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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

vegan

Unilever Buys the Vegetarian Butcher, Big Food Continues Plant-Based Investment

News broke yesterday that consumer goods giant Unilever will acquire the Vegetarian Butcher, a Dutch company that makes plant-based meats (h/t Bloomberg). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Vegetarian Butcher meat substitutes like Vegan NoChicken Shwarma and Vegan Smokey Hotdog out of soy protein, sunflower oil, and flavorings. Its products are currently available in over 4,000 locations in 17 countries, including the Netherlands, Japan, and the U.K. (As of now, they’re not available in the U.S.)

As a region, Europe is a hotbed of vegan protein innovation. Its plant protein market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.1 percent until 2023. It’s also considered the largest market for meat substitutes, accounting for over 39 percent of global sales in 2017. So it makes sense that Big Food companies, like Unilever, are taking notice and acquiring smaller vegan food brands to diversify their portfolio and capture some of this booming market.

Here are a few notable investments/acquisitions:

No wonder. As more and more consumers — led by millennials and Gen Z — shift from meat-heavy diets to more flexitarian ones, the demand for plant-based protein is skyrocketing. In a report commissioned by the Good Food Institute, research firm Nielsen showed that retail sales of plant-based foods have grown 17 percent in the past year, reaching $3.7 billion. The report estimated that the total plant-based retail market is worth roughly $4.1 billion.

Big Foods’ involvement in the plant-based food market could help mitigate widespread production issues. As consumer interest in vegan foods rises, smaller producers are struggling to keep up with demand. With newfound access to the manufacturing systems and supply chains of major food producers and distributors, plant-based meat companies can hopefully have an easier time feeding our hunger for vegan protein.

Which likely means there’ll be a lot more Vegan NoChicken Teriyaki making its way onto flexitarians’ plates.

Impossible Foods’ Plant-Based Burgers Will Be in Stores Next Year

Impossible Foods announced today that it will start selling their popular plant-based burgers in retail stores in 2019.

The Redwood, CA-based company has been expanding rapidly over the past year. It raised $114 million in April of this year, bringing its total war chest to over $387 million (according to Crunchbase). Their “bleeding” burgers are available in roughly 5,000 restaurants around the globe, including all 377 locations of the fast-food chain White Castle and select Air New Zealand flights. In September of 2017 the company cut the ribbon on an Oakland production facility which can make 500,000 pounds of the plant-based “meat” per month.

Now the startup is making its long-anticipated entry into the retail space — and their strategy to start out in restaurants seems to have paid off. While competitor Beyond Burgers, which has been available in retail since 2016, is struggling to keep up with demand, Impossible’s comparatively slower rollout has given them ample time to scale up production while building brand awareness.

On a separate note, it will be interesting to see what the price point for Impossible’s retail burgers. Beyond Meat typically retail for around $5.99 for two patties, which is roughly twice the price of beef per ounce. While Impossible debuted at an expensive $18 at Momofuku Nishi, their decision to offer sliders for $1.99 at White Castle shows that they’re trying to appeal to all price points.

By moving into retail, Impossible Foods is becoming an even more direct competitor for Beyond Meat. However, Beyond’s products are available in over 30,000 locations — comparatively, Impossible’s footprint is much smaller. But even if they do scale up to sit side-by-side on the grocery store shelf, demand for plant-based protein is so high that it might not take a bite out of Beyond’s sales. If 2019 is indeed the year we move beyond (ha!) meat, there’s plenty of room for all.

Beyond Meat Dishes Up Plant-Based Options at Del Taco

Today Beyond Meat announced that it’s teaming up with Del Taco to “beef up” their menu.

The plant-based meat startup will launch two branded tacos: the Beyond Avocado Taco (which is vegan), and the Beyond Taco (which is just vegetarian). Judging from photos, they look like hard shell tacos with Beyond crumbles, lettuce, and tomatoes — the vegan option also has an avocado slice, while the vegetarian one has cheese. Customers can also sub Beyond Meat into any other Del Taco dishes (burritos, nachos, etc.). I wasn’t able to find any pricing information online, but as customers are allowed to swap in Beyond, I’m assuming that it’s on par with the meatier options.

This marks the plant-based meat company’s first partnership with a fast-food chain, and, according to Beyond Meat’s press release, it’s also the first time a Mexican fast-food restaurant will serve plant-based meat.

The announcement comes just a few weeks after Impossible Foods rolled out their vegan “bleeding” burgers to White Castles nationwide. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Beyond Meat, which typically markets itself directly to consumers in supermarket aisles, is now trying to establish itself as a strong player in the plant-based B2B market — for all price points.

While their products are already available in over 10,000 restaurants, their Del Taco launch is their first fast-food drive-through partnership in the U.S. (they’re already available in Canada’s A&W chain). We’ll see if the company can keep up with the high demand of quick service restaurants (QSRs), especially if they decide to offer Beyond Meat at all 564 Del Taco restaurants nationwide.

The Beyond Meat tacos will be available in two California Del Taco locations, one in Santa Monica and the other in Culver City. If you live in the area and are lucky enough to give them a taste, drop us a line and let us know about your experience!

Allplants Whips Up $9.9M for Vegan Meal Delivery Service

London-based vegan meal delivery service Allplants announced today that it had raised £7.5 million ($9.9 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by Octopus Ventures with participation from Felix Capital, Swedish VC firm Otiva, and others (h/t Techcrunch).

Founded in 2017, Allplants delivers ready-made plant-based meals, such as the BBQ Burrito Bowl and the Golden Sesame Satay, either on a subscription or individual basis. The meals are “quick frozen” and come in packs of six, the idea being that consumers will store them in their freezer to take out and heat up as needed. Much like buying frozen food from the grocery store, except fancier and delivered to your doorstep.

Weekly subscription meals shake out to £4.99 ($6.57) per serving, while one-off meal pack deliveries are £5.67 ($7.46) per serving. Which is a pretty good deal, especially since users can adjust their delivery frequency with relative ease.

According to the Techcrunch article, Allplants “reckons it is the U.K.’s largest Series A round for a vegan company.” While I haven’t seen anything to back that statement up — or to challenge it — I am sure that the vegan meal delivery and frozen meals spaces are quickly heating up.

A few months ago Del Monte invested a $4 million in vegan meal kit service Purple Carrot. Denmark’s Simple Feast raised $12 million for its plant-based ready-made meal delivery service. Though they haven’t announced any funding yet, Seattle-based Buttermilk Co makes microwaveable South Indian meals, all of which are vegetarian. It’s not strictly vegan, but Mealhero’s business model also reminds me of Allplants: the Belgium-based company recently raised $1.04 million for its meal kit service which combines frozen meals with a connected cooking appliance.

The idea of combining the convenience of door-to-door delivery with the longevity and flexibility of frozen food is smart. And though Allplants’ decision to go plant-based does put them in a bit of a niche, the timing is right: demand for meat alternatives has been skyrocketing lately, increasing by 20% last year alone. What a few years ago might have been a limiting factor is now be a driving factor to Allplants’ success, which means we might be seeing a few more record-breaking fundraises for plant-based meal companies in the future.

Ripple Yogurt Review: High Expectations Crushed By (Very) Bad Taste

Nobody wanted to like Ripple yogurt more than me. As a recently diagnosed lactose intolerant person who loves ice cream, cheese, and yogurt more than most things, I’ve been having a hard time cutting down on dairy. So this week I decided to give Ripple, a brand about which I’d heard some great things, a go.

I bought their single-serve Greek Yogurt Alternative in strawberry flavor, which packs a whopping 12g of protein in its 150g serving size — roughly the same protein as dairy yogurt. Ripple is made of pea protein, meaning it’s soy and nut-free and safe for those with allergies. It also has added active cultures, meaning it’s gut-friendly like dairy yogurt.

I was optimistic when I dug in. Sadly, that optimism disappeared almost immediately.

The texture of the yogurt was actually pretty good: it was creamy and thick, not exactly Greek yogurt-level thick but still impressive. But the taste, sadly, was straight-up bad. The strawberry flavor came through lightly — there are pieces of strawberry throughout the yogurt — but it had an overwhelmingly artificial flavor, which led to a bitter, unpleasant aftertaste. The yogurt somehow dried out my mouth and tasted gritty, though its texture was smooth. Someone sitting across from me at my office noticed my disgusted face and asked me if I was okay. I threw it away after a few bites.

A harsh review, I know. I wish it wasn’t. I’m one of the growing number of people purchasing dairy alternatives for health or ethical reasons. I’m all for non-dairy products that don’t use almonds, which are very water-intensive and are pretty protein-poor. Ripple could have fulfilled my dairy-free needs while assuaging my environmental guilt — and pea protein has served us so well with Beyond burgers!

Ripple, which launched in 2016, also makes pea milk in original, vanilla, and chocolate flavors, a product called “half-and-half,” and recently debuted nutrition powders and shakes. I haven’t tried any of their other products, but after my experience with their yogurt, I’m not really rushing to the store.

According to Crunchbase, so far Ripple has raised $108.6 million in funding. That’s some serious dairy-free dough. But while their product seems like it would hit the sweet spot, it left me with a (literal) bitter taste in my mouth. If they can’t get me — a millennial consumer who avoids dairy, is open to plant-based alternatives and enjoys trying new products — to buy their yogurt, who will?

Perhaps I’ll have better luck with coconut yogurt, which my colleague Jenn Marston tried and liked — though I’ll have to find my protein somewhere else. And maybe when lab-made dairy products, like the ones that Perfect Day is developing the technology for, come to market, they’ll be able to eliminate that pesky lactose and still make tangy yogurt and gooey mozzarella and all the things I hold so dear. Until then, it looks like I’m having toast for breakfast.

Update: Ripple Foods’ PR team reached out to me with this to say:

We saw your recent review on The Spoon and wanted to apologize for your not so delicious experience as well as share that the brand is definitely listening and will be working to revamp the yogurt line over the next few months. They want to provide consumers with a quality product and feel the current one needs some tweaks.

A Plant-Based Tour of What I Ate at the Good Food Conference

You don’t attend the Good Food Conference (GFC) for the food. You go there to hear the Big Guns of the meat alternatives movement — like Seth Goldman of Beyond Meat, Mark Post of Mosa Meats, and Uma Valeti of Memphis Meats — speak onstage. You go there to watch new startups pitch their company’s vision for reducing (and eliminating) industrial meat production. You go there to hear about the latest breakthroughs and challenges in the plant- and cell-based meat spaces.

But at the same time, you kind of do go for the food. Because the whole point of the conference is to promote alternatives to traditional meat — and in order to be successful, the first thing those alternatives have to do is taste good. Like, good enough that a carnivore would choose them over a burger or hot dog.

As cell-based meat isn’t to market yet, all the alterna-meats from the two-day conference were plant-based. Here’s a brief overview of all the ones I tried:

Photo: Veggie Grill.

Breakfast

The Good Food Conference fueled their first-day attendees with a breakfast burrito featuring JUST Egg, a vegan egg replacement made of mung beans. The resulting scramble is yellowish and color and, while the texture is pretty spot-on, still has an unmistakeable beaniness. However, camouflaged in a tortilla with black beans, roasted potatoes, and spicy salsa, said beaniness was pretty well concealed.

Sadly I didn’t take a picture of this since I just grabbed one to eat while watching the opening panels, but the photo from Veggie Grill, who teamed up with JUST to launch an all-day breakfast burrito featuring the scramble, is pretty similar. While I think JUST Egg still has a ways to go before it fools any egg-lovers out there, it’s still a reasonable stand-in for huevos when combined with other, stronger flavors, like salsa, peppers, and cheese (vegan or otherwise).

The Beyond Meat spread.

Lunch

Beyond Meat provided the lunch for Day 1, and boy did they do it right. Their grilled sausages (in Bratwurst and Italian flavors) accompanied corn with vegan aioli, as well as several salads. I got a “bratwurst” and really enjoyed it; the sausage had a nice snap and the interior texture was realistically sausage-like. The flavor was also super heavy on the umami, without tasting overly of soy. Overall, two thumbs up.

Photo: JUST

Snack

To combat that afternoon lull, I had an individual serving of JUST cookie dough, which comes in a nifty plastic container with a detachable spoon built into the top. The two flavors I tried were birthday cake, which was overly sweet with sprinkles, and chocolate chip, which tasted just like Tollhouse. (That’s a good thing.)

Overall it’s not that hard to make good-tasting vegan cookie dough — I’ve done it at home with just a few simple substitutions — but the individual serving packages are pretty genius. Now you can get a sugary snack on the go without worrying about salmonella from raw eggs — and they know just the shade of millennial pink to use to draw in customers.

Day 2

Breakfast

Day 2’s breakfast was courtesy of MorningStar Farms, but all I saw were bagels, granola (with almond milk!), and fruit. Not that I’m complaining. I did have a latté made with Oatley oat milk however, which I thought was pretty darn delicious.

Oat milk is definitely the next non-dairy milk trend, at least when it comes to coffee: it doesn’t separate as easily as almond milk and froths much better than soy, meaning your barista can make fancy latté art with it. Oats also require far less water to grow than almonds, so it’s comparatively sustainable, and also doesn’t affect those with nut or soy allergies.

Photo by Nick Klein for The Good Food Institute.

Lunch

For lunch on Day 2 we had Impossible Burgers. Which, after the awesome Beyond sausage the day before, were fine but a little lackluster. They were super savory and tasted mainly of soy, and I kept thinking there was a fishy flavor in there — though that could be attributed to the mishmash of toppings I layered on the patty.

However, the burger was cooked medium, meaning I could see a little bit of the heme-powered “bleeding” action. Overall I would have gone with a smaller bun or thicker patty (or maybe White Castle-esque slider!) so the burger didn’t get lost under everything else.

 

Snack

Visually, this snack spread was one of the most trompe l’oeuil meat-like of the entire weekend. Provided by Worthington, a meat alternative food company, there were “chicken” nuggets and even a vegan charcuterie plate with plant-based bologna. Both tasted primarily of soy, but I liked them — especially the nugget, which had the semi-spongy trademark chicken nugget texture nailed to a T.

 

Photo: Good Catch Foods.

What I Didn’t Eat:

I missed the fish-free tuna sushi from Ocean Hugger foods (made of tomatoes!) and the plant-based tuna salad from Good Catch Foods. I also didn’t get to try Morningstar Farms’ “meat lover” vegan burger, which is clearly trying to capitalize off the buzz around the meat-like patties from Beyond Burger and Impossible Foods. Next year.

 

Conclusions:

Overall, a lot of things tasted pretty heavily of soy, reminding me of veggie breakfast sausages and “soy”-rizo products I’ve eaten in my five years of vegetarianism. The food items that really impressed me were the Beyond Sausage, whose texture was spot-on, and the look of the Worthington charcuterie. I’m sure at next year’s summit there will be even more alterna-meats, milks, and eggs, from even more new, hungry young companies. I can’t wait to try them all.

Denmark’s Simple Feast Grabs $12M for Plant-based Meal Delivery

Today Danish meal delivery service Simple Feast raised a $12 million Series A. As TechCrunch first reported, the funding round was led by London’s Balderton Capital with participation from 14W and existing investors Sweet Capital and ByFounders.

Founded in 2015, Simple Feast’s website boasts that the company is working to create the most sustainable meal service on the planet. How exactly? By eliminating meat from their meals and skipping plastic and styrofoam in their packaging. But the main thing is meat, or lack thereof: after all, avoiding animal products is the single biggest action you can take to reduce negative environmental impact. Simple Feast wants to help people do that by delivering premade, plant-based meals to their doorstep.

They offer two plans: Green Feast, which is vegetarian, and Vegan Feast. Each is 63 DKK ($9.77) per portion if you order for 4-5 people, and features three meals per week. You can also order their “Comfort Food” set of three vegan stews for 69 DKK ($10.70), each of which have two servings. While we can’t access full pricing on the site because we are in the U.S., it seems like the three meal minimum would make ordering Simple Feast pretty expensive pretty fast.

Simple Feast, however, is very clearly not a meal kit. It’s actually more akin to microwaveable Indian food company Buttermilk Co. (also vegetarian!), or a Tovala or Suvie, minus the connected cooking appliance. The boxes come almost completely premade; all customers have to do is heat the food for 10 minutes and add dressing or sauces.

However, Simple Feast might still run into some of the same difficulties meal kit companies face. Customers might not like being locked into a subscription plan, forced to eat the Falafel with Herbs and Pitabread that they ordered last week and no longer crave.

Simple Feast is working to get around these pitfalls by offering customers the option to skip meals or forego the subscription altogether. The plant-based meals also come chilled, so if you have last-minute dinner plans you can always leave them for another night.

A bigger challenge they will face is variety. Each box contains three preset meals, with no option to change if you, say, don’t like oyster mushrooms. Also, when I looked on their website, the Vegan Feast and the Green Feast boxes were exactly the same — which isn’t really a problem, but does make me wonder about their breadth and creativity.

Regardless, Simple Feast seems like a good way to help (at least Danish) people who want to eat less meat but don’t want to put in a ton of (or any) time or effort. If they put some of their funding towards more meal options and ordering customization, they might be able to do just that.

Let’s Unpack Impossible Foods’ Strategy to Edge in On the Beef Market

By now, you may well have sampled an Impossible Burger. (We certainly have — and liked it.) If you haven’t, you’re probably at least curious about the plant-based burger which claims to taste, cook, look, and even bleed like real beef.

The Redwood City-based startup released their 2018 Impact Report this week, touting three of their achievements over the past year: their growing reach (and growing customer demand), their ace-in-the-hole ingredient, heme, and their sustainability mission. With their progress, they hope to continue on their quest to replace beef burgers with their plant-based patties. Here’s how:

  1. Larger availability, smaller price point

Last year Impossible patties were available in only 40 restaurants. Now, you can find them in 3,000 restaurants in the U.S., Hong Kong and Macao. To keep up with rapidly increasing demand, Impossible Foods had to hire a second shift of employees to work in their large-scale commercial plant in Oakland, California, which produces about 500,000 pounds of plant-based meat each month.

In addition to widening their availability, Impossible has also been dropping its price point. Initially they were available only at Momofuku Nishi, David Chang’s hip NYC restaurant, for $18 (albeit with fries). Now you can pick on up at one of 140 White Castle locations for only $1.99.

Impossible Foods has chosen to market their meatless patties in restaurants because of chefs’ trendsetting power with one highly influential demographic: millennials. Millennials are driving the explosive growth of the plant-based meat market and are leading the charge on flexitarianism. Impossible Foods knows this, and is taking advantage; about three-quarters of its customers also eat meat.

“We want meat eaters globally to happily prefer our plant-based vegan products because they think it’s just better,” David Lee, COO and CFO of Impossible Foods, told crowds at TechfestNW earlier this year. It’s a smart move on Impossible Foods’ part to take any self-righteous guilting out of the equation. In fact, they seem to be moving towards a branding strategy where they don’t differentiate themselves from meat at all. Their website’s slogan is: “We make delicious meat from plants”.

Not to be nitpicky, but technically, they don’t — they make vegetarian burgers out of plants, which happen to mimic the things we love about meat (umami flavor, juicy fattiness, etc.). The secret to their burger’s taste-alike success? Well, that would be…

2. The buzzy molecule behind the “bleeding” burger

A big part of Impossible’s branding is their patties’ uncanny ability to “bleed” just like beef. This is thanks to heme, a molecule found in red meat — and also plants, which is where Impossible creates and harvests it. When we sampled the Impossible burger, we could taste the animal almost-metallic funkiness (yes, that’s a good thing) that comes from heme. Heme not only gives the patties a distinctly beef-like flavor — it’s also one of the most important aspects of their marketing strategy. The reason that a burger made from plants can be dubbed as “meat” is because it has some of the same chemical flavors, down to the molecule.

A few months ago the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) flagged heme as a potential allergen after Impossible sent in their burger for a voluntary food safety test. Recently, however, the FDA gave heme the green light, declaring it safe. The FDA holdup wasn’t much of a roadblock; Impossible could (and did) sell their burgers widely. More of an issue, at least to some, is the fact that the patties aren’t GMO-free. In fact, heme is made through genetically engineering. But the GMO aspect doesn’t seem to cool excitement over this molecule, which is one of Impossible’s biggest selling points — one which allows them to position their products as a “burger,” not a “veggie burger.”

3. Mission Earth 

Plants have a smaller environmental footprint than animals — they just do. And beef is one of the worst culprits of all. In the impact report, Impossible Foods’ CEO and founder Pat Brown said that his company was on track to “eliminate the need for animals as a food production technology by 2035.” He told Time that by doing so, we can save Earth and “keep it habitable” so we won’t be forced to relocate to Mars.

Obviously, this is super ambitious — and optimistic. Even if we could eliminate the need for animals as food (that is, come up with enough plant-based protein to sustain the world) many people would be hard-pressed to give up meat — no matter how realistic the veggie burger.

There’s no question demand for (and acceptance of) plant-based protein is on the rise. The market is increasing at a CAGR of 5.9% and is projected to reach $14.22 billion by 2022. Almost 40% of people are trying to incorporate more plant-based proteins into their diets.

Which sounds super encouraging, until you realize that 2018 is also the year we’re projected to eat more meat than ever before. So while Impossible’s sales might be growing, is it moving any closer to its goal of replacing beef? Or is it just becoming a supplementary option for our protein-crazed selves?

Right now we’re at a critical juncture for the future of meat alternatives; they’re clearly gaining popularity and reach, but are they actually making a dent in meat production? As of yet, not so much. But with continued technical innovation, and new manufacturing methods, they might become so good that they might reach Impossible’s self-professed goal to be so good that carnivores choose their burgers over the real thing.

Conclusions

With heme now FDA-approved, and its continuing march towards affordable ubiquity, Impossible seems to show no sign of slowing down its growth, both to new marketplaces and new heights of media attention. Apparently, the company also has patents on the flavor chemistry used to create pork, chicken, and fish flavors, and plan to make plant-based alternatives to all three in the future.

If it can fix a few training issues, and avoid the roadblocks that Beyond Meat has experienced with meeting growing demand, maybe they can take some of the wind out of beef’s sales — and then conquer the rest of the animal kingdom. Of course, as long as lab-grown meat doesn’t knock them out of the water first.

 

 

The Number of Vegetarians Today Is the Same as in 2012 — Is That About to Change?

With so many companies debuting new (and tasty) ways to eat meat made from plants, you’d think that the number of vegetarians and vegans would be on the rise, right?

Apparently, wrong. Recently, Mara Judkis wrote a Washington Post article which blew our preconceived notions about the number of non-meat-eaters out of the water. In the piece, she wrote that only 5% of Americans identified as vegetarian; a number which has remained unchanged since 2012 — and, in fact, is down from the number of vegetarians in 1999 and 2001. From the article:

What’s remarkable is how little has changed, even as our food culture and habits have evolved over the past 20 years. In 1999, there were no “Meatless Mondays,” no Pinterest, no “Food, Inc.,” no fast-casual salad places, no Goop. Information about a vegetarian diet — at least for middle- and upper-class people who have more dietary choices — has seemingly never been more abundant. But it’s not resulting in any noticeable increase in the rate at which people adopt the diet — a fact that may prove either galvanizing or discouraging for plant-based advocacy groups. 

This is especially surprising to us at the Spoon, as we’ve covered a bounty of companies developing new, better tasting meat alternatives. From Beyond Meat to Impossible Foods, companies are producing meaty simulacrums that not only taste like meat, but also cook like meat and even bleed like meat. With all these new options, it seems like more people would be skipping the meat altogether.

In fact, demand for plant-based products is on the rise. Mintel reported that the number of vegetarian products on the market doubled between 2009 and 2013, and a Nielson study with the Good Food Institute showed that the plant-based food industry topped $3.1 billion in sales in 2017. Beyond Burgers are flying off retail shelves faster than the company can make them, and even fast food joints like KFC and White Castle are investing in plant-based “meats” to meet burgeoning consumer demand.

Judkis points out that the study doesn’t take into account the rise in flexitarianism. While Americans may not be abstaining from meat altogether, more are cutting down; in fact, 60% of carnivores are working to reduce their meat consumption. At the same time, Americans are projected to eat more meat than ever before in 2018, according to the USDA. Basically, Americans’ demand for protein — animal or otherwise — is on the rise.

In the end, Judkis doesn’t make a prediction of whether or not the number of vegetarians and vegans will continue to stay static. I think we’re at the calm before the storm. There are a plethora of companies that are either releasing plant-based protein products, or are just about to: Good Catch Foods’ vegan tuna will be available by the end of 2018, and JUST’s mung bean-based “egg scramble” is popping up in grocery stores around the country. And of course we’re a few years away from cultured meat, which, depending on how you look at it, could be the key to eliminating traditional meat and turning everyone “vegetarian.”

Judkis’ article focused on America, but a lot of plant-based innovation is happening in other countries. Denmark’s PlantJammer is an app working to help people cook vegetarian meals from whatever’s in their fridge, Vivera just debuted its plant-based steak in Belgian supermarkets, and Omnipork is developing a vegetarian pork product to meet China’s rising meat demands.

As in the U.S., many of these company’s products are either still in development, or else reach only a niche audience. Likely, the amount of vegetarians and vegans will rise as meat alternatives become more affordable, available, and indistinguishable from meat — and as traditional meat starts to rise in price thanks to environmental constraints.

Food Tech News Roundup: Just Eggs, Mealpal, and IndieBio

It’s that time again! Time for us to take a breath, take a beat, and look back at the week. At the Spoon we covered a large swathe of stories, from food delivery robots to cultured meat and milk news to the drama around meal kit company Chef’d’s sudden shut-down.

But we didn’t have time to cover everything that happened this week. Here are the food tech news stories that caught our eye around the web, here for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Mealpal rolls out in Asia
This week Mealpal, the takeout meal subscription service, launched in Singapore. Users can select from a set number of meals from various local restaurants, pay for their food online, then skip the line to pick it up — for around $6 per meal. This is the 17th market for Mealpal, which is already available in cities in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. The startup launched in 2016 and is based in New York City.

 

JUST rolls out their plant-based eggs in more locations
Plant-based food company JUST Foods (formerly Hampton Creek) has been making waves with its vegan egg product, which is made of mung beans but looks and tastes like the real thing. According to a press release, this week they forged a partnership with Italian company Eurovo, Europe’s leading producer of packaged, pasteurized, and dried eggs, to distribute JUST’s plant-based product. In Europe, Just Egg will have a different name, due to regulations.

This news comes around the same time that JUST announced that vegetarian fast-casual chain Veggie Grill would bring Just Egg to its 30 locations. They’ll also be rolling out the vegan scramble on e-commerce site Jet.com (owned by Walmart), as well as Sysco, New Seasons Market, Wegmans, and other retailers.

 

IndieBio to open New York City location
New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced this week that IndieBio, a leading bio-accelerator, would open a branch in New York City. Run by VC firm SOSV, San Francisco-based IndieBio works with select life science startups to provide resources, guidance, and networking opportunities. Companies that are selected for IndieBio’s cohort receive $250,000 in seed funding and take part in a four-month program where they get access to labs and co-working spaces as well as a chance to pitch to investors and partners. Over the next five years, New York state plans to invest $25 million in IndieBio’s startup accelerator.

 

A new service lets Philly fans order beer with their iPhones
Stadium concession company Aramark will partner with the Phillies to conduct a food-ordering experiment in Citizens Bank Park. Starting on July 20th, fans in certain sections can order water and beer, without leaving their seats. To order, they’ll scan a QR code on the back of their seats and then text their order, which is completed via Apple Pay. Aramark is the first concessionaire to try this method of stadium ordering. Unlike previous seat-delivery stadium food concepts, this partnership wouldn’t require a separate app — anyone with an iPhone can use it.

 

Impossible Burgers Take to the Skies in L.A. – N.Z. Flight

Airplane food gets an (admittedly deserved) bad rap, but airlines are working to change all that with fresh, vertically-grown lettuce, local craft beers, and, now, plant-based burgers.

Yesterday, Air New Zealand sent out a tweet announcing that the buzzed-about Impossible Burger will be available to Business Premier passengers on their Los Angeles to Auckland flight from now until late October. Air New Zealand is the first airline to put the Impossible Burger on their in-flight menu.

Unlike plant-based competitor Beyond Burgers, Impossible has been taking a chiefly B2B approach, selling their burgers in generally upscale fast-casual restaurants and, recently, select White Castles.

We’ve covered Impossible Foods’ training problem on the Spoon, which could pose more of an issue when the burgers are being par-cooked in a facility and reheated in at 35,000 feet. Regardless, the media buzz surrounding this announcement (no doubt helped by their cute promotion video (see below) shows the level of excitement around plant-based meat alternatives isn’t going down anytime soon.

In fact, it’s going sky high. (Sorry.)

Air New Zealand serves up the Impossible

 

Vivera’s Plant-Based Steaks Now Available in Belgian Supermarkets

The plant-based “bleeding” steak by Dutch company Vivera is now available in Belgian locations of supermarket Carrefour. The vegan product is meant to have the same look, taste, and texture as real steak.

Vivera’s vegan steaks first popped up on the shelves at 400 locations of British supermarket chain Tesco in May of this year. A press release from the company stated the company’s plans to launch in several locations in the Netherlands in June, followed by an expansion into Germany, France, and Italy.

A later release stated that Vivera’s steaks would reach multiple Netherlands locations on June 11, including the largest Dutch grocery chain, Albert Heijn, and the aforementioned Carrefour in Belgium. A statement by Carrefour, however, indicates that the goods didn’t actually arrive until June 19. This slight delay could be due to the high demand for Vivera’s vegan steaks: CCO Gert Jan Gombert told Plant-Based News that Tesco stores nearly sold out of the 40,000-strong initial shipment after just a few days.

Gombert wrote: “We apologize for the empty shelves, we just could not keep up with the high rotations (sometimes>100/per shop/week!). Better availability is on its way!” In response, Vivera is planning to increase their overall manufacturing output to 100,000 units per week. After some internet sleuthing, I could not find any evidence that Vivera is available in Dutch supermarkets yet.

From one angle, this is a good problem to have. The popularity of alterna-proteins is encouraging for health and environmental reasons. More and more people are becoming flexitarian and looking to substitute some of their meat products with vegetarian taste-alikes. Allied Research Market reported that the meat alternative market is projected to grow by 8.4% and reach $5.4 billion by 2020, and Mintel reports that over a quarter of Brits are trying to cut back on meat consumption. According to a press release from Carrefour, 95 percent of their customers are flexitarians, with 70 percent actively looking for meat substitutes.

Even so, it’s tough for plant-based meat companies to keep up with this growing demand. Just a few weeks ago, Beyond Meat had to quadruple their production because their vegan burgers were outselling meat patties in some California grocery stores. Vivera is planning to manufacture several million of their vegan steaks, but will it be enough?

If plant-based meat demand continues to rise (and I don’t see why it wouldn’t), more companies may have to make some major overhauls to their manufacturing and supply strategy to keep up.