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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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SKS 2019: The Key to Sustainable Protein Might be Fermentation, not Plants

When you hear the term alternative proteins, your thoughts likely jump to plant-based foods, or maybe even cultured meat.

But there’s actually a third way to create high-protein meat alternatives without plants by leveraging a relatively old technology, and that is fermentation. At SKS 2019, Dr. Lisa Dyson of Air Protein, Perumal Gandhi of Perfect Day, and Morgan Keim of Motif FoodWorks discussed how their companies are using genetically engineered microbes to ferment sustainable, highly customizable proteins.

If you’re intrigued by all the buzz around the alternative protein space, it’s worth watching the whole video below. (You get to learn how Air Protein makes protein from air, c’mon.) Here are a few takeaways from the conversation:

Fermented protein is super sustainable
Plant-based protein is certainly more environmentally friendly than animal protein, but fermented protein has the potential to be even more sustainable. Dr. Dyson noted that their protein is made using only energy (which can come from solar or wind) and elements of the air. Bonus: unlike farming, it can scale vertically, is independent of weather conditions, and makes protein incredibly quickly.

It’s more efficient, too
One of the perks of fermenting protein is you can get really granular about which molecules you want to create, eliminating waste. “If you just want one part of, say, a dairy molecule, why create the whole thing?” asked Keim onstage. “Why not just make the one part you actually need?” Having that sort of control over the protein leads to more efficient R&D processes for all sorts of animal alternative products.

Fermentation isn’t *that* out of this world
Dr. Dyson noted that growing protein from fermentation “may sound like science fiction,’ but it’s actually quite close to our current standard methods of growing many staple foods — including yogurt and beer.

Gandhi echoed this sentiment. Perfect Day, which dubbed their proteins “flora-based” after the microflora used to create them, noted that fermenting protein isn’t anything new. “We’ve been using it for 40 years now,” Gandhi said. “We’re just applying [the technology] in a new way.”

Watch the full video below to learn more about what Keim called “the next generation of what non-animal foods will be.” It’ll make you rethink the protein on your plate.

SKS 2019: Growing Protein: The Emerging Food Tech Ingredient Market

Israeli Insect Protein Startup Flying Spark Gets Investment from Seafood Company Thai Union

Today Flying Spark, an Israeli startup that makes food products from larval insect protein, announced a partnership with Thai Union Group PCL, one of the world’s largest seafood producers. As part of the deal, Thai Union will also invest in the Israeli company.

Thai Union did not disclose how much it would invest in Flying Spark. However, a press release sent to The Spoon did reveal that this is the first investment by Thai Union from its new $30 million venture fund intended for food tech companies, including those in the alternative protein space.

While dining on larvae might not sound appetizing, at least to most Western consumers, insects are actually an incredibly sustainable source of protein. They require very little food or water, grow quickly, and the whole insect can be eaten — which means no food waste.

Companies like Aspire (which acquired cricket protein bar company Exo), Chirp’s, Orchestra Provisions and others are all trying to get Western consumers to eat insects. Even some celebrities have taken up the cause to advocate for bugs.

Considering Thai Union is one of the world’s largest seafood producers, however, their interest might be more focused on insect protein’s other main use: cheap, sustainable animal feed.

Currently the majority of feed for farmed fish is made from, well, smaller fish. That can be expensive and also means that those fish can’t be sold to consumers. Using insects to cultivate farmed fish could be a cheaper high-protein option.

If that is indeed the route they’re going, Flying Spark won’t be the first to get into the space. Last year French startup Ÿnsect raised €110 million (~$124 million) to build a giant farm to grow larvae for fish feed. However, with demand for fish predicted to increase by more than 50 percent over the next 15 years, there’ll be plenty of room for multiple players to swim onto the scene.

Michele Fite Wants to Defy Your Idea of What Animal-Free Alternatives Can Be

Burbling bread starters and pots of kimchi or kraut are common in today’s fermentation-forward, health-conscious kitchens. But what happens when you merge the ancient craft that brought us fine wine, soy sauce, and chocolate with cutting-edge science and technology ? You get protein, which is exactly what new(ish) spinoff company Motif Foodworks is all about: making animal-free protein solutions to help feed the alt-meat revolution.

We talked to Michele Fite, Chief Commercial Officer of Motif FoodWorks, to find out more. She will be at the Smart Food Summit (SKS) on October 7th speaking about Next-Gen Food Building Blocks next month. Tickets are almost gone, so register now!

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

Tell us more about how Motif FoodWorks works.
We are an ingredient innovation company dedicated to reshaping the landscape of food through science and technology. We will do that by partnering with food innovators, from chefs to startups to major enterprise brands, and creating animal-free ingredients that will enable new and better food experiences. Ultimately, our goal is to defy expectations of what animal-free alternatives can be.

To achieve breakthroughs in ingredient innovation, we employ an exhaustive process to understand and unlock new food properties. We start with a thorough analysis of the sensory experience that allows us to identify the underlying components. We then decode the genetic makeup of those ingredients, translating them into animal-free counterparts. Powered by fermentation, we harness biology and select microbes designed to produce our target ingredients — ones we have traditionally gotten from animals — through a process that is akin to brewing beer.

Motif FoodWorks just raised $27.5 million dollars. What do you plan to use your new capital to achieve?
With the new funding, we plan to add to and accelerate our product pipeline; expand academic collaborations across a broad set of molecular food science disciplines; scale our science and regulatory staff; and deepen our research and development efforts.

This year alone we have been able to expand our leadership team with the additions of Janet Collins, Head of Regulatory, Government and Industry Affairs, Julie Post-Smith, Director of Business Development, and Morgan Keim, Business Development Manager, who will help Motif unlock the secrets of food and meet consumer demand for delicious, responsibly produced foods.

Why do you think the alternative protein space is so white-hot right now? What is motivating its rise in popularity?
The alternative protein space is rising in popularity because of shifting consumer attitudes, emerging technologies, and the “cool factor” of brands like Beyond and Impossible drawing more attention to the industry as a whole.

People want to eat a little better, both for their own health and the health of the environment, and Motif sees a unique opportunity to move plant-based and animal-free foods beyond a fad and solidify them into a movement by making sure consumers don’t have to compromise between taste, nutrition and values.

You previously worked in big CPG companies such as Nestlé, Dupont and Kerry. How has your experience informed your role at Motif Bioworks?
I am fortunate to bring a depth of experience in the food industry to my work at Motif – from working in consumer packaged goods experience as a marketer and brand manager to serving as a B2B executive in highly technical and specialized businesses such as infant formula, weight management, sports nutrition, medical foods, and dietary supplements. I will apply my abilities to understand consumer insights and trends in the food space and connect them back to technology to my role at Motif, as we work to reshape the food landscape and bring more nutritious, accessible and sustainable food experiences to consumers.

Come hear Michele, Perumal Gandhi of Perfect Day and Lisa Dyson of Air Protein speak at SKS next month! Tickets are going fast.

Future Food: The New Wave of Protein Might Come from Air, Not Plants

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

Konichiwa! Greetings from the muggy, beautiful city of Tokyo, where we’ve set up camp this week in preparation for SKS Japan. I’ll be leading a panel on alternative proteins with speakers from JUST and Integriculture/Shojinmeat, so keep an ear to the ground for coverage on that conversation.

Tokyo really does seem to be a city of the future — especially when it comes to food. From sushi burritos delivered in cubbies to ramen via vending machine, the dining experience here is always incredibly thoughtful and efficient.

My time here has got me thinking about what sort of simple, elegant solutions might be out there for our food system right now that are right in front of our face.

One that comes to mind is Kiverdi. The San Francisco-based startup feeds carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to special single-celled organisms to create edible proteins.

It almost sounds too good to be true. Since neither Kiverdi nor other companies turning air into protein (yes, there’s more than one!) have a product to market, it’s too early to tell if they’ll be able to deliver on their goals of creating affordable, super-sustainable protein from the air around us. But the timeline isn’t too distant: both Kiverdi and Finnish gas fermentation startup Solar Foods are hoping to bring a product to market in two years.

At that time, we’ll be able to see if Kiverdi and others can indeed make a neutral-tasting protein from carbon dioxide in a cost-competitive manner (which they claim they can already do). If so, it could rock our food system.

It could be used as an ingredient to make high-protein pastas or breads. It could become a sustainable vegan protein powder. It could be mixed with burgers or chicken nuggets to make blended meat products, further cutting down on emissions by reducing our meat consumption.

That’s just the start. Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing our society today, and one of its biggest causes is the amount of carbon trapped in the atmosphere. If there’s a technology that sucks up excess carbon and not only sequesters it, but transforms it into something that can help feed the planet, I’d call that the future of food.

Photo: the Impossible Whopper at Burger King.

Vegan… ish?

If you’re grabbing a plant-based Impossible or Beyond burger at one of the many fast-food restaurants that now serve the burgers, you probably expect that the food you receive will be vegetarian.

Except not really. While the burger itself may be 100% free of animal products the finished combo meal might still have traces of meat due to the restaurant’s cooking process.

Most fast-food joints don’t have the space to carve out a special area just to cook plant-based meat. Burger King has admitted that the patties for its Impossible Whopper are flame-grilled in the same broiler as its chicken and beef products. Likewise, when I tried the Beyond Famous Star burger at Carl’s Jr. earlier this year the manager told me that the burgers are in fact cooked on the same grill as typical beef burgers. (Interestingly, White Castle has a completely separate grill surface to cook the Impossible sliders.)

I’m guessing it’s the same story at most fast-casual restaurants that serve meatless meat. Rare is the restaurant that has the capacity to designate a completely separate area to cook vegan items, unless that place already caters specifically to vegan diners. In fact, last year I went to a Seattle burger chain to try the Impossible burger for the first time (memories!!) and was told that the chefs try to prep the burger on a separate area of the grill, but when it gets busy that doesn’t always happen.

There’s also the fact that many plant-based meat options at fast-food aren’t inherently vegan: they’re dressed up with cheese and mayonnaise and served on egg-based buns. All of which makes sense, since QSR’s aren’t targeting vegans with their newly-adopted Beyond and Impossible products. Instead, they’re hoping to capture the curiosity of flexitarian diners looking to cut down on their meat consumption without sacrificing on flavor.

In the end, I can see how vegans might be annoyed to learn that they can’t really eat plant-based burgers. But I imagine to many, the end result — more people eating meatless meat — justifies the means. Perhaps if meatless meat gains enough popularity fast-food chains will create designated vegan cook areas.

Photo: Subway

Eat Fresh (Plants)

For a limited time this September, Subway will be testing out Beyond Meatball Marinara sandwiches in 685 locations in the U.S. and Canada. That’s a relatively small fraction, as Subway is the largest and fastest-growing fast-food chain with over 25,000 locations in the U.S. alone.

Then again, Beyond has now forged a partnership with the largest and fastest-growing fast-food chain globally. Forget McDonald’s (though they definitely haven’t) — this partnership indicates, as if we didn’t already know, that plant-based meat is becoming more and more of the norm.

Interestingly, the sandwiches feature Beyond meatballs developed specifically for Subway. It looks like more and more plant-based meat companies are developing unique products specifically for their fast-food partners. Dunkin’s new sandwiches contain Beyond breakfast sausages developed specifically for the chain, and Impossible created plant-based sausage specifically for Little Caesar’s.

This move tightens the screws on other QSR’s dragging their feet on adopting meatless meats. I think we’re one step closer to seeing a plant-based McGriddles sandwich.

Photo: Tyson Foods.

Protein ’round the web

  • eat.life, a food delivery app that only has vegan dining options, will launch in London in 2020 (h/t VegNews).
  • Tyson announced it will start selling its Raised & Rooted plant-based chicken nuggets (which contain egg whites) in 4,000 stores, and roll them out in foodservice this September.
  • FoodNavigator wrote a profile on FUMI Ingredients, a Dutch starting making a vegan egg substitute from yeast.

That’s it for this week! I’m off to eat my body weight in 7-11 Egg Salad sandwiches (yes they are actually *that* good).

Eat well,
Catherine

Kiverdi Uses NASA Technology To Make Protein, Fish Food, and Palm Oil from CO2

What if there was a single solution to food supply issues, plastic waste and soil degradation — and it was something that’s in front of you right this very second?

Hayward, California-based Kiverdi is working to solve a variety of daunting problems facing our planet by leveraging carbon filtered from the air. Kiverdi co-founder and CEO Lisa Dyson was looking for solutions to solve climate change on Earth when she stumbled upon a technology that NASA was exploring to feed astronauts over long interplanetary journeys. Scientists discovered particular single-cell organisms, that, when fed carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen from the air, would output protein in a process she called carbon fermentation. In 2011 Dyson and her co-founder John Reed decided to use this technology to solve food supply issues on Earth and started Kiverdi.

“We built this company to be able to commercialize solutions to the world’s tough issues,” Dyson told me over the phone this week. Those issues include protein supply, of course, but that’s only one facet of Kiverdi’s business. The company is also using carbon fermentation to create sustainable fish feed, fertilizer and palm oil. It’s even transforming waste through a very rad-sounding process called “gasification,” in which plastics are broken down into carbon and hydrogen, then reformed into biodegradable materials.

The whole process may sound something you need to have a PhD in science to understand (and Dyson does), but she described it to me as very similar to brewing beer or making yogurt. The company currently has over 46 patents granted and pending on their technology.

Dyson said that they’re going to commercialize through partnerships and enter the market over the next few years through multiple verticals. She couldn’t name any specific air protein partnerships that are in the works, but did mention meatless meat and protein powder as potential products. Kiverdi also has several investors and some government funding, though Dyson wouldn’t disclose exact funding numbers.

It’ll be a while — probably two years or so — before anyone gets to bite into a plant-based burger made with air protein. The company is not going to commercialize until their product is “economically attractive,” as Dyson put it. And for that to happen, they’ll need to scale up significantly.

The company currently ferments all of its protein in-house in its manufacturing facility. But since their technology relies on so few outputs (air, water, and electricity) and requires no land, they can actually scale up relatively easily. All they have to do is add more fermentation tanks and voila — more protein.

Kiverdi’s technology is akin to gas fermentation, a technology we’ve covered before on the Spoon in which genetically engineered microbes turn air, water and electricity into edible proteins. The process is used by companies Solar Foods, Novo Nutrients and Deep Branch Biotechnology, but Dyson claims that Kiverdi’s technology separates itself from the pack since it uses a unique metabolic pathway.

Solar Foods seems to be Kiverdi’s closest competitor, as they’re the only other company using gas fermentation to make protein meant to go into marketable foods. The Finnish company plans to have its protein to market by 2021, so they’re on a similar timeline to Kiverdi.

But Solar Foods seems to be slightly further ahead in certain ways: it has already started pre-engineering on its factory, and has applied for a novel food license in order to legally sell its ingredients in Europe. Kiverdi hasn’t disclosed anything so concrete in terms of manufacturing or timeline, though Dyson did say that she didn’t anticipate any regulatory hurdles since their production methods are very similar to that of yogurt, beer, and even Impossible Foods’ heme, all of which are FDA-approved. Kiverdi’s protein is currently approved for specific applications in Europe.

Then again, I don’t think competition will be too much of an issue at first. Solar Foods is based in Europe while Kiverdi is in California. And when it comes to a food ingredient as novel — and sustainable — as protein made from air, odds are there will be ample market opportunity.

That’s just on Earth: Solar Foods is currently developing technology for the European Space Agency and Kiverdi is working with SRI International. But while gas and carbon fermentation could help sustain astronauts traveling through space, they also have the potential to solve pressing issues here on Earth. Good thing we’re not running out of air anytime soon.

Future Food: Why Are Companies Chicken about Plant-Based Poultry?

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

Hi guys. Seeing as it’s summertime, the season for grilling, lately I’ve had some deep thoughts about (plant-based) burgers. Specifically, why they’re one of the only options in the meatless meat section of my grocery store.

Like the Little Mermaid, I want more. Chicken is the most popular meat in America, so why can’t I find a decent plant-based version of it?

Tastes like…
There’s clearly a demand for plant-based poultry. KFC in the U.K. recently tested out a plant-based chicken patty called the Imposter Burger that sold out in just four days.

But considering the popularity of chicken, innovation has been surprisingly slow when it comes to finding an alternative to the real thing. Perhaps that’s because poultry has a far smaller environmental cost than cattle, so companies have prioritized beef over chicken. Or maybe the texture of chicken is harder to emulate than that of ground beef.

Nonetheless, we are starting to see a few leaders hatch:

  • Poultry processing giant Tyson launched its Raised & Rooted line last month. One of its first two products was a vegetarian “chicken” nugget made of pea protein and egg whites.
  • Swiss startup Planted makes meat-free chicken from pea protein, pea fiber, water and sunflower oil.
  • Last week NUGGS launched its plant-based chicken nuggets, which it delivers in boxes right to consumers’ doorsteps.
  • Rebellyous, formerly called Seattle Food Tech, also makes vegan chicken nuggets. It sells them wholesale to large-scale foodservice providers like schools and hospitals.
  • In the U.K., THIS, whose chicken “chunks’ are pictured above, just launched its plant-based poultry in stores yesterday.
  • Meatless meat veteran Quorn, which is available in 18 countries, has a variety of vegetarian and vegan chicken products.
  • Freezer aisle staples Morningstar Farms and Gardein offer plant-based nuggets.

Photo: Beyond Meat

There’s the Beef

That’s not to say alterna-beef is going anywhere. In fact, it’s only going to get eerily closer to the real thing.

I found that out the hard way when I cooked up a package of Beyond Beef, the new, “meatier” ground beef product from Beyond Meat. I haven’t eaten meat in quite a while, but dang — this took me back. The flavor was full of umami and the texture really mimicked the juicy give and bounce of ground beef.

As a vegetarian, that verisimilitude grossed me out. But my colleague Chris Albrecht and my carnivorous roommate were both big fans, though my roommate noted it had a slightly “chemically” taste.

Despite the positive reviews, I think it’ll take a while before people flock to Beyond Beef like they did to the original burger. Right now it costs $9.99 for one pound. That’s roughly on-par with organic, grass-fed beef. Most people I know would rather spring for higher-quality beef — which has a smaller environmental footprint than industrial beef and, some actually argue, a critical role in the ecosystem.

In fact, with its new ground “beef,” Beyond Meat may be entering the Uncanny Valley, something we’ve referenced frequently for humanoid robots but not for meat alternatives. Beyond Beef is almost indistinguishable from beef. But it’s just different enough — slight discrepancies in flavor, aftertaste, and texture — that it could be off-putting.

All that said, I’ll reiterate that I’m a vegetarian and Beyond Beef was too much like the real thing for me to enjoy it. It’s still quite new so we’ll have to see if flexitarians have beef with Beyond’s new offering.

Where in the world is Impossible Foods?

With all this talk about what will be the next hot plant-based meat, it’s easy to overlook the where piece. This week Impossible Foods’ SVP for International made the location question pretty clear when he laid out the startup’s expansion strategy.

One word: Asia.

We’ve seen this coming for a while now. Asia is the new hotspot for alternative protein innovation, both plant- and cell-based. It’s got a ton of consumer demand, a relatively open playing field, and ample manufacturing power. Add to that mixture the recent outbreaks of African swine fever, and Asia seems primed for an alt-meat revolution.

There are also a few local plant-based protein companies gaining traction there, including Omnipork and Phuture Meat. But there are currently lots more U.S. and European players, and they have more funding. We’ll likely see quite a few of them trying to carve out a piece of the Asian alt-protein market before the competition gets too fierce.

Photo: Business Newswire.

Protein ’round the web

  • A new food hall is opening in Providence, RI. The draw? All the businesses inside are entirely plant-based (h/t Forbes).
  • Beyond Meat will be popping up in Blue Apron’s meal kits this summer. Will the plant-based darling’s fame help the struggling meal kit company? Probably not.
  • Integriculture, the Japanese cellular agriculture company, is launching a joint research project with food processing giant NH Foods Ltd. to develop large-scale production processes for cell-based meat.

If you happen to be in Tokyo in August, you can see the founder of Integriculture, Yuki Hanyu, speak on a panel at SKS Japan about the future of protein. Tickets here. 

Be careful what you wish for. Finally, remember how Arby’s made meat into vegetables as a cheeky response to the rise in plant-based meat? Apparently, they got a lot more than they bargained for.

Eat well,
Catherine

Prime Roots Makes Super Protein Building Blocks (and Bacon) from Mushroom Roots

If you’re biting into any sort of plant-based meat these days, odds are its main ingredient is soy, peas, or wheat. But that might not be the case for long if Prime Roots has its way.

The company’s cofounder and CEO, Kimberlie Le, got the inspiration for the company back in 2017, when she began questioning why alternative meats were made from the same few plants. “I wondered — why aren’t people looking at not plants?” she told me in a recent phone interview. So she began experimenting in the Berkeley Alternative Meat Lab with co-founder Joshua Nixon, looking for a plant-free protein building block to upend the meatless status quo.

Eventually, they found it in mushrooms. Or more specifically, mycelium: mushroom roots. (No, mushrooms are not technically plants — they’re fungi.) These roots, which are produced in a process akin to beer brewing, can be used to make any manner of meat substitutes, from shrimp to bacon to crab cakes.

Mycelium have a few advantages over other plant proteins. According to Le, the fungi they use are tasteless, so they don’t have to mask any off plant flavors (like the tongue-coating bitterness that comes with pea protein.) Mycelium require minimal resources to grow and are a more efficient source of protein than plants, which often require solvents to fully extract all the protein. Prime Roots can also tweak the fungi’s nutritional content, adjusting its levels of protein and fat. “We can make our product have 50 percent more protein than meat,” Le said.

Most importantly, though, mycelium have an extremely versatile flavor and texture, meaning they can be used to make any manner of meat or seafood substitutes. While still operating under their former name of Terramino Foods, they were focusing on fish-free salmon burgers. Now they’ve taken a step back to re-evaluate.

To narrow down the choices, they’ve posted a voting page on their website with 12 meaty and protein-heavy options — from chicken tenders to protein bars — all of which Prime Roots has already tested internally. Anyone who casts their vote will have early access to the products at a discounted price.

When they do launch, which Le anticipates will be around 2020, Prime Roots will be sold exclusively online. Le said they’re waiting to start selling their products until they’re priced competitively with meat. Which they’re actually not too far from — as of now — Prime Roots can make their mycelium for only a few dollars a pound.

Prime Roots currently has a team of 10. Last year they participated in the prestigious IndieBio accelerator program and raised $4.25 million.

By choosing to use mycelium as a meat substitute, Prime Roots is going up against one of the highest-grossing meat alternative companies in the world: Quorn. The company uses fermented mycoprotein, a type of fungi, as the base of their meat-free products. Per Le, Prime Roots’ advantage comes down to the unique properties and simplicity of their mycelium. “The fungi that [Quorn] uses has only been in the diet the last 50 or so years,” she said. “We looked at what protein people have been using a lot longer.”

Prime Roots is also hoping that their emphasis on community — putting the product choice in the hand of the consumers — will help them stand out as the alt-protein space gets more crowded. That way Prime Roots can sniff out gaps in the market and develop new products accordingly using their mushroomy building blocks.

It’s a clever idea. But Prime Roots will need more than just catchy marketing strategies to go up against a behemoth like Quorn, which has a sizeable range of products, global name recognition and a widespread retail footprint. To stand out, Prime Roots will have to not only make a product that tastes excellent, but also one that consumers don’t already see in the grocery aisle.

I just cast my own vote — bacon all the way. If Prime Roots can nail the taste of a product as popular (and, in the meat alternative space, as underrepresented) as that, they’ll have more than just a shot at carving out their own space in the alt-protein market.

Solar Foods Will Start Selling Gas-Fermented Protein by 2021

Making protein from thin air may sound like something out of science fiction, but it’s exactly what the Helsinki, Finland-based company Solar Foods is doing. They use a technique called gas fermentation to create edible protein using only two inputs: air and electricity.

A few months ago we got to interview Solar Foods CEO Pasi Vainikka and learned that the company was gearing up for an initial product launch in 2021. By 2022 they plan to build a factor factory that could make 50 million meals worth of their protein — called solein — per year.

It seems Solar Foods is sticking to their timeline — and even accelerating it. This weekend The Guardian reported that the Finnish company plans to sell 50 million meal’s worth of solein in supermarkets within two years (so, by 2021). The solein will apparently look and taste like flour and cost €5 ($5.64) per kilo. It will be used as an ingredient to add protein to food products, and can also apparently be woven into fibers to mimic meat or bread.

Solar Foods plans to apply to the EU for a novel food license by the end of this year so that they can stay on track to begin commercial production in 2021. They’ve already started pre-engineering on their factory.

While I’m all for making protein for unexpected sources, I wonder if this timeline is a little ambitious. Solar Foods has a couple of obstacles to contend with that might make their vision to put solein in 50 million supermarket meals in the next two years a little… tricky.

The first hurdle is regulation. The European Commission describes novel food as “derived from new production processes (UV-treated food (milk, bread, mushrooms, and yeast.))” Solein is made by genetically engineered bacteria. That certainly falls under the umbrella of new production processes, but the EU is notoriously cautious of GMO’s, so they might be hesitant to approve solein. At the very least, hoping for a less than two-year turnaround for regulatory approval is… optimistic.

The second hurdle for Solar Foods will be consumer acceptance. Will people want to eat protein that’s made from carbon dioxide processed through bacteria? It doesn’t sound terribly appetizing. Then again, according to Vainikka solein will have quite a neutral flavor and appearance, so maybe consumers wouldn’t even know.

Regardless of whether they meet their 2021 production goals, Solar Foods is on track to be the first company to bring gas fermented protein to market. But they won’t be the last. In the U.S. Kiverdi and are Novo Nutrients transforming CO2 into products like oils and fish food. Across the pond, U.K.-based Deep Branch Biotechnology is making animal feed out of the CO2 in industrial waste gas.

Gas fermentation could have implications far beyond the feed lots or the grocery store. Solar Foods is working with the European Space Agency to make a prototype device which could make protein for space missions. So come 2021 (or, you know, later), you could soon theoretically be eating the same diet as an astronaut. Talk about science fiction.

Tyson Foods Debuts Raised & Rooted, its Long-Anticipated Line of Alternative Proteins

Today poultry giant Tyson Foods announced Raised & Rooted, its new brand selling alternative proteins.

Raised & Rooted’s first products will be plant-based “chicken” nuggets (made with a pea protein blend) and blended burger patties (which combine beef and pea protein). The products have lower calories and saturated fat than traditional chicken nuggets and beef burgers, respectively.

In addition to the new Raised & Rooted brand, Tyson is also introducing new alt-protein products through its existing Aidells brand, which sells meaty sausages, burgers, and meatballs. Aidells Whole Blends’ new sausages and meatballs contain a blend of chicken and protein-heavy plants such as quinoa, black beans, and lentils.

Raised & Rooted’s plant-based nuggets will launch in retailers in late summer. The blended burgers will follow this fall. Outside the grocery channel, Tyson will also sell its new alternative protein products through foodservice partners. Aidells’ Whole Blends are already available.

“For us, this is about ‘and’ – not ‘or,'” said Tyson Foods CEO Noel White in a press release emailed to the Spoon. “We remain firmly committed to our growing traditional meat business and expect to be a market leader in alternative protein, which is experiencing double-digit growth and could someday be a billion-dollar business for our company.”

Tyson’s venture capital arm, Tyson Ventures, has invested in mushroom protein company MycoTechnology and cell-based meat startups Memphis Meats and Future Meat Technologies. They had purchased a 6.5 percent ownership in Beyond Meat but quietly dissolved their ties in April — likely since Tyson (understandably) didn’t want to compete directly with one of its portfolio companies once it started developing its own line of plant-based protein.

When the second largest meat processor in the world creates its own line(s) of plant-based and blended chicken and burgers, there’s no longer any doubt that alternative proteins are a profitable opportunity. This news also comes a day after Perdue, another large poultry producer, launched its line of Chicken Plus products: chicken nuggets, tenders, and patties blended with vegetables and proteins sourced from Better Meat Co.

New Age: Perennial Makes Plant-Based Protein Drinks for the 50+ Generation

When it comes to protein drink options, there are a lot to choose from. There are ones for bulking up, for slimming down, for nutrition management and for keeping hunger at bay. Now there’s a new one for older people.

Based in El Seguno, Calif., startup Perennial’s plant-based protein beverages are geared towards consumers 50 years and older. Perennial’s single-serve beverages contain a mixture of pea protein, soy protein, almonds, and rice protein. It also has dietary fiber to maintain a healthy gut, and shiitake mushroom powder and algal oil for brain health.

For now, Perennial only has one product: a single-serve beverage with a vanilla flavor. You can buy a twelve-pack of the drinks on Perennial’s website for $34.99, which comes out to almost $3 each. The drinks are quite small — more Yoo-Hoo, less Gatorade — and each one contains 140 calories and 8 grams of protein. They’re intended to be a snack, not a meal replacement.

Interestingly, co-founders Sara Bonham and Brent Taylor (who previously co-founded Beyond Meat) are only in their mid-30’s. “We’re creating a world we want to age into,” Bonham explained to me over the phone recently.

Their choice to target the 50+ demographic isn’t only altruistic — it’s also a savvy business play. “There’s a lot of noise going after millennials,” Bonham said. But older demographics — specifically those over 50 — have been ignored.

That means there’s a huge, relatively untapped market. Ten thousand people per day are turning 65 in America; yet according to Bonham, only 1 percent of global innovation addresses them. I’m not sure where she gets that number, but anyone paying attention to food innovation trends can see that the vast majority of new products are targeted at Millennials and Gen Z, capitalizing off their demand for plant-based food, personalization, convenience, etc.

Products for older people, on the other hand, tend to lean towards convalescent care. But as the population ages and people stay fit for longer, older consumers are searching for foods that will help them stay healthy and active.

Photo: Perennial.

That’s where Bonham thinks that Perennial can gain traction. However, Perennial’s greatest strength may turn out to be its greatest weakness. The company is clearly targeting an older demographic, but I’m not sure if Baby Boomers will be into it. They care less than younger generations about whether or not their food is plant-based, and relatively few purchase groceries online.

To me, Perennial seems like a drink that will actually end up attracting Millennials. After all, it has everything they like: it’s plant-based, full of trendy ingredients like algae and mushrooms, and is available for online delivery. Maybe Millennials will introduce Perennial to their parents and get them hooked?

The real test will be when Perennial starts rolling out to different retail channels, which Bonham told me they’re hoping to do soon. Will their plant-based drinks jump out to older generations who are passing by a grocery shelf filled with other protein drinks like Ensure or Muscle Milk? A lot will come down to branding. To that end, the startup does have a little bit of funding to play around with: it raised a $2.5 million round in August of 2017 with participation from SOSV amongst others.

I sampled one of Perennial’s drinks and found it to be pretty tasty. There was still a bit of chalkiness and a bitter aftertaste that I’ve come to associate with plant-based dairy — especially ones that contain pea protein —  but overall it was good: sweet, creamy, and filling enough to sustain me over the long stretch between breakfast and lunch.

Would I buy it on the reg? Probably not. There are other, more readily available protein drinks and snacks I can grab at the corner store, and Perennial’s added benefits of bone, brain, and gut health aren’t quite enough to entice me. However, maybe by the time I’m 50 I’ll feel differently.

Podcast: Making Food Out of Thin Air

If you’re a foodtech nerd like me, chances are you’ve seen a few articles lately about a small group of startups working on a new technique to essentially food “out of thin air”. What makes this technology even more intriguing is it creates a new food source that is entirely disconnected from agriculture-based resources – yes, both animal AND plant-based inputs – to create proteins with a negligible impact on our the environment. The method they use is called “gas fermentation”.

Our own Catherine Lamb had a great piece diving into the tech behind gas fermentation and looking at the companies working on creating products for embryonic market. I found myself so fascinated by this new method of creating protein that I decided to invite the CEO of Solar Foods, Pasi Vainikka, onto a podcast so I could learn a little more about this space and just when we can expect food created with this new process to hit our plates.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking play below, through Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast app, or just by downloading it direct to your machine.

Introducing Future Food: Our Alternative Protein Newsletter

Have you checked what’s in your hamburger recently? It might be plant-based, made with “bloody” heme, or even grown in a bioreactor. (Just kidding — that last one isn’t here yet. But it will be soon.)

We’re fascinated by the fast-evolving alternative protein space. And clearly, so are you: the plant-based food industry increased by 20 percent in 2018, and is worth over $4.1 billion. In the cell-based (also called cultured) space, companies are doing everything from cheese to steak without the animal.

That’s why we decided it was timely and relevant to devote an entire newsletter to the topic of alternative protein products: meat, sure, but also eggs, dairy, bugs, seaweed, etc. It’s called Future Food, and this is the very first one!

We hope you like it. If so, you should sign up for the Future Food newsletter to get it in your inbox every Thursday. Now, to the news…

Photo: Beyond Meat.

Last week Beyond Meat, the El Segundo, California-based startup making plant-based burgers, chicken, sausage, and more, set the terms of its IPO.

The numbers were pretty eye-popping: the company could raise as much as $184 million, and might be valued at a whopping $1.2 billion. Beyond’s sales are also going through the roof, with revenues almost tripling from 2017 to 2018.
Whether Beyond Meat’s impending IPO fails or succeeds will be a be a sort of canary in the coal mine for the plant-based meat industry. It’s set to go public in early May, so keep an eye on this newsletter for ongoing analysis.

But all is not rosy in Beyond’s world right now. News broke that Tyson Foods had parted ways with the plant-based meat startup and sold its 6.5% stake, just days before Beyond goes public.

The news wasn’t shocking, since Tyson had recently announced plans of its own to get into the plant-based protein game. And we all know it’s bad practice to compete with a portfolio company. We analyzed the full reasonings behind Tyson’s exit — as well as the potential effects the move might have on Beyond’s IPO — here.

Photo: Stewart Butterfield via Flickr.

People are abuzz with excitement over cell-based meat: that is, meat that’s grown outside the animal. But we’re still not sure what it will be called, when it will come to market, or where it’ll first launch.

I have a theory, though: Asia. Specifically Hong Kong. Recently I explored the reasons why Asia is an ideal launch pad for cultured meat, from regulation to consumer interest. Feel free to @ me if you disagree.

Photo: A burger topped with a prototype of plant-based bacon grown on Ecovative’s mycelium.

A big struggle for all meat alternative companies — both plant-based and cell-based — is texture. They can do burgers, sure. But steak? That’s a lot more of a challenge.

Ecovative, a biotech company in New York, is growing scaffolds for meat alternatives out of mycelium. For all you non-mycologists out there, that basically means mushroom roots.

This method is cheap, quick, and scalable. But will it be enough to make animal-free steak that can fool even the most discerning of carnivores?

Photo: Meringues made with animal-free egg whites from Clara Foods.

But there’s a lot more going on in the protein alternatives world than just meat:

  • Clara Foods, a startup developing chicken-less egg white proteins with genetically engineered microbes, just raised an undisclosed Series B financing round led by ingredient giant Ingredion. They’re hoping to have a product to market as early as 2020.
  • Using a similar technology, New Culture is creating milk without the cow. Their end game is to make animal-free mozzarella cheese that tastes as creamy as the real thing.
  • There’s a nascent group of startups creating proteins not out of plants, sugar, or animal cells — but out of thin air. For real. Called ‘gas fermentation,’ the only inputs are electricity and air, making it a prime candidate for space travel.

Photo: Nestle.

Protein ’round the web

  • Eater L.A.: Los Angeles restaurants are using Impossible’s “bleeding” plant-based meat for a lot more than burgers. Think: taquitos, dumplings, and even tartare.
  • Beyond Meat is BBBTB: Bringing the Beyond Burger to Belgium. And the company is going Dutch with an expansion into the Netherlands.
  • Mcdonald’s Germany has chosen Nestlé’s Incredible burger for its vegan option.

    • I’m off! If you enjoyed this newsletter, be sure to subscribe here (it’s easy) and we’ll send it to you every Thursday. See you next week.

    Eat well,
    Catherine