contains lentils, pea protein, soy, and chickpea flour, as well as sea algae oil for flavor. It comes in three flavors, “Naked in Water,” “Mediterranean,” and “Oil and Herbs,” all of which are packaged in pouches (not cans) and cost $4.99.  Each 3.3 ounce serving of tuna has 14 grams of protein.

When it comes to plant-based foods, there are plenty of “fish” in the sea. In addition to Good Catch’s tuna, Sophie’s Kitchen has a “toona” made out of Japanese yam, and Ocean Hugger’s ahimi is a plant-based alternative to raw tuna — both of which are also sold at select Whole Foods. Atlantic Natural Foods also recently launched a new fishless tuna product, called “Tuno.”

There’s no question that more and more people are turning to plant-based protein. But is there enough demand to support multiple brands of vegan tuna?

Maybe not now, but soon consumers might not have a choice. The price of fresh tuna is rising as stocks dwindle due to overfishing. Just last month in Japan a giant tuna sold for a whopping $3.1 million. Canned tuna might not cost anywhere near as much as fresh, but if we continue to deplete the supply eventually it might. Plus there’s the worrying levels of mercury to think about. As consumers turn away from canned tuna for health or price reasons, Good Catch & co. will be there for all their tuna melt needs.

One final note: it’s interesting that Good Catch named its product straight-up “tuna,” instead of using a similar word or a different spelling, like its competitors. As meat and dairy companies battle to keep plant-based options from using words like “meat” and “milk,” this is a pretty bold move from Good Catch. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company gets some backlash from Big Fish.

Good Catch raised $8.7 million last August. We haven’t tried its products yet, but with the number of new plant-based players trying to disrupt canned tuna, it just might be time for a taste test.

JUST Might Be Seeking $200M — Here’s What They Should Do With It

Yesterday Bloomberg reported that JUST, the company known for its plant-based cookie dough, mayo, and eggless scramble, is raising $200 million. According to Crunchbase, JUST has raised $220 million so far.

JUST and CLSA (the overseas arm of Chinese investment bank Citic Securities Co. rumored to be involved) declined to comment, but given how hot plant-based (and cell-based) foods are right now, here are a few ways the company should consider spending the investment:

What Just’s lab-grown burger will look like.

Cell-based meat

JUST was supposed to bring cell-based meat to market by the end of 2018. Suffice it to say, that didn’t happen. The production technology seemed to be in place and the taste tests went well. What kept JUST from its goal was regulatory hurdles. Last November the USDA and FDA decided they would jointly regulate cell-based meat, which was a step towards establishing a clear regulatory process for bringing cultured meat to market. However, there are still a lot of question marks, including labeling. Until those are resolved, JUST can’t move forward.

The JUST website states the company will now bring cell-based meat to market by the end of 2019 (again, pending regulatory considerations), which gives it another 10 months to get its cell-based meat approved by the FDA/USDA and figure out how it will be labeled. To facilitate the process, JUST is currently hiring a Director of Regulatory Affairs, which is a step in the right direction. But if the startup wants to be the first to bring cell-based meat to market — or to have a prayer of bringing it to market, period —  it would be wise to use the new round of funding to help hire more folks to navigate the sticky regulatory issues surrounding cultured meat.

(Interestingly, the Director of Regulatory Affairs job posting calls for someone to “serve as subject matter expert for domestic and international regulations. Which makes sense since JUST recently told CBS San Francisco that the company plans to launch its cell-based meat in Asia first.)

 

Breakfast sandwiches made with JUST Scramble.

More JUST Egg

So far, JUST’s mung bean-based “egg” is its most unique offering. Vegan cookie dough and mayo are great, sure, but other companies make those products, too. But no one else so far has been able to make scrambled eggs without, well, the eggs. I’d like to see JUST Egg available more widely here in the U.S., and also internationally.

JUST has already started that expansion outside North America. In addition to the U.S., the eggless scramble is now available in Hong Kong, and China, and the company plans to move into Japan and India next.

It’s in this area of the world that JUST could make some of the greatest impact. According to World Atlas, Japan is the largest consumer of eggs in the world, and China is the third largest. If consumers there are willing to try a newfangled product like JUST Egg, it could significantly cut down on the global environmental footprint of poultry production.

New products would also be great. Imagine, say, a line of frozen breakfast sandwiches made with JUST Egg patties. Which would be especially good with…

 

Cheese?

JUST has not hinted at any plans to develop plant-based cheese, but there’s certainly a big market for it. While there are plenty of reasonably delicious stand-ins for meat, eggs, mayo, and yogurt, no one has yet been able to crack the code to excellent vegan cheese (at least in my mind). And we all need something to tide us over until Perfect Day swoops in with cheddar made without the cow.

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Obviously to achieve all this would take a lot more than $200 million. But if the rumors are true and JUST’s coffers are about to expand, it seems like the most lucrative place to invest time and resources is in cell-based meat. After all, the company has a promise to fulfill and is racing against a timeline to do that. And as the first company to bring cultured meat to market, JUST is also paving the way for all cell-based meat and seafood companies. That’s a lot of pressure. If they want to succeed, the startup will have to invest some serious time, talent, and cash in figuring out a way around the regulatory roadblocks.

This post has been updated with information from a San Francisco CBS Local piece on JUST’s plans for the future.