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Category: Alt Protein

  • Exclusive: Meatable Hosts the EU’s First Public Tasting for Cultivated Meat at Dutch HQ

    meatable tasting
    9 Mins Read

    Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable today hosted the first public tasting event for cultivated meat in the European Union, following approval from the newly formed safety assessment panel in the Netherlands. It comes ahead of its launch in Singapore restaurants later this year.

    Months after the Netherlands established an expert committee to evaluate applications for cultivated meat tastings, Leiden-based producer Meatable has officially hosted the first such event in the EU, showcasing its hybrid pork sausages to chefs, journalists, industry stakeholders and public officials.

    Held at its 3,300 sq m headquarters at the Bio Science Park in Leiden, the public tasting convened the likes of two-Michelin-starred chef Ron Blaauw, Dutch prince and special envoy Constantijn van Oranje Techleap, as well as RESPECTfarms founder Ira van Eelen (who is the daughter of Willem van Eelen, widely considered the godfather of cultivated meat).

    Meatable is hoping to gauge feedback from the tastings to optimise its product as it awaits regulatory approval and market entry, starting with Singapore later this year. The startup has already held two tasting events in the city-state, and will roll out its cultivated pork sausages in select restaurants following the greenlight from the Singapore Food Agency.

    The event comes after Dutch government had introduced a Code of Practice to approve tastings of cultivated meat and seafood back in July. Meatable was the first company to file a dossier to the expert panel installed by the Cellular Agriculture Netherlands Foundation in January. “We were thrilled to receive the go-ahead from the committee earlier this year, and are delighted that we can finally have people try our products in our home country,” Meatable co-founder and chief technology officer Daan Luining tells Green Queen.

    Hybrid meats deliver on flavour and quality

    lab grown meat tasting
    Courtesy: Meatable

    Meatable’s pork sausage is a hybrid meat product combining animal cells with plant-based ingredients. While it’s still under development and each tasting will inform the final product, the sausage presented at the tasting contained 28% cultivated pork fat.

    The company’s decision to go down this route was strategic – hybrid meats have been touted by investors as the only way to make cultivated meat commercially feasible in the near term. Luining explains that while the company’s process can ultimately result in fully cultivated meat, the hybrid approach allows it to significantly increase the production output. He adds that this also delivers superior taste attributes over 100% plant-based analogues, and satisfies the quality expected by meat-eaters.

    And that is evident in the reactions of the taste testers in Leiden. “I have already attended several tastings in other countries and have to say I found Meatable’s sausage to be remarkably delicious,” notes van Eelen, who called it a “huge step” for the sector.

    “We trialled fully plant-based sausages to compare them to the sample with the cultivated pork fat,” writes Forbes’ Daniela De Lorenzo. “As [Meatable co-founder and CEO Krijn] de Nood told us, we shouldn’t be surprised it tastes like pork, which it really did.”

    For the tasting, the cultivated sausage was cooked in a skillet over a stovetop by a professional chef, and served to attendees both on their own and as part of a bun. It was only the second tasting for cultivated meat in Europe, following Australian startup Vow’s event in Iceland in February (earlier this month, it received Singaporean approval for its cultivated quail).

    Last week, British newspaper the Telegraph’s food critic, William Sitwell, claimed the company had rescinded an invitation to taste their sausages, suggesting that it wanted journalists who were familiar with the scientific and technical aspects of cultivated meat. Sitwell implied the startup was keeping food critics away, writing: “If you want to get the public champing on the bit, get the food critics on side first.”

    On the contrary, Luining says critics are an “important part of our outreach and our tastings” as it closes in on commercialisation: “We believe that food critics and consumers alike should ultimately be part of the experience, and we very much value their opinions and feedback.”

    It appears the Telegraph incident was the result of a miscommunication. “The tasting invitation was seemingly transferred to him [Sitwell] without our permission. While we had very limited availability for this tasting, we look forward to continuing to welcome more people to our tastings soon,” says Luining.

    “Under the new Dutch regulations, we were only able to invite a few people in to taste our products under very controlled conditions, but look forward to expanding for future tastings,” he explains. “We see this as a really positive step forward for both Meatable and the industry at large.”

    Traversing the regulatory waters

    meatable pork
    Courtesy: Meatable

    Speaking of regulations, Meatable is working with food safety agencies across the world. Apart from filing for approval in Singapore last year, it has been in talks with both the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, and hopes to enter the country in 2025. So far, only Eat JUST and UPSIDE Foods have been approved to sell cultivated meat in the US.

    “By launching in Singapore first, we will be able to use the knowledge we get from that market for an effective US and then European launch later,” says Luining. The latter will no doubt be challenging, with the EU’s novel foods framework among the most stringent in the world. “In Europe, it’s a more complicated process. It can take years to receive approvals under the Novel Food Regulation, and the process also requires buy-in from all 27 member states,” he explains.

    It’s the same reason why many companies target Singapore and the US first – the only other country to have greenlit these foods is Israel, who issued a ‘no questions’ letter to local cultivated beef producer Aleph Farms in January. It’s worth noting that Aleph Farms itself has filed for approval in Switzerland and the UK too, which aren’t part of the EU. The latter is expected to authorise the sale of cultivated cat food in the upcoming months.

    “While we would love to move faster, we are using tastings like these in the Netherlands and Singapore to further inform us on product optimisation on our way to filing a dossier with the EFSA [European Food Safety Authority],” says Luining.

    The other hurdle cultivated meat needs to clear is political. Legislators have been attempting to ban cultivated meat in the US and the EU, with Italy already having done so and Florida on the verge of it. These attempts have been criticised by alternative protein leaders, climate advocacy groups, and even the meat industry itself.

    “Cultivated meat is a novel food and we understand that there are concerns about the impact it may have on farming and rural areas, especially in the US and EU,” Luining says. “But it’s important to note that we are not trying to replace these existing industries – we’re trying to create a more diversified and sustainable food supply chain.”

    He adds: “Cultivated meat can exist next to plant-based alternatives and farm-raised meat. As the demand for meat is only forecasted to grow, the burden it places on our planet is clear. We believe that it is necessary to provide an alternative to people that still serves the appetite for real meat, without harming animals, people or the planet.”

    Making cultivated meat faster than the rest

    lab grown pork
    Courtesy: Meatable

    Meatable, which has attracted $95M in investments since its inception in 2018, has multiple manufacturing setups that will enable it to produce cultivated pork at scale. In October 2022, it partnered with Singapore’s ESCO Aster, the world’s first regulator-approved contracted cultivated meat manufacturing facility. A month later, it announced a co-manufacturing deal with another Singaporean company, Love Handle, to open a Future of Meat Innovation Centre for hybrid meat.

    It moved to its current facility in Leiden in November last year, moving up from 50-litre bioreactors to reach a capacity of 200 litres (potentially extending to 500 litres). “This is an important step for us in scaling up. Next to that, we have started production on the ground in Singapore,” Meatable COO Carolien Wilschut told Green Queen before the Leiden move.

    Another aspect that will aid its scale-up efforts is its updated production process, which has cut its manufacturing time in half to just four days. This is possible due to its Opti-ox technology, which enables it to make products by isolating a single animal cell, without the need for fetal bovine serum. The process revolves around the use of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which – unlike immortalised cell lines that need to be altered to multiply indefinitely – have the natural ability to continue multiplying, and do so rapidly.

    This is coupled with a perfusion process that allows the startup to work in a continuous cycle to generate very high cell densities, and can produce fully differentiated muscle and fat cells in just four days – 60 times faster than it takes to rear a pig for pork. The breakthrough means Meatable can make cultivated meat faster than anybody else.

    Consumers will dictate the possibilities of cultivated meat

    meatable
    Courtesy: Meatable

    At launch, the company is aiming to match the price point for high-end organic meats, with an ultimate path to price parity with conventionally farmed meat within the next few years. Holding public tasting events will help it finetune its sausage and gauge how consumers think about its product – but consumers’ appetite for cultivated meat can be mixed.

    In the US, for example, one poll suggested that 45% are open to trying these foods. Similarly, 47% of Germans and 42% of Austrians are willing to eat them at least once. This falls to just over a third (34%) in the UK. In Singapore, acceptance for cultivated meat among those who have already tried is high, ranking 4.19 on a scale of 1 to 5 – buying and eating these products “significantly boosted” people’s acceptance, with diners expressing a strong willingness to try them again (a score of 4.41/5).

    And another recent survey from the US shows that 60% of consumers would try cultivated pork in a restaurant, but this is much lower than the 88% who’d do so for conventional pork. “At this stage, it’s all about providing education about our product and its benefits. Once people have a chance to learn more about how it’s produced, and experience their first taste of a cultivated meat product, we believe people will be more willing to integrate it into their diet,” says Luining.

    “In the end, we all know that the way we’re currently producing our food is not futureproof and recognise that cultivated meat can be part of the solution,” he adds. The Meatable co-founder hopes the Dutch tasting is the “first of many”, calling them “essential in helping us collect feedback for product optimization and an important part of education around cultivated meat”.

    Speaking to Green Queen after its Singapore launch this month, Vow co-founder and CEO George Peppou suggested that we need to rethink cultivated meat. “Cultured meat only makes sense as a way to create new, delicious foods, not imitate the food we already know and love,” he said.

    Luining agrees, reiterating that cultivated meat can co-exist with plant-based and farm-raised meat. “At Meatable, we are not trying to replace farm-raised meat; we’re trying to create additional options,” he outlines, adding that cultivated meat will be key in creating a cleaner planet for future generations. “In the end, consumers will ultimately choose how they want to experience the possibilities that cultivated meat presents.”

    The post Exclusive: Meatable Hosts the EU’s First Public Tasting for Cultivated Meat at Dutch HQ appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Price Parity, Job Creation & Investment: Highlights from GFI’s Alt-Protein State of the Industry Reports 2024

    gfi state of the industry
    7 Mins Read

    Alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute has released its annual State of the Industry series of reports, covering plant-based, cultivated and fermentation-derived proteins. Here are the key takeaways.

    Political resistance and a drop in funding and sales were offset by a hike in manufacturing facilities, diverse partnerships, and regulatory approvals in the alternative protein world last year, according to the 2023 State of the Industry reports by the Good Food Institute (GFI).

    Comprising plant-based, cultivated and fermented proteins, the reports outline the progress, challenges, and future of the industry. Globally, retail sales for plant-based meat, seafood and dairy saw a slight increase, from $28B in 2022 to $29B in 2023. But the road towards taste and price parity, improved accessibility, better nutrition, and significant market penetration remains lengthy, with GFI comparing this to Hofstadter’s Law.

    Coined by scientist Douglas Hofstadter, it reads: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.” It’s meant to describe the difficulty of estimating how much time it will take to complete complex tasks. “As Hofstadter’s Law and similar adages dictate, this will take time,” says GFI business analyst Daniel Gartner, drawing parallels with alternative protein’s progress. “However, keep our eyes on the goal post and the vision all of us in this industry are working towards – a brighter food future for people and the planet.”

    Here are the key highlights from the 2023 State of the Industry reports:

    Plant-based milk on the up, but meat and seafood suffer

    plant based sales
    Courtesy: GFI

    The plant-based food market in the US saw $8.1B in dollar sales in 2023, down by 2% from the year before. This meant the industry represented 1.1% of the overall food sector’s sales. But looking at longer-term trends, global sales for plant-based meat have nearly tripled from $2.2B in 2014 to $6.4B in 2023.

    For plant-based meat and seafood, the decline was larger, representing the macroeconomic challenges faced by the category. Here, US retail dollar sales fell by 12% to $1.2B. Sales for conventional meat and seafood, in comparison, flatlined – but the average price per unit was only up by 3%, compared to 9% for plant-based analogues, which now make up 0.9% of the overall meat market. Burger patties are the most popular, followed by nuggets, tenders and wings, and grounds.

    Things were slightly more positive on the plant-based milk side of things, where sales grew slightly by 1% to reach $2.9B and take up 14.5% of the overall milk sector in the US. Almond is still king, capturing 56% of the market, with oat continuing its ascendancy (24%).

    When it comes to consumer adoption, 62% of households bought vegan products, with meat and seafood reaching 15% of homes, and milk 44%. Encouragingly, the repeat purchase rates were high at 81% for the entire category, 79% for milk, and 62% for meat and seafood analogues.

    Beef is closest to price parity, eggs farthest

    plant based price parity
    Courtesy: GFI

    GFI notes that the price gap between plant-based and conventional proteins is still a significant purchase barrier, outlining that grocery costs were the key economic concern for consumers last year. And 2023 was challenging for the vegan sector in this aspect – while plant-based foods saw a lower price growth than the overall food sector and some conventional categories in 2022, the former’s markups were higher in 2023.

    From 2021 to 2023, plant-based meat and seafood’s average price per unit rose by 17%, compared to 16% for their conventional counterparts. Last year, the average price premium for plant-based meat and seafood was 77%. That said, beef is currently the vegan analogue that’s closest to price parity, with plant-based versions costing $7.48 per pound, versus $6.24 for the same amount of animal-derived beef – a 20% difference.

    The gap is much larger in other categories. For milk, this comes to 104%, while eggs have the highest price premium at 317%. Even other meat categories need to bridge this gap, with vegan chicken costing 156% more, pork 177% and turkey 214%.

    Alternative protein investments underestimated

    plant based funding
    Courtesy: GFI

    A host of reports over the last few months have showcased the dire situation of VC funding in the food tech sector. Globally, agrifood tech companies brought in 49% less capital in 2023 than the year before, according to one report.

    The data cited by GFI signals a 42% in overall VC investment across all sectors, with a 40% drop in climate tech, 51% fall in fintech, and 61% decline in food tech financing. For alternative protein companies too, funding dipped by 44% from $2.9B in 2022 to $1.6B in 2023. This was dominated by plant-based startups ($907M), followed by fermentation ($515M) and cultivated meat ($226M) companies. Collectively, these sectors have secured $15.7B in all-time investment.

    “The sales and investment slowdowns in 2023 weren’t unique to the alternative protein industry, but as a relatively nascent sector relying on private investments to navigate early-stage operations and strong sales performance to secure favourable placements on retail shelves, they played outsized roles in the sector’s 2023 performance,” writes Gartner.

    But GFI suggests that these totals are likely understated, with some funding rounds not publicly disclosed. While that is the case for certain deals in general anyway, this year may have had a higher frequency due to a large number of simple agreements for future equity (SAFE) and bridge rounds, and based on its conversations with market participants. Some of these rounds may be reported this year.

    Despite that, investments in Europe actually increased for the second consecutive year, reaching $584M (up by 74%), a record total for the region. It was the first time European investments comprised over half of all invested capital in the plant-based industry.

    Legislative wins and challenges for alternative protein

    new culture cheese
    Courtesy: New Culture

    Despite the private investment dip, public financing for these sectors matched the record levels of 2022. Canada announced C$150M for Protein Industries Canada, Germany set aside €38M in its federal budget for a sustainable protein transition, the US committed $40M in fermentation funding over four years, and the UK injected £15.4M in multiple cultivated meat projects.

    However, GFI noted that total public investment in 2023 only met a tiny fraction of the estimated $10.1B in annual support needed to realise the full potential of alternative proteins.

    It has been a rollercoaster year in terms of regulation for cultivated meat and precision fermentation. The US joined Singapore as the second country to allow the sale of cultivated meat. Israeli precision fermentation company Remilk received a ‘no further questions’ letter from the FDA to cement its Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS), while The Every Co obtained its third such certification in late 2023. Imagindairy and TurtleTree, meanwhile, earned self-affirmed GRAS status (with a ‘no further questions’ letter coming in January this year for the former).

    Since then, Israel has also joined the list of countries that have approved cultivated meat, while Singapore issued its second certification earlier this month. Precision fermentation companies like New Culture, The Protein Brewery, Vivici and Oobli have achieved some form of GRAS status in the US too.

    But there have been challenges as well, with Florida on the verge of banning cultivated meat, and Alabama, Arizona, Wisconsin, Texas, Nebraska and Tennessee all proposing similar bills. Across the Atlantic, Italy became the first country to ban cultivated meat, while a group of countries asked the EU to rethink its already-stringent novel foods regulations. France and Romania are also considering a ban on these proteins.

    More facilities, more jobs

    cultivated meat facilities
    Courtesy: Meatable

    In spite of the tough funding environment and legislative challenges, there has been an increase in both the number of companies and production facilities for alternative proteins. There are now 174 businesses working on cultivated meat across the supply chain (up from 166 in 2022), and 158 on fermentation-based proteins (versus 136 in 2022).

    Meanwhile, 2023 saw 10 new cultivated meat facilities open, while seven fermentation plants began operating too. And several more sites were announced across the alt-protein spectrum too. According to the ClimateWorks Foundation and the Global Methane Hub, this trend means the industry could support up to 83 million jobs internationally by 2050.

    “However, the alternative protein sector is not yet positioned to capture those levels of economic impact,” notes Gertner. “The plant-based, fermentation, and cultivated industries exist in distinct stages of industry development, but the average quality and availability of alternative protein products do not yet meet consumer expectations. To approach significant market penetration levels, alternative protein companies need to continue to improve product cost, taste and volumes.”

    He implores governments, companies and investors to dedicate more research and investment towards alternative proteins, if they’re “serious about improving food security, reducing emissions, and achieving climate goals”. “By scaling, reducing costs, and improving taste and texture, alternative proteins – alongside other advances and innovations –can continue to shape the future of food and agriculture,” he said.

    The post Price Parity, Job Creation & Investment: Highlights from GFI’s Alt-Protein State of the Industry Reports 2024 appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Future Food Quick Bites: Nicki Minaj’s Sneakers, Mycelium Chocolate & A Vegan Cheese MVP

    nicki minaj loci
    5 Mins Read

    In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Macalat’s mycelium-derived vegan chocolate, a blended meatloaf launch, and Daiya’s new job opening.

    New products and launches

    American rapper Nicki Minaj has rolled out a collection of vegan sneakers in collaboration with luxury shoe and apparel brand Løci. The lineup features 11 unisex leather shoes with a logo nodding to her reputation as the Queen of Rap and Løci’s British roots. They’re priced between $185 and $200.

    nicki minaj sneakers
    Courtesy: Løci

    Swiss plant-based meat leader Planted has now entered the Italian market, with all Esselunga stores nationwide carrying its clean-label meat analogues.

    Chilean food tech startup NotCo‘s vegan products will be part of six sandwich options on the Premium Economy in-flight dining offerings of LATAM Airlines‘ domestic flights.

    In New York City, Swedish plant-based meat maker Havredals has partnered with Björk Cafe & Bistro on a new blended meat dish called 50-50 Meatloaf, which combines the former’s vegan fava bean grounds with the latter’s grass-fed ground beef.

    Care for some mycelium chocolate? US company Macalat has introduced a sugar-free, vegan dark chocolate bar using ClearIQ, a mycelium-derived flavour modulator in partnership with mycoprotein tech startup MycoTechnology.

    Also in the mycelium world, koji meat company Prime Roots has launched an Earth Day campaign featuring a Cybertruck, with which it will deliver one million slices of its deli meats across the US.

    julienne bruno
    Courtesy: Julienne Bruno

    London-based artisanal vegan cheesemaker Julienne Bruno has revamped the packaging for its stracciatella, burrata and cream cheese analogues, with bolder, more playful fonts and new imagery.

    And Frenc plant-based meat startup La Vie has launched three triangle-shaped sandwiches using either its bacon or ham: Le Parisien, Le Suédois, and Le British. They’re available at various French retailers, including Carrefour, Intermarché, Auchan and Cora France.

    Finance and company developments

    Miyoko’s Creamery founder Miyoko Schinner has joined the board of Hip Hop is Green, a climate change and hip-hop-focused non-profit that advocates for veganism, serves thousands of free plant-based meals, and promotes wellness.

    Canadian vegan cheesemaker Daiya is hiring a new vice-president for melting, which it is calling MVP, to look for recipes that showcase the attributes of its newly formulated oat-cream-based cheeses. Those ‘hired’ will earn $20,000 and a year’s supply of vegan cheese.

    future food quick bites
    Courtesy: Daiya

    Blue Diamond Growers‘ Japan operations and distribution will now be led by juice giant Kagome, which will look to speed up the market growth and demand for its Almond Breeze line of milk alternatives, and launch new products in September.

    In Europe, McCain Foods has acquired the Irish whole-food plant-based brand Strong Roots for an undisclosed sum, following on from its $55M investment in the startup in 2021.

    Swedish agtech startup OlsAro, which has made salt-tolerant wheat with its AI-enabled climate-smart crop-breeding platform, has raised €2.5M in a seed funding round.

    In the UK, carbon labelling startup My Emissions has brought in £1.3M in seed funding to expand its emissions calculation and scope 3 reporting services. Its co-founders Matthew Isaacs and Nathan Bottomley have also been named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Class of 2024 list for Social Impact.

    UK mycoprotein giant Quorn has exited the Belgium and Dutch retail markets, following a year of financial struggles. It will continue to operate in the foodservice and QSR channels in the Benelux region.

    quorn sales
    Courtesy: Quorn

    Swiss plant-based infant and child nutrition startup Yamo is shutting down, with its co-founder and CEO Tobias Gunzenhauser noting that the company was unable to secure investment during its push towards profitability.

    Manufacturing, awards and events

    Israeli cultivated seafood company Efishient Protein has successfully developed a tilapia cell line, which will allow it to produce muscle and fat cells of the fish species.

    UK B2B cellular agriculture company Quest Meat has created edible, food-safe microcarrier replacements, which it describes as the most promising way to scale up cultivated meat production.

    Australia’s Wide Open Agriculture, meanwhile, has developed a soluble lupin fibre with a smooth texture and neutral taste that’s ready to be commercialised. It’s a byproduct of its Buntine Protein powder, made in collaboration with Curtin University, and both can be used to enhance the creaminess of plant-based dairy.

    Vancouver startups Maia Farms and Ecoation have won $380,000 from the Canadian Space Agency and Impact Canada‘s Deep Space Food Challenge with their growing system for mycelium and fruits and vegetables, which can produce 700kg of fresh food annually in a wardrobe-sized device.

    US fungi protein startup Nature’s Fynd has won the Sustainable Systems Innovations honour at the inaugural CleanTech Breakthrough Awards, after topping Forward Fooding’s FoodTech 500 list for 2024 and appearing on Food Network Magazine’s 2024 Green List.

    Ingredients giant Givaudan, meanwhile, has launched a Plant Attitude Challenge for alternative protein startups, which will see five companies pitch how to reduce their recipes’ cost by up to 20% while retaining the flavour experience. BVeg Foods, Eat Typcal, Eternal, Juicy Marbles and Meatless Kingdom are the five finalists, who will take the virtual floor today.

    plant based whole cut steak
    Courtesy: Juicy Marbles

    Finally, in Berlin, Lidl Germany hosted a protein transition event convening 110 stakeholders to discuss the future of protein, animal welfare and supply chain. It revealed that its decision to match plant-based prices with conventional products had led to a 30% vegan sales hike.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Nicki Minaj’s Sneakers, Mycelium Chocolate & A Vegan Cheese MVP appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Factory 01: Solar Foods Opens World’s First Commercial-Scale Facility for Air Protein

    solar foods factory
    5 Mins Read

    Finnish food tech company Solar Foods has opened the doors to its much-awaited Factory 01, which is the world’s first large-scale production facility for air protein.

    Months after closing an €8M Series B investment round to support the construction of its first commercial-scale factory, Solar Foods’ Factory 01 is now operational and will help the startup mass-produce its Solein air protein.

    So far, the fermentation-derived protein has been limited to small quantities produced in the company’s pilot lab in Espoo (near Helsinki). But now, Solar Foods will be able to produce up to 160 tons of its protein annually – this means it can grow the same amount of protein per day as a 300-cow dairy farm.

    “We will be able to deliver quantities that allow food producers for the first time to create large batches of Solein-powered products,” said co-founder and CEO Pasi Vainikka. “While we have been able to offer consumers a small taste, finding a Solein-based food in your local supermarket has not been possible. Soon it will be.”

    Solein is to food what quantum computing is to information processing

    solar foods factory 01
    Courtesy: Solar Foods

    Solar Foods was spun out from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and LUT University in 2017 to commercialise Solein, which it calls the “world’s most sustainable protein”. It uses microbial fermentation to turn carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen (replacing sugar as an energy source) into its protein ingredient, in a process that does away with the need for fertilisers and pesticides, irrigation and open land.

    The fermented protein isn’t dependent on water, weather, climate conditions or agriculture, and can even be produced in desert-like conditions, the Arctic and outer space (in fact, it has partnered with the European Space Agency to develop a system for producing food on Mars). The microbes are grown in a liquid form, and later dried into an orange-yellow powder.

    A life-cycle analysis conducted by the company suggests that Solein’s GHG emissions are just 1% of those generated by conventional meat, and 20% of plant-based proteins. In terms of nutrient composition, the ingredient has 65-70% of protein, 5-8% of fat, 10-15% of dietary fibre and 3-5% of mineral nutrients. Its macronutrient profile is said to be akin to dried soy or algae, and it contains iron and B vitamins, which are essential nutrients often derived from animal-based foods.

    The company has managed to increase the productivity of its microbes by tenfold since 2020. To outline its importance for the food industry, Vainikka compared it to the impact of quantum computing on information processing. “Just like with quantum computers, it’s no longer a question of will cellular agriculture become a thing: it’s evident that it will. The question is more about who leads the charge”, he said.

    ”We are exploring the possibilities of this scientific platform on a new scale. Factory 01 demonstrates it is possible to grow protein from start to finish under one roof, year-round even in the harsh Northern conditions of Finland – and to do it all sustainably and in a commercially viable manner,” he added.

    This has been recognised by both public and private investors. Among Solar Foods’ backers are Agronomics, Fazer and Springvest Oyj, as well as the Pharmacy Pension Fund of Finland, the state-owned Finnish Climate Fund, and Business Finland. The latter, in fact, provided the company with €34M in grant funding in 2022 to support the construction of Factory 01 – this was an initial grant resulting from the approval of Solar Foods’ €600M investment programme as the EU Commission’s first hydrogen-based Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI). Factory 01 is the first IPCEI to be completed.

    Solar Foods targets ‘billion-euro’ status

    solein protein
    Courtesy: Solar Foods

    Solar Foods’ highly automated Factory 01 will see most of its employees work in the facility’s control room, rather than on the factory floor. The plant will also serve as an R&D and future product development hub, while providing valuable data on the way to its next milestone, Factory 02. If this is built on European soil, Business Finland has earmarked a further €76M investment to support its construction.

    “Factory 01 is already a bona fide factory, the kind you could see in an industrial park. But to realise Solein’s full potential, we think bigger. That’s why Factory 02 will eventually scale up the bioprocess as well as the production process: it would not be located in an industrial park, it would more likely fill an industrial park,” said Vainikka. “Our long-term aim is to be a billion-euro company. The global protein market is a €2T business and we have shown that Solein has a place within that market.”

    And show its place it has. After receiving regulatory approval in Singapore in October 2022, it debuted Solein at Singapore restaurant Fico, as part of a vegan chocolate gelato using the flavourless protein. And earlier this year, it partnered with its majority shareholder Fazer to launch a Taste the Future chocolate snack bar in the city-state.

    These rollouts showcase the versatility of Solein, which can vanish into foods and has been demoed in over 20 different dishes – think burgers, eggs and meatballs. To explore these applications, it has established a strategic partnership with Japanese food manufacturer Ajinomoto, which will see them develop new products and test their market feasibility in Singapore. Now, they’re looking to expand their link-up overseas too.

    It’s part of Solar Foods’ bid to enter other markets globally. It’s set to enter the US market later this year, and has also submitted a dossier to the European Food Safety Authority. The startup expects the EU process to be completed by the end of 2025, with Vainikka hinting the region could see a range of new products using Solein in 2025-26. The company is looking into the UK too.

    Last week, Solar Foods also received a Nasdaq Green Equity Designation – it’s a recognition for companies where over half of the turnover is derived from green activities. It’s not the only company in the air protein space, which is populated by Kiverdi’s Air Protein, NovoNutrients, Calysta (all US), Arkeon Biotechnologies (Austria), and Deep Branch Biotech (UK) as well.

    The post Factory 01: Solar Foods Opens World’s First Commercial-Scale Facility for Air Protein appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Fully Plant-Based: Rewe Opens First 100% Vegan Supermarket in Germany

    rewe fully plant based
    5 Mins Read

    The Rewe Group has opened the doors to its first 100% vegan store in Germany. Called Rewe Fully Plant-Based, the new space houses more than 2,700 products, and is located on a road crossed by 90,000 pedestrians every day.

    Weeks after it was rumoured to be opening the store, German retailer Rewe has unveiled its first fully vegan supermarket in the country. Taking over from the previous flagship store of Veganz on Berlin’s Warschauer Brücke (Warsaw Bridge), the 212 sq m Rewe Fully Plant Based space boasts over 2,700 products from more than 300 brands.

    This means that the new location nearly doubles the number of vegan items in Rewe’s regular stores (around 1,400), and blends its private-label offerings with big brands and newer startups. Visitors will find Rewe Bio, Rewe Beste Wahl, Vivess and ja! products, alongside industry leaders like Oatly and Alpro, and challenger brands such as Not Guilty, For Foodies and Greenforce.

    “With Rewe Fully Plant-Based, we show how varied and large the selection of vegan products is,” said Rewe Group CEO Peter Maly, who sees this as a key test concept. “We primarily expect learning effects for our classic supermarkets. Here at the Warschauer Brücke in Berlin-Friedrichshain, we have the chance to pave the way for even more new products and brands to reach supermarket shelves. We are very curious.”

    Bright yellow, rich green, warm rust red

    rewe plant based
    Courtesy: Christoph Grosse/Pivopex

    Trade website Supermarktblog reported last month that the former Veganz store, which had changed hands last year, already had the name of the new Rewe store attached to the façade. The tagline ‘fully plant-based, totally good’ was also visible on the storefront and inside the entrance area of the store.

    While Rewe declined to confirm any plans for the supermarket at the time, it has since been hyping up the opening with what the publication describes as guerilla marketing tactics at nearby subway stations, lampposts, parking meters and walls. These featured bright yellow-green banners with a QR code sporting the caption: “Berlin is getting more comfortable”.

    Designed alongside the creative agency CMF, the neon colour scheme is intentional, with yellow, green and red shades donning the store with colourful triangles from ceiling to floor.

    “Rewe Fully Plant-Based is an eye-catcher. Lively, striking, natural – these are keywords that have driven us,” said Rewe Ost (East) CEO Stefan Hörning. “We were able to give the well-known red Rewe logo a new coat of paint for the first time. We supplement the green letters with the simple addition ‘Fully Plant-Based’. This allows us to get to the heart of what’s in the store without any frills.”

    A plethora of products for all shoppers

    rewe vegan
    Courtesy: Christoph Grosse/Pivopex

    Upon entry, the first products visitors encounter are fruits and vegetables, immediately followed by a salad bar and vegan sushi counter. This is a deliberate move as the retailer aims to target not just vegan or flexitarian consumers, but also aims to be a point of contact for people to do their everyday shop and locals and tourists to pick up a snack or drink before heading to events or back home.

    Chilled smoothies, spreads, seitan and other products can be found in fridges along the walls, while the middle of the store is adorned with plant-based milks, nuts, spices, baking ingredients and drugstore items. Then there’s a snack bar with cream cheeses and freshly made open sandwiches, while the frozen section, baked goods, chilled drinks and vegan ice cream greet the checkout area.

    In fact, the latter is available as part of an in-store soft serve machine. And as for the bakery items, Rewe Berlin merchant Dennis Henkelmann (who manages the store) explained: “The supermarket is in close proximity to the S-Bahn, and there are many apartments and offices around it. That’s why we consciously rely on a large selection of baked goods. We have more than 40 products, from vegan Franzbrötchen to pretzel bagels to Sunday rolls.”

    The Rewe Fully Plant-Based store also does away with regular manned cash registers, with payment only available at three self-checkout counters, or via its Scan&Go tech that allows shoppers to scan groceries as they walk through the store and add them to their cart.

    Rewe Fully Plant-Based makes for a key test

    rewe voll pflanzlich
    Courtesy: Christoph Grosse/Pivopex

    “Our range is colourful, there is everything from vegan burger sauce, ramen and wines to various snacks. We are a real supermarket, just purely plant-based,” said Henkelmann. The new supermarket has a staff of 12, all of whom have been specially trained on the vegan range.

    It isn’t intended to be a temporary pop-up, but will serve as a test for similar future concepts. If it ends up being successful, Rewe could subsequently launch a corresponding initiative in Rewe Center stores nationwide, which would align with its vegan Pflanzilla approach under its Austrian subsidiary Billa.

    Rewe opened the first Billa Pflanzilla store in Vienna in 2022, followed by a pop-up location in Graz last November (which ended its run in February). In addition to this, it has integrated Pflanzilla World as a mini-section in 21 of its Billa Plus stores. That’s not all – apart from the company’s own-label plant-based lines, it previously launched a plant-based meat counter in a Kaarst store after seeing a 45% hike in meat-free sales, and dropped the prices of vegan products to either match or be cheaper than their conventional counterparts in Billa and Penny stores.

    “We have special products, including lots of fresh things. With us you can try out new things, much of our range is organic. Here, young companies with new ideas have the chance to get one of the coveted places on the supermarket shelf,” said Horning.

    “We have been recognized several times in the past as vegan pioneers in the food trade, and the strong response from our customers also encourages us,” added Maly. A survey commissioned by the company last year found that 58% of Rewe customers have bought vegan products previously, and 27% replace animal-derived foods with plant-based analogues several times a week.

    With 90,000 people crossing the Warsaw Bridge every day, footfall shouldn’t be a concern for Rewe. Neither should consumer response, given that Germany is the largest plant-based market in Europe, with 59% of consumers reducing meat consumption, and its government has earmarked €38M in its federal budget this year to support alternative proteins and open a Proteins of the Future centre.

    And last month, the German Society for Nutrition updated its dietary guidelines to recommend halving meat consumption, limiting dairy intake, and eating more plant-based foods – with the latter suggested to make up at least 75% of diets in the country.

    The post Fully Plant-Based: Rewe Opens First 100% Vegan Supermarket in Germany appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Mosa Meat Secures €40M in Funding to Expand Production and Speed Up Launch of Cultivated Meat

    mosa meat funding
    5 Mins Read

    Dutch cultivated meat pioneer Mosa Meat has raised €40M ($42.4M) in a new funding round to support the “next phase” of the company’s growth, with a public tasting of its burger imminent ahead of its launch in Singapore.

    The company that proved the concept for cultivated meat all those years ago is now gearing up for public tastings and market entry with a new €40M ($42.4M) round of financing. It takes Mosa Meat’s total raised to more than $135M, following its previous $85M Series B and $8M Series A rounds.

    The oversubscribed round was led by Lowercarbon Capital and M Ventures, and included backing from new government-backed players like Dutch state-owned impact investor Invest-NL (partly with coverage from EU Commission programme InvestEU), Limburg province’s regional development agency LIOF, and the Limburg Energy Fund, a regional fund to support emissions reduction.

    Other investors included poultry producer PHW Group (which has a background in alternative protein and cultivated meat financing), XO Ventures, Doux Investments, and others.

    Mosa Meat expects Singapore approval soon

    mosa meat
    Courtesy: Mosa Meat

    Mosa Meat’s latest financing round is the largest sum brought in by a cultivated meat company since November 2022, when Australia’s Vow (which incidentally received regulatory approval for the sale of its cultivated quail in Singapore earlier this month) raised $49.2M. It reflects the tough funding environment for cultivated meat, which was labelled a “sector to watch” by AgFunder after VC investments nosedived by 78% in 2023, against a larger 49% drop in agrifood tech funding last year.

    “The overall macroeconomic landscape has been rough in the last two years, which has culled the herd of companies and forced us to be even more strategic and focused on achieving our mission,” said Mosa Meat CEO Maarten Bosch. “As such, we are humbled and honoured to welcome both public parties and conventional meat producers to join this critical journey.”

    The company will use the funds to further scale up its production processes, following the May 2023 opening of what it claims is currently the world’s largest cultivated meat facility in Maastricht, Netherlands. This “cultivated meat campus” is its fourth plant, expanding its footprint to 7,340 sq m (79,007 sq ft), and has a 1,000-litre bioreactor scale that can produce “tens of thousands of cultivated hamburgers”.

    The capital will also help Mosa Meat accelerate its market entry. The startup is actively pursuing regulatory approval in “North America, Asia, Europe, the UK and more”, according to Bosch, who told Green Queen in September: “We’re engaging policymakers at the national and international levels to encourage the enabling conditions necessary to foster thriving cellular agriculture ecosystems.”

    It’s expected that Mosa Meat’s cultivated beef burger will first be introduced in Singapore, where the regulatory greenlight is imminent. So far, only Israel’s Aleph Farms has been cleared to sell cultivated beef, announcing the go-ahead in its home country in January.

    Cost-effective, high-quality cultivated beef ready for public tastings

    lab grown beef
    Courtesy: Mosa Meat

    Mosa Meat first unveiled its cultivated beef in 2013 at a now-famous press conference in London. At the time, the two proof-of-concept burger patties cost $330,000, but the company has since made major strides in bringing down its costs. In 2020, it brought down the price of its own growth medium by 80-fold, and the following year, it slashed its fat medium’s cost by 66 times.

    To further these efforts, it received a €2M grant from the EU to cut production costs by 100-fold in 2021. And last year, it partnered with its investor Nutreco to develop a cell feed supply chain and transition to food-grade amino acids to achieve this reduction without affecting yield. While its exact production costs are not known, it’s estimated that cultivated meat needs to cost $2.92 per lb to be on price parity with conventional meat.

    Mosa Meat is focusing on beef over other meats first because of its impact on the climate – it is the most polluting food on the planet. The Dutch startup’s cultivated beef, however, is created in facilities that use 100% renewable energy, and last year, a peer-reviewed life-cycle assessment revealed that cultivated beef can lower climate impact by 92%, air pollution by 94%, land use by 95%, and water consumption by 78% compared to conventional beef. In September, the company became the first cultivated meat company to be certified as a B Corp.

    Strengthening its reputation as a pioneer, Mosa Meat removed the controversial fetal bovine serum from its cultivated meat in favour of a serum-free growth medium, and published the method as open-source for other industry players to use in 2022.

    Cultivated meat has been under attack in the media and the political sphere recently, with governments in the US and the EU attempting to ban or restrict these foods. Italy and Florida have already done so. “In an environment that is increasingly polarised, we choose to connect and collaborate, working towards a future where cultivated beef is a real choice for consumers and a complementary solution in the toolbox to combat the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity,” said Bosch.

    The company is currently awaiting approval from the Dutch government to host public tastings for its cultivated beef, following the establishment of a Code of Practice in July with support from Mosa Meat, cultivated pork producer Meatable, and sector representative HollandBIO. “Rethinking how we produce great food for a growing planet without destroying it is quite a daunting task and will take many people and organisations to pull in the same direction,” added Bosch.

    Speaking on the Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers podcast in August, Mosa Meat founder and CSO Dr Mark Post outlined the importance of having a high-quality product that outcompetes current meat analogues. “I cannot help thinking that part of it is that people just want to have meat, that the meat alternative has to be meat and nothing else,” he said. “So, the foremost goal of the company is to create a high-quality alternative that is sufficiently credible for consumers to change their behaviour away from traditional meat.”

    The post Mosa Meat Secures €40M in Funding to Expand Production and Speed Up Launch of Cultivated Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Health Remains Americans’ Key Consideration for Plant Proteins and Cultivated Meat

    cultivated meat study
    6 Mins Read

    As plant-based meat companies rejig their nutritional messaging and cultivated meat battles to shake off the ‘lab-grown’ tag and political attacks, two consumer surveys reveal that health remains a key priority for Americans when it comes to alternative proteins.

    The overconsumption of meat in the US is a major driver of the country’s large climate footprint, with one analysis showing that Americans’ red meat intake is over six times higher than advised by the Eat-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet.

    Only 12% of Americans consume half of all the beef eaten in the US, and about 40% don’t think eating red meat increases greenhouse gas emissions – despite beef being the most polluting food. Separate research shows that as many as 74% of Americans don’t link meat-eating with climate change, while one estimate suggests the country needs to cut meat consumption by 82% if it wants to avoid climate diasters in the future.

    And while the number of vegans hit a decade-long low in the US last year, another poll suggests that the percentage of consumers who are eating plant-rich diets has doubled over the last few years – but the red-meat-eaters have also grown in number. The paradoxical results of all these surveys show that there’s certainly interest in plant-based eating in the US, but meat still rules the roost.

    That paradox is also highlighted by two new surveys about food in the country, covering cost of living, animal protein, plant-based proteins and cultivated meat.

    Plant-based brands will find it hard to sway new customers

    The first of these surveys is the March Consumer Digest by data science firm 84.51°, which polled 400 consumers who shopped from Kroger in the last three months.

    It reveals that the higher cost of living continues to influence consumer behaviour significantly, adjusting meal plans to include dishes that use less meat (43% are doing so); purchasing more beans, legumes, nuts and eggs (33%); and reducing protein consumption (18%).

    plant based meat survey
    Courtesy: 84.51°

    When it comes to the latter, shoppers are most concerned with taste (60%) and value (55%), while plant-based sources are among the factors they’re least concerned with (45%). In fact, animal protein sources take up four of the top five spots in the list of preferred protein sources, with vegetables (cited by 86%) third on the list, although they are above all meat sources.

    Other plant proteins are much lower on the list, with tofu coming in last (11%), just behind soy (11%), plant-based meat (15%) and lentils (22%). 84.51° reveals that plant-based milk often serves as an entry point for vegan food consumption, which is apparent when you consider that milk is the vegan category households consume most (33%). It’s also among the top three segments that Americans want to consume more of, alongside fresh and frozen plant-based meats.

    plant based meat study
    Courtesy: 84.51°

    For 59% of respondents, health is the most important consideration pushing them to eat plant-based, followed by sustainability (42%) and taste (38%). This is exactly why industry leaders like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have shifted their messaging of late, introducing nutrition-focused products, packaging and marketing campaigns.

    When it comes to consumption barriers, cost is key to 53%, while 41% are dismayed by low sales or promotions. And it seems that companies in this space face an uphill battle to lure consumers, with nearly half (48%) of people who haven’t tried vegan analogues saying they aren’t likely to do so in the future – only 5% say they’re very likely to try them.

    plant based consumer survey
    Courtesy: 84.51°

    Cultivated meat may need to tackle the uncommon

    Researchers at Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability, meanwhile, surveyed 1,200 Americans for its March Consumer Food Insights Report, revealing that while Americans do prefer conventional meat more than cultivated, the latter isn’t too far behind (considering its current scale and availability) when it comes to a restaurant setting.

    For example, while 96% of Americans would try chicken in restaurants, two-thirds (67%) would be willing to do so with cultivated chicken as well. This is similar for conventional versus cultivated beef (94% and 65%, respectively) and pork (88% vs 60%).

    “We see similar results when evaluating consumers’ willingness to try conventional and cultivated meats in a restaurant setting,” said lead author Joseph Balagtas, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue. “The proportion of consumers willing to try the cultivated versions of these meats is around 30 percentage points lower, though it is still a majority, about 60%.”

    He added: “Given the fact that cell-cultured meat is not widely available, these results reflect consumer distrust of the unknown when it comes to food, which is a barrier for any novel food trying to break into the market.”

    lab grown meat study
    Courtesy: Purdue University

    Interestingly, of those respondents not willing to try conventional chicken, beef or pork, around 46%, 26% and 22% said they’d eat cultivated versions of these products, respectively. “This shows that there may be (a) market for cultivated meat among a sizable portion – albeit small number – of consumers who do not eat meat along with a majority of consumers who already are willing to try conventional versions of these meats,” Balagtas said.

    In terms of health, consumers felt traditionally farmed meat is tastier and healthier than cultivated versions. On a scale of 0 to 5, beef (4.4) and chicken (4.2) ranked high on the flavour aspect, versus 2.7 each for their cultivated counterparts. Similarly, beef scored 3.4 and chicken 4.2 when considering their health credentials, compared to 2.6 and 2.9 for cultivated beef and chicken, respectively.

    lab grown meat survey
    Courtesy: Purdue University

    The report also looked at certain ‘exotic meats’ – like octopus, shark and ostrich (among others) – where acceptance for conventional versions was higher than cultivated meats, but it is mostly a minority of consumers who are willing to try either of these products. Other animals included kangaroo and zebra too – this is topical considering Australian company Vow, which last week became the fourth company globally to receive regulatory approval for cultivated meat, has been known to work with cells of these species.

    Its debut product itself is somewhat out of the ordinary. The company has produced cultivated quail as part of a parfait, and its co-founder and CEO George Peppou outlined why cultivated meat companies need to stop recreating conventional meats, and produce entirely new foods instead. “By changing the process of production, rather than the food itself, you are asking consumers to change their behaviour for the benefit of the planet alone. Despite what we’d like to believe, those externalities don’t matter as much as we think to a vast majority of consumers when it comes to purchasing,” he told Green Queen last week.

    It encapsulates the results of the Purdue survey – there’s much less gap between acceptance for the cultivated and conventional versions of ‘exotic’ meats than for chicken, beef and pork. “The only way for us to change our behaviour is to offer new foods that consumers choose selfishly. That’s why Vow is different, because we innovate instead of imitating, and therefore offer something that consumers will selfishly choose, because it is deliberately different.

    The post Health Remains Americans’ Key Consideration for Plant Proteins and Cultivated Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • The 50CUT Burger: US Butchery Pat LaFrieda Embraces Blended Meat with Mush Foods Partnership

    50cut burger
    5 Mins Read

    US butchery Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors has partnered with mycelium meat startup Mush Foods to debut a burger made from the latter’s 50CUT blend of mushroom root and beef.

    Months after announcing its move into US foodservice, New York-based startup Mush Foods has teamed up with Pat LaFrieda to launch the 50CUT Burger, which blends mushrooms with beef in equal proportions for a more planet-friendly meat product.

    The 6oz patty uses ground beef and a mix of mushrooms like oyster, trumpet, shiitake, and lion’s mane, and marks the first nationally available burger made with Mush Foods’ 50CUT blend. The partnership will allow the brand access to the 1,600-plus restaurant and foodservice customers supplied by Pat LaFrieda – it recently concluded a limited-edition run as part of the Umami Burger at the Citizens Culinary Market in Manhattan.

    Raving about the quality of the burger, the meat purveyor’s namesake owner and CEO Pat LaFrieda said he wanted to link up with Mush Foods and develop the LaFrieda 50CUT Burger after tasting the blended meat – 20 years on from buying the first burger machine for his business. “It delivers on every expectation for a delicious burger while adding nutritional value and being gentler to the planet,” he said.

    Making beef better across all aspects

    pat lafrieda 50cut
    Courtesy: Mush Foods

    The LaFrieda 50CUT Burger delivers on four verticles: sustainability, health, price and flavour. Beef is the highest-emitting food on the planet, so halving the amount used in a burger is always going to help restaurants’ carbon footprint. In fact, a study has shown that replacing half of animal products like meat and dairy with plant-based alternatives can halt deforestation, reduce land use by 31%, and double the climate benefits.

    Mush Foods’ mycelium is grown on organic substrates in a circular process that involves using upcycled food waste from agricultural sidestreams. The controlled, flightless environment means its solid-state fermentation tech can enable mushroom roots to grow above ground in just eight days – for context, it takes at least a year to farm cows for meat, and about four months to grow soybeans. This means higher yields in smaller timeframes, with the added benefit of working with local mushroom farmers from New York.

    The blended meat product also enhances the nutritional value of burgers – apart from providing the complete protein profile (with all essential amino acids) and being rich in potassium, iron and calcium, it’s a source of the dietary fibres (including beta-glucan) that are missing in conventional beef. Plus, it’s clean-label too, with no additives, seasonings, binders and preservatives.

    For most restauranteurs and diners, flavour is key to making food choices. Using mushrooms allows 50CUT to provide an umami boost to the burger, addressing a key culinary need. The blended meat also retains the flavour and mouthfeel of conventional meat. That has impressed LaFrieda, who said: “There is an art to a great burger, and the LaFrieda 50CUT is going to amaze burger lovers.”

    But it’s not just him – at a tasting of the burger at New York City’s Bar Boulud last month, chef Franklin Becker noted: “If I was eating it blind I’d think it was all beef.” This was reported by New York Times food critic Florence Fabricant, who herself said: “The burger was juicy, and smelled and tasted beefy; it was a fine burger.”

    Arguably the most impressive part, though, is the cost, with 50CUT priced cheaper than 100% animal meat. “Not only is there a positive outcome for the environment and for the consumer in terms of flavour, but the price per pound to our customers is less expensive than meat,” Mush Foods co-founder and CEO Shalom Daniel told Green Queen earlier this year.

    “We already know that you can have a phenomenal product from an environmental standpoint but if the economics don’t work, it will not thrive. We believe this is a game-changer for the industry,” he added.

    Partnering with industry leaders could unlock blended meat’s potential

    mush foods
    Courtesy: Mush Foods

    Fresh from a $6.2M seed funding round last year, Mush Foods is looking to expand its US footprint after debuting its ‘meat-plus’ range in Israel, where it was founded. It will do so with its entire range of 50CUT, which doesn’t just include beef, but also chicken, pork and fish – each is matched with a custom-tailored mycelium mix derived from 14 different species of the fungi.

    “The process involves mixing two to three different species of mycelium to produce the exact moisture level, binding ability, taste, colour and texture to complement the unique qualities of each kind of animal protein,” Daniel told me in a wide-ranging interview last year. “Every blend looks and tastes different, as each of the target animal meats has [its] own characteristics.”

    This enables the natural flavours of the meat to truly come out, meeting the needs of people who aren’t quite there yet with plant-based meat products. “If we are realistic, it is unlikely that 100% of the global population will become vegan. In some countries, meat will remain a symbol of growing personal wealth, and that won’t change,” noted Daniel. “But we don’t need the entire world to go vegan to have a positive impact on our food supply and environment.”

    That philosophy is also being adopted by its competitors in the nascent blended meat space. Los Angeles-based 50/50 Foods is one of them, and has already made its way into Disneyland. Phil’s Finest has been doing well for years, after finding success on Shark Tank (under its former name Misfit Foods). And just this week, Australia’s Harvest B entered the blended meat category with diced beef and lamb for foodservice, with plans to breach the US market next year.

    Mush Foods is entirely focused on foodservice too, with no plans for a B2C play. “We cultivate products that the meat and food industries can easily use and blend without having to invest in new capital, change their manufacturing processes, or learn new methods,” Daniel said last year. “We are working efficiently and avoiding expending energy by competing in areas like distribution, retail agreements, branding, etc. Our approach is to collaborate with big players and bring new versions of product favourites to market, or create new blended product lines.”

    There aren’t many more suitable people to partner with than LaFrieda, whose butchery has garnered plenty of fans for its premium meats, and industry recognition through partnerships with Minetta Tavern and Shake Shack. Shalom recognises this, saying: “The LaFrieda brand is synonymous with excellence and boasts a legacy of firsts, continually raising the bar and setting the direction for the entire category.”

    He added: “Pat LaFrieda is an inspirational innovator and a visionary champion of up-and-coming partners that help expand and develop the meat category. We couldn’t have asked for a more experienced and trusted partner to introduce our first 50CUT collaboration to restaurants, contract foodservice operators and chains nationwide.

    The post The 50CUT Burger: US Butchery Pat LaFrieda Embraces Blended Meat with Mush Foods Partnership appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • The State of European FoodTech: Funding Declines, More Deals, Alt-Protein Wins & Promising Future

    digitalfoodlab
    6 Mins Read

    Amid a backdrop of a fall in food tech investments globally, Europe also suffered a decline – but the number of financing deals went up, with food science and agtech funding on the rise, according to DigitalFoodLab’s 2024 State of European FoodTech report.

    Food tech startups in Europe attracted €4.3B in funding in 2023. While this was a 35% decline from the year before – and a 56% drop from 2021 (when financing in this sector peaked) – this region is still much less affected by a lack of funding than other regions, given that global food tech investments fell by nearly 56% from 2022-23.

    This is according to research by DigitalFoodLab for the seventh edition of its State of the European FoodTech Ecosystem report. The French consultancy revealed that despite the decline in capital, the number of deals actually increased, going up from 660 in 2022 to 690 last year, which signals that the decrease in funding is due to a drastic reduction in large deals.

    state of european foodtech
    Courtesy: DigitalFoodLab

    Moreover, the numbers show that – given the unprecedented rise in funding in 2021, thanks to a surge in quick-commerce deals in the midst of the pandemic – food tech investments in the continent are stabilising. Last year’s total was 39% higher than 2020 levels, thanks to an uptick in Q3. Plus, Europe’s long-term share of food tech funding is on the rise – in 2020, it accounted for 14% of all capital injected into this industry, but now, that has shot up to 32%. This shows investors are “still very active in Europe” and betting on “startups with an edge to surf long-term trends”, according to DigitalFoodLab.

    Here are the key takeaways from the State of European FoodTech report.

    A shift away from delivery

    Delivery-oriented startups – which commanded 65% of all food tech financing in Europe in 2021 – witnessed a steep 90% drop in investments in 2023. Now, this sector only commands 15% of the share, no longer a leader in the food tech ecosystem.

    This can be seen in country-wide trends as well. Germany, known for its focus on delivery startups, pumped €3.1B into these companies in 2021, but only €650M last year. That’s incidentally also the total sum attracted by delivery businesses across Europe in 2023.

    food tech europe
    Courtesy: DigitalFoodLab

    Agtech startups top the charts

    It was a good year for agtech startups, the leading category for food tech funding in Europe. They accounted for €1.5B (36%) of the share, nearly 5% higher than in 2022. It includes subgroups like ag biotech (which secured the highest sum), farm management, animal feed, indoor farming, ag marketplaces, and farm robotics. Farm management startups gained the second-highest number of deals overall.

    Sustainable fertiliser company Atlas Agro was the recipient of the largest capital amount in the entire food tech sector last year, securing €325M. This was twice as high as next best within the agtech category, French insect protein company Ÿnsect (€160M).

    Indoor farming startups raised less money, mostly due to a transition from raising capital to create farms to raising much less cash to develop tech for others to use in their indoor farms – Italy was the notable exception here. All other categories performed well, benefitting from a sustainability push and the need for large food companies to reach climate neutrality pledges.

    Alternative proteins attract more investment

    alt protein funding
    Courtesy: DigitalFoodLab

    Despite sales declines in many countries and a weakening of consumer confidence due to their association with ultra-processed foods and successful misinformation campaigns from the livestock industry, the European alternative protein sector actually saw a hike in investor interest, as part of DigitalFoodLab’s food science category (which also includes pet food, functional food, beverage and CPG startups).

    Investment in this category reached an all-time high, amounting to €1.45B (a 37% rise from 2022). These companies’ total funding share was closely behind agtech businesses at 34%, with CPG startups seeing the highest number of deals, and alternative protein coming third on that list. The latter additionally secured the second-highest amount of money in Europe’s food tech sector last year, followed by pet food startups – thanks to deals for Enough (€43M), Myriameat (€43M), Umiami (€35M), Meatable (€33M) and Moolec (€30M).

    Capital injections mostly happened in the second half of 2023 in this category. “There was a wave of doubts about the potential of alternative proteins that was resolved by the decrease in inflation,” states the report.

    UK maintains its continental stronghold

    food tech funding
    Courtesy: DigitalFoodLab

    Despite a 33% year-over-year drop in funding, the UK is still far ahead of the rest in Europe, with startups here attracting €1.1B in investment last year – compared to 2020, that’s a 48% hike. This was driven by the food science category, which attracted half of this total sum, and 67% of the deals – thanks in large part to the €320M investment round (and acquisition) in fresh dog food startup Butternut Box.

    The UK is followed by France (€750M) and Germany (€650M). “The French and British ecosystems have done surprisingly well in 2022 and are still above where they stood in 2020,” the report notes. London and Paris remain in a tight race as the top hubs for food tech financing, with the latter just barely edging the British capital.

    Early-stage startups are more attractive

    There was a notable shift in the distribution of investments across company stages. Early-stage startups experienced a much smaller decline (12%) than late-stage, post-Series A companies (49%). In fact, the number of investments in younger companies increased, with seed deals up from 333 to 372. DigitalFoodlab calls this “proof of entrepreneurs’ and investors’ appetite to bet on food tech”.

    Last year was the first time in 10 years Europe didn’t produce a unicorn (a privately held company with a valuation of over $1B). However, there were two IPOs: Moolec and salt alternative company Microsalt. But they have had mixed fortunes, with the former losing more than 80% of its share price since trading on the Nasdaq in January 2023, and the latter gaining by more than 50%.

    food tech funding europe
    Courtesy: DigitalFoodLab

    Regulation remains a thorn in the flesh

    Looking at the positives, DigitalFoodLab noted how external investors are now betting on European startups. “While unfortunate in its success, the emergence of quick-commerce in Europe helped to put the old continent on the map,” the report states.

    Moreover, European-headquartered companies are now investing and partnering with local players, instead of looking to the US first. And public money has helped national ecosystems emerge pre- and post-pandemic, as well as helped many startups avoid bankruptcy. “Now, plans to boost the bioeconomy (with applications in agriculture and food such as bioinputs and proteins) will be critical for the next stage,” it suggests.

    That said, there is certainly room for improvement. Beyond a few companies (mostly D2C brands), it’s “extremely hard” for most startups to grow across borders. There also needs to be coherence between national and EU-level plans. “Most countries support innovation, but they do it with different schemes, each requiring startups to submit lengthy applications,” explains the report. While things are moving in the right direction, it notes that it isn’t yet obvious for European entrepreneurs to know where to establish their startups.

    Finally, regulation remains a “cloud in the sky”, with progress slower than in other continents. While it has boosted some categories – like plastic alternatives – it is “hindering innovation in alternative proteins”. This is most prominently seen in Italy’s cultivated meat ban, and several EU countries’ attempts to restrict these novel proteins before they even enter the market.

    The post The State of European FoodTech: Funding Declines, More Deals, Alt-Protein Wins & Promising Future appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • French Court Suspends Government Ban on Use of Meat-Related Terms on Plant-Based Food

    france plant based labelling ban
    4 Mins Read

    France’s top administrative court has suspended the government’s decree to ban the use of words like ‘steak’ and ‘ham’ on plant-based meat analogues, which was approved earlier this year.

    The Conseil d’État has dealt a blow to the French government’s livestock ‘sovereignty plan’ by suspending the ban on meat-related terms used by plant-based companies on product packaging.

    The decision by the country’s highest administrative court found that there was “serious doubt” about the legality of the ban – which is set to come into effect on May 1 – and it means producers can continue to use terms like ‘steak’, ‘escalope’ and ‘ham’ on meat analogues.

    This is the second time such a ban has been suspended by the Conseil d’État. In June 2022, the government introduced a similar decree to ban such terms. But following criticism from plant-based producers and complaints from meat-free associations, the court suspended the degree, arguing that the timeline was too short and wording too vague.

    This second degree, proposed in September last year and approved in February this year, was virtually identical, but has been seized by the court after concerns were raised by vegan food manufacturers.

    Why France wanted to ban meat labels on plant-based products

    france plant based
    Courtesy: Carrefour/LinkedIn

    The state council’s decision on the first decree was referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which in 2020 had rejected an EU-wide ban on meat-related terms on plant-based products (it had, however, outlawed words associated with dairy).

    In September, the French agriculture ministry took the court’s complaints into account to prepare a new decree, which was co-signed by then prime minister Élisabeth, economy and finance minister Bruno Le Maire and agriculture minister Marc Fesneau.

    The decree sought to ban 21 terms like ‘steak’, ‘beef’, ‘ham’ and ‘grilled’ from plant-based meat labelling, while there were more than 120 additional phrases like ‘bacon’, ‘sausage’, ‘cooked fillet’, ‘poultry’ and ‘nuggets’ (plus non-meat terms such as ‘liquid whole egg’) that companies could use as long as the amount of plant protein in these products doesn’t exceed a maximum limit ranging from 0.5% to 6%. It was an indirect way of restricting plant-based analogues to use any of these words, given that they all contain 100% plant proteins.

    When the decree was published in late February, new prime minister Gabriel Attal confirmed “it was a request from our farmers” to ban such terms. It was part of its supportive stance on livestock farming, which includes €400M in aid for the sector. Fesneau himself last year called for an increase in factory farming and cheaper meat production, despite the climate, health and animal welfare costs associated with these practices.

    The decree included a fine of up to €1,500 for individuals and €7,500 for companies that fail to comply with the new rules. France’s measures to do so mirrored Italy’s restrictions on plant-based meat labelling, which was part of a wider ban on cultivated meat too. France itself is hoping to prohibit the sale and production of the latter within its borders.

    Labelling ban would cause ‘serious and immediate harm’

    france plant based meat
    Courtesy: Flaggenwelt/Getty Images

    The Conseil d’État cited the EU’s food labelling legal framework to note that there’s doubt over the possibility of adopting such national measures. It had referred to the same regulation over its 2022 suspension of the first decree too.

    The court said a ban would cause “serious and immediate harm” to the financial interests of plant-based manufacturers, six of whom raised concerns that led to the council seizing the ban. It added that some restaurant menus have been using such terms for a long time, and the decree would lead to a significant drop in the turnover of two companies that had questioned the ban whose majority of sales related to these products.

    The ban would also result in costs related to packaging and marketing strategies given brands would need to modify their messaging, which could mean a pause in sales. Additionally, since the decree only applies to those who produce within France, their competitors who manufacture in other EU countries will be able to continue to use these terms to sell their products in France.

    The ECJ still hasn’t provided guidance about the first decree and whether it was legal under EU law, and the French court has asked it to do so in the coming months. Until the ECJ responds to the query, the ban will remain suspended.

    While labelling restrictions have been a thorn in the flesh for plant-based meat for years, recent developments are encouraging. Italy, for example, is reconsidering its ban after pushback from the country’s leading union of food manufacturers. In another win for the industry, a South African court has ruled against upholding a ban introduced the same month as France’s proposal, which saw strict labelling rules for plant-based food, prohibiting references to ‘meat’ and threatening to seize any products that fail to comply.

    The post French Court Suspends Government Ban on Use of Meat-Related Terms on Plant-Based Food appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Food, Inc. 2 Sheds Light on Big Food, UPFs, Modern Slavery & Cultivated Meat – But Lacks Focus

    food inc 2
    9 Mins Read

    The sequel to the Oscar-nominated documentary from 2008, Food, Inc. 2 shows just how much power Big Ag wields on the food system, tackles solutions like cultivated meat and seaweed, and highlights the problem with workers’ rights and UPFs. But it feels a little muddled.

    Today’s food system is a world that deals with the power of big corporations, climate change, ultra-processed foods (UPFs), animal cruelty and factory farming, fast food profits, workers’ rights and wages, consolidation and monopolies, portion sizes, plant-based foods, cultivated meat, and regenerative agriculture – Food, Inc. 2 tries to cover them all in the space of 90 minutes.

    That’s what’s so good and so disappointing about the documentary directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo, which serves as a sequel to 2008’s Food, Inc. The ambition is laudable, but the execution doesn’t always stick the landing.

    The problem with making a genuinely great film is that it’s always incredibly tough for a sequel to scale the same heights. And that’s what it feels like with Food, Inc. 2, which doesn’t quite hit you the same way as its predecessor, one of the most influential documentaries of this century.

    Kenner’s first film changed the way most of us looked at food and our eating habits, and the second film attempts to build on that, attempting to pull the curtain on the modern food system and reinforcing the deep-rooted complexities and challenges facing the future of food.

    food, inc.
    Courtesy: Magnolia Pictures

    Uncovering the root of the issues

    Food, Inc. 2 sees the return of figures like journalists Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food, Cooked) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), who essentially serve as the protagonists guiding the viewer through the film. Pollan (correctly) notes that the first film created a food movement, but adds: “We thought we could change the food system one bite at a time, but as important as that is, it’s not enough – there’s more that we have to do.”

    The film takes you to different parts of the US to spotlight various issues in the food system. In Thimble Islands, Connecticut, a former fisherman talks about how they’re “too good at what we did” – likening it to industrial pig farming out in the ocean – and tells us he’s moved to the much more planet-friendly kelp farming. In Immokalee, Florida, immigrant farm workers are lied to by recruiters, explaining how they’re treated like disposal despite their essential work in feeding the country.

    In Winnebago County, Iowa, commodity crops like corn and soy have taken over the variety previously grown because of government subsidies – intensive farming here has destroyed half of the topsoil. Smallholder dairy farmers in Columbia County, Wisconsin (which has lost half of its dairy farms since 2007), are lamenting the low prices they’re paid for the milk, with corporate control making many family farms give up.

    food inc documentary
    Courtesy: Magnolia Pictures

    In Kansas City, a Taco Bell employee illustrates how low wages make it near-impossible to survive, as the cost of living goes up. “How can I feed all these people, but my son’s stomach is growling?” she says in one of the documentary’s standout segments, which ends with the realisation that taxpayers are supporting these food giants, but the companies aren’t backing their workers. The average employee at Yum! Brands – the restaurant empire that owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC – is $13,082 per year. The CEO earns $13,259 per hour.

    Another damning scene is set in Waterloo, Iowa, where workers at a Tyson Foods meatpacking plant contracted Covid-19, which infamously had refused to close its factories during lockdown. The film suggests that 1,300 out of 2,500 workers tested positive, and the number of deaths increased exponentially in the community. This was inevitable, considering that at the time, there was no policy for contact tracing or no mandatory use of masks – workers were allegedly throwing up on the floor and simply going back to work.

    The perils of monopolies and dealing with UPFs

    Food, Inc. 2 addresses the dangers of monopolies and importance of antitrust policies, noting how the poorest farmers in the US are responsible for the healthiest food we can eat, but that the market share for National Beef, JBS, Cargill and Tyson has gone up from 25% to a mind-bending 85%. It cites the example of AT&T’s breakup in the 1980s, which made long-distance calls cheaper and opened the gates for the internet economy.

    “Breaking up economies is directly linked to creating innovation,” says Schlosser. A prime example of the drawbacks of a monopolistic market is Abbott Nutrition, which owns 80% of the baby formula market alongside Meat Johnson Nutrition. But when there were safety issues with its products, Abbott recalled its formula and shut its largest plant, sparking an infant formula shortage.

    However, if prices are low, it doesn’t matter how much control one company has over a market – this becomes a matter of government policy. And the film deals with plenty of that too, bringing in political figures like Cory Booker and Jon Tester. Booker is filmed speaking to farmers about the “savagely broken” food system, showcasing his efforts around health and nutrition policies.

    cory booker
    Courtesy: Magnolia Pictures

    “I don’t want the government to be telling someone what to eat, but I sure as heck don’t want my tax dollars subsiding the things that are making people sick, and now we have to pay for the healthcare costs of the chronic disease that we’re feeling with our food system,” he says.

    Speaking of health, Food, Inc. 2 interviews Carlos Monteiro, the Brazilian researcher behind the Nova classification of food processing. He highlights how despite the high prevalence of obesity in Brazil, purchases of salt, cooking oil and table sugar were down. But the population was replacing whole foods like rice and beans with soft drinks, sausages and snacks – all UPFs.

    The film looks at a study linking UPFs to around 500 more calories than minimally processed foods. It further addresses portion sizes, a major driver of food waste and ill health, with nutritionist Marion Nestle noting how fast-food chains proliferated and made portions bigger. “If you’re presented with a very large amount of food, all of the research shows that you’re gonna eat more from that portion than you would if you were given a small portion,” she says. “It’s very hard to resist a good environment that is just yelling at us all the time: ‘Eat more, eat more, eat more.’”

    But while Food, Inc. 2 argues that UPFs cause people to overeat, it never really explains why that’s the case. And that’s a theme running throughout the film, just as there appears to be a big revelation or statement incoming, it deflects onto another topic.

    A game-changing study ignored by PepsiCo

    Perhaps the most striking part of Kenner and Robledo’s film concerns a study by Yale professor Dana Small, who was conducting research into the brain and metabolic responses to sugars and calories. PepsiCo was interested in the research and commissioned her to find ways to drop the sugar content in beverages without any compromise in taste and satisfaction.

    Contrary to Small’s expectations, she found that drinks have the most satisfactory consumer response when calories and sweetness levels are matched. It had potentially huge implications for beverage giants, with a reduction in sugar possible without affecting the customer. However, PepsiCo pulled the funding after hearing the results – the problem, it seems, was that it believed the research.

    This echoed a larger point Pollan was making: “The reason you process food is not that there’s anything wrong with it in its natural state, it’s that you make a lot more money.”

    The documentary spends a few minutes on soil health, regenerative agriculture and organic farming too. Tester, a senator and third-generation farmer from Montana, explains how snow has destroyed harvests in the state, and he has since moved to organic farming. He believes corporate America is killing rural America and destroying family farms – and that might be part of his motivation to ban cultivated meat in school meals.

    food inc
    Courtesy: Magnolia Pictures

    This is the same man who called cultivated meat “a fake substitute that’s grown in a lab” and wants schools to “serve real meat from our ranchers”. “Montana ranchers grow the best meat in the world, that’s a fact – and our students ought to be getting the best in their school breakfasts and lunches every day,” he notes.

    The focus on smallholder farming is, of course, vital, but it also reflects one of the film’s flaws. We hear from cattle ranchers who accuse Big Food of stealing their profits, but they’re standing in a barn where cows are held in confined spaces. Pollan believes there’s a place for sustainably farmed animals, though the documentary never illustrates how. It’s also a more complex argument: while there are things the livestock sector can do to reduce its climate footprint, none have been proven on a scale large enough to meet our climate goals.

    Not a great look for cultivated meat

    Food, Inc. 2 also spends very little time on one of the most glaring solutions. Even the UN has endorsed the potential of alternative proteins like plant-based foods and cultivated meat for a brighter planetary future and better human health, but Pollan questions the health credentials of vegan products because many of them are UPFs, perpetuating a common misconception about the NOVA classification.

    He visits the facilities of Upside Foods, one of only two companies to be cleared to sell cultivated meat in the US, tasting its chicken and noting that it fooled him. But he shifted that rhetoric by explaining the meat came not from the bioreactors viewers are shown, but a different, much smaller-scale machine. It punctuated the tech’s scalability and cost issues – Upside Foods founder and CEO Uma Valeti predicts that these novel proteins would need about five to 10 years to reach price parity with conventional meat.

    It’s not a good look for the cultivated meat industry, with the twist about the chicken not coming from the bioreactors almost painted as a lie. It compounds the optics issue for cultivated meat, which is already battling political challenges and bans from US states and EU nations.

    michael pollan
    Courtesy: Magnolia Pictures

    The documentary also spotlights Impossible Foods, where founder Pat Brown shows Pollan around its plant-based meat facility. There’s an awkward scene when they discuss where methylcellulose is sourced from, again touching upon the UPF aspect of meat analogues. But Brown outlines why such technologies are important in a world that eats too much meat: “You’re not going to solve the problem by trying to persuade people to change their diets – that’s never worked. You just have to realise that people are not going to stop wanting meat, we’re just making it the wrong way.”

    Food, Inc. 2 ends with multiple calls to action, asking the powerholders to pay and protect our workers better, subsidise healthy foods and sustainable farms instead of UPFs, abolish factory farms, and end cruelty to animals and the planet. “Monopoly power is a threat to our freedom,” it concludes.

    All these themes are crucial, but packing them in such a short amount of time makes the documentary disjointed – as a viewer, it can be hard to keep up and you might end up feeling overwhelmed, not empowered. But really, if you’re part of the food industry, or even if you’re just in the loop of things, Food, Inc. 2 isn’t telling you much you didn’t know. For the uninitiated, though, it can be an eye-opener – much like its predecessor.

    The post Food, Inc. 2 Sheds Light on Big Food, UPFs, Modern Slavery & Cultivated Meat – But Lacks Focus appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Future Food Quick Bites: Vegan Shawarmas, Pamela Anderson & Jobs for Cats

    pamela anderson cookbook
    5 Mins Read

    In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Pamela Anderson’s new vegan cookbook, OMNI’s call for cat taste-testers for cultivated meat, and a new dining club.

    New products and launches

    UK plant-based meat brand THIS has launched a vegan chicken shawarma SKU made from soy and fava beans. Currently available at Asda, it will retail at £3.30 for a 170g pack, and will appear on Waitrose and Co-op shelves next month.

    this shawarma
    Courtesy: THIS

    Flora is introducing its previously foodservice-only Plant Cream to supermarket aisles in the UK, with the double cream available at Asda (and soon at Waitrose), and the single cream on the horizon too.

    There’s a new alt-milk on the market, with Plantstrong Foods entering the category with clean-label versions of almond, oat, oat-almond, and oat-walnut. They are available exclusively at over 500 Whole Foods stores in the US, and will soon start selling on its e-commerce site.

    Israeli 3D-printed meat producer Steakholder Foods has debuted in the US market with its ready-to-mix SHFish and SHMeat dried extracts for plant-based analogues.

    Also in the US, vegan seafood company Impact Food‘s tuna analogue is now available at five Pokeworks locations in New York: Union Square, Grand Central, Williamsburg, Fresh Meadows and Woodbury.

    impossible hot dog
    Courtesy: Peter McGuinness/LinkedIn

    Over in Chicago, Impossible Foods has brought its burgers and new hot dogs to baseball stadiums across the country, ahead of the latter’s supermarket launch.

    Allergen-free vegan cheese brand Pleese Foods, meanwhile, has partnered with foodservice distributor Performance Food Group, meaning its pizza cheese is now available to buyers nationally.

    In Asia, beanless coffee startup Prefer is ramping up its presence in Singapore and diversifying its portfolio with a line of black cold brew concentrates (caffeinated and decaf), soon to make their way into cocktail bars in the city-state.

    Also in Singapore, Sichuan eatery Chengdu Bowl has added two vegan dishes – sour and spicy soup and mapo tofu – using Finnish food tech startup Solar Foods‘ Solein air protein, which are available for the next three months.

    Nestlé has expanded its Harvest Gourmet product range in Malaysia with Puff Pastries in creamy curry, Koran gochujang and Oriental BBQ flavours.

    abillion vegan dining club
    Courtesy: abillion

    And review platform abillion has unveiled the Vegan Dining Club, which spotlights 500 restaurants “committed to having great vegan options on their menus”. They will receive premium placements across all of abillion’s assets, keyword priorities, and more footfall.

    Finance and company updates

    At Upside Foods, chief scientific officer Kevin Kayser has stepped down to launch a consulting group, leaving a vacancy at executive level for one of the world’s leading cultivated meat companies.

    Likewise, Triton Algae Innovations co-founder and R&D head Miller Tran is leaving the San Diego-based algae protein company.

    Another move comes at Meati, where co-founder Justin Whiteley is stepping aside from his role as CSO to become a technical advisor to the CEO.

    UK colour development platform Sparx has raised $3.2M to speed up the commercialisation of its plant-based pigments, which are made from cellulose that can be extracted from waste streams.

    Berlin-based Torg has closed an oversubscribed €2.7M seed round to further develop its AI-led platform for foodservice and private-label buyers to find suppliers and source products more efficiently.

    Dutch startup Time-Travelling Milkman has secured €850,000 in funding to expand the production and market entry of its sunflower seed fat called Oleocream, which is designed to replace palm and coconut oil in plant-based dairy applications.

    future food quick bites
    Courtesy: Sunlit Foods

    South Korea’s Innohas has opened its second plant-based ingredient facility in Jecheon. Describes as the “world’s largest” exclusively plant-based factory, it will produce Korean foods like bibimbap, japchae and bulgogi for its Sunlit Foods brand.

    In San Francisco, ingredients giant Givaudan, equipment manufacturer Bühler, and food innovation platform MISTA have opened an extrusion hub for snacks, cereals and plant-based meat at the MISTA Innovation Center.

    Dutch plant-based dairy brand Willicroft has released the results of its independent life-cycle assessment, which revealed that its products generate up to 25 times lower emissions than their animal-derived counterparts.

    Policy and pop culture

    The West Hollywood City Council has voted in favour of vice mayor Chelsea Byers’ proposal to make vegan and vegetarian options the default at catering events like special meetings, luncheons and recreational activities, while meat options will be available upon request.

    American model and actress Pamela Anderson is releasing a vegan cookbook titled I Love You: Recipes from the Heart, which will come out on October 15 and features over 80 recipes.

    German alternative seafood producer Koralo made it to mainstream television in South Korea, with TVN Korea running a segment about its microalgae- and mycelium-based New F!sh filet.

    Another vegan brand represented on TV was UK frozen pizza startup One Planet Pizza, whose co-founder, Joe Hill, appeared on The Apprentice as one of the judges for a vegan-cheese-themed episode.

    omni cat food
    Courtesy: Omni

    Finally, alternative pet food producer OMNI, which will soon launch the UK’s first cultivated meat product alongside Meatly, is offering cat owners £60,000 in annualised salary to have their felines taste its Chicken Revolution product and monitor their experience and any changes in physical conditions.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Vegan Shawarmas, Pamela Anderson & Jobs for Cats appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Exclusive: Australia’s Harvest B Unveils Blended Meat Range Ahead of US Expansion & Series A

    harvest b blended meat
    8 Mins Read

    Australian alternative protein startup Harvest B is entering the blended meat space with 50/50 slow-cooked beef and lamb SKUs, as it prepares for a US expansion and Series A funding round.

    Known for its range of plant proteins, boosters and meal solutions, Harvest B has launched a new line of Complementary Proteins that blend animal proteins with plant-based ingredients.

    The slow-cooked beef and lamb mark the New South Wales-based company’s first foray into blended meat, and comes after closing its latest seed funding round, which takes total investment in the company to $4.7M. The diced meat products are geared towards the foodservice industry, and bring several environmental, health and cost advantages over conventional meat, while retaining its flavour and texture.

    “As we began supplying our products to customers, we realised many were blending our high-performing proteins with animal proteins purely for cost savings,” Harvest B CEO Kristi Riordan, who co-founded the company with COO Alfred Lo in 2020, tells Green Queen.

    “Meanwhile, we learned that another group of customers had been trying to scale plant proteins for sustainability, but were facing consumer acceptability challenges,” she adds. “Unlike the customers led by cost, this cohort was motivated by emission reductions and found that blended solutions offered greater consumer acceptance, while also delivering cost savings and nutritional benefits.”

    Cheaper, better for you and less polluting

    blended meat
    Courtesy: Harvest B

    Blended meat is a nascent market, but is gradually gaining steam. Riordan explains that while plant proteins have been “used for decades” in meat products to reduce costs – McNuggets being a prime example – the current first-generation blended meat products rely on binders or casings in the finished product.

    Harvest B’s innovation represents the next generation, with a patent-pending tech that combines different plant protein structures in a unique way to enable the creation of whole pieces like diced beef or lamb with an enhanced texture, and without additional ingredients or processing. “Our red meat products are an effective mimic for the structure of slow-cooked beef, lamb or other animal proteins,” says Daniel Mullette, the company’s R&D director.

    “This technology underpins Harvest B’s ability to combine whole pieces of raw beef, or lamb, with plant proteins. Furthermore, through the slow cooking process the consistency and texture of the plant proteins complement the animal proteins so well that they are indistinguishable in many dishes,” he adds.

    The slow-cooked meats have a 50/50 ration of beef or lamb with a soy and wheat protein blend, and nothing else, which increases their versatility in foodservice applications. The products absorb what’s called the purge, or the high-protein that’s left behind in meat packaging or the pan. This means less waste, less packaging, and lower transportation costs.

    Compared to their conventional counterparts, Harvest B’s blended meats deliver 30% more yield for the same cost, with half the cholesterol, 45% less saturated fat, and 30% less packaging needed. The inclusion of plant proteins also means they have fibre, while retaining the iron and vitamin B12 content. In terms of the climate, the products reduce emissions from animal-derived meats by 46%. And they boast 23-24g of protein per 100g.

    Overcoming blended meat’s acceptance challenges

    hybrid meat
    Courtesy: Harvest B

    The blended meat category can tend to be a very tricky space. Retailers like Aldi and meat giants such as Tyson Foods have previously brought blends to the market, but they were discontinued quickly after failing to capture consumers’ grocery carts.

    Some have blamed Tyson’s marketing for its blended meat debacle. Andrew Arentowicz, founder and CEO of US-based 50/50 Foods, told Green Queen last year: “Tyson’s Raised & Rooted blended burger said they were ‘beef and pea protein isolate’ burgers. Who wants to eat – let alone buy – pea protein isolate?”

    Mullette echoes this sentiment: “All food products need to deliver a strong value proposition with marketing that authentically connects that to the consumer.” While taste is “always table stakes with food”, there needs to be more that the consumer cares about and sets the product apart. and it’s not sustainability – which blended meat producers have painted as their primary USP. “Truth be told, mainstream consumers don’t want to sacrifice or pay for sustainability. Many mainstream consumers don’t even want to know that there are plants in their food,” he states.

    “Meat-eaters already consume a huge amount of plant protein – most brands just don’t focus on this in their marketing,” says Mullette. Harvest B conducted a recent audit of the Australian market, finding that the actual animal meat content in bestselling retail products “would surprise many consumers”. Chicken tenders, for example, comprise just 38-52% meat, beef burgers 67-85%, meatballs 70-84%; and sausage rolls a meagre 18-25%.

    “Harvest B believes that achieving taste, in a familiar format, at a more affordable price with better nutritionals gives a compelling reason to buy. Meanwhile, a more sustainable protein is simply the benefit,” he says. “By working with a wide variety of market segments, we anticipate different approaches to marketing depending on the value proposition important to the brand, or venue.”

    Tyson’s blended meat failure also came on the retail shelves, which is why taking the foodservice route makes sense for Harvest B. Riordan believes this is an untapped opportunity, given institutional foodservice often has a regulated requirement for protein, cost-per-serve constraints, and a desire to reduce emissions.

    “One of Harvest B’s customers told us that we are the only supplier that can improve nutrition while also reducing costs and emissions,” reveals Riordan. “We are also excited to work closely with executive chefs to strategically build Harvest B’s protein portfolio to address the problems they face on a daily basis.”

    Its diced beef and lamb are cooked via sous vide before being frozen, and delivered to chefs who can pan-fry, oven-roast or braise the meats, and use them in dishes like curries, stir-fries, salads and soups, among others. They have a 12-month shelf life too, which will appeal to foodservice settings “where convenience and avoidance of food waste are paramount”.

    Blended meat approved by chefs and legacy protein producers

    harvest b
    Courtesy: Harvest B

    Harvest B’s blended meat products will appeal to the 19% of Australians who identify as flexitarians, according to a YouGov poll last year. A separate study additionally suggested that 32% of the country’s population reduced its meat consumption in 2023. The success of blended meat products will rely upon taste more than anything else, with 59% of meat-eaters and 42% of flexitarians calling this the most influential driver of food choices.

    To address that, the startup has developed its blended meat range in partnership with animal protein producers, which will also help bring the products to market globally. “Sensory tests were conducted with internal stakeholders at these partners to ensure we were able to achieve a profile that met the expectations of traditional animal protein consumers,” says Riordan.

    She adds that the products can be used in institutional foodservice spanning airlines, education, defence, mining, aged care, and hospital sectors: “We have conducted trials with executive chefs and nutritionists across each of these segments who are excited by the taste and texture, as much as they are by the nutritional benefits we can deliver.”

    The concept has been proven elsewhere. 50/50 Foods has landed its half-beef, half-plant Both Burger on a Disneyland menu, while Mush Foods’s 50Cut is featured in leading butchery Pat LaFrieda’s new blended burger for foodservice. And it’s not just blended meat that’s making waves, hybrid meats – which combine cultivated meat with plant-based ingredients – are also appearing on the horizon. San Francisco-based startup SciFi Foods, for instance, is aiming to receive regulatory approval for its hybrid beef burgers and enter foodservice by early 2025.

    Cultivated meat was in Australian headlines last week after Vow became just the fourth company in the world to obtain the regulatory greenlight for cultivated meat, rolling out its cultivated quail as part of a parfait in select restaurants in Singapore.

    “A complementary system works best when taste and value are beneficial to a customer and consumer – creating a driver for systemic behavioural change which, in turn, drives adoption of sustainable practice,” says Mullette. “This is the intent behind Harvest B’s Complementary Proteins; a similar approach could easily be adopted with complementary food products formed from blending plant-based and cultivated proteins.

    “If the flavour, texture and value of protein products can be advanced by blending plant-based with cultivated meats, then an advantageous driver exists for its adoption as part of a complete, nutritious global food system.”

    Harvest B plans Series A for US expansion

    harvest b complementary proteins
    Courtesy: Harvest B

    The progress made by companies like Vow and Harvest B signposts the next phase of growth for Australia’s alternative protein sector, which includes product and tech innovation as much as marketing, says Riordan.

    “The category was primarily built by idealists who raised awareness of the emissions problem in our food system. However, this also created a strong division between those who eat meat and those who do not with challenges to drive further mainstream adoption,” she explains, noting how Australia’s national science organisation CSIRO rebranded its research portfolio from ‘alt-protein’ to ‘complementary proteins last year. It was “a nod to thinking differently about the product, tech and marketing of our future protein system”.

    Harvest B has used the latest capital injection to drive its R&D roadmap further, build its pilot facility, and amp up sales and marketing. “We have received support from the Australian Federal Government via the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre to stand up our manufacturing capabilities,” says Riordan.

    The company recently launched its consumer brand, B Strong, into the North American market. The products are focused on meal prep solutions for fitness-oriented consumers, and are available on e-commerce marketplaces like Kroger, Walmart and Amazon.

    “B2B remains the immediate focus for Harvest B, particularly in the foodservice and high growth ready meal segments,” Riordan states, revealing that the company will now look to raise a Series A funding round to support its B2B expansion in the US. Slated for the upcoming financial year, the blended meat producer is targeting a sum of around $7M.

    But this period will also see substantive Australian federal funding programmes become available to local food manufacturers. Harvest B will tap into these programmes to complement its raise, meaning its Series A sum may not need to be as large.

    “We remain bullish about the opportunities the market has to offer,” says Riordan. “Classic innovation theory shows time and again that crossing the chasm from early adopters to the mainstream requires a step change. From a pragmatic view, we need more work on product-market fit and the value propositions of affordability and health – especially for market segments where high protein is required.”

    She continues: “We believe that improved sustainability will follow solving those problems. And we believe that plants can enable high quality, affordable protein for meals designed for the way people like to eat – whether vegan, vegetarian or meat eaters.”

    The post Exclusive: Australia’s Harvest B Unveils Blended Meat Range Ahead of US Expansion & Series A appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • New Zealand Plant-Based Pioneer Sunfed Meats to Shut Down After Post-Pandemic Pressures

    sunfed meats
    5 Mins Read

    One of Asia-Pacific’s foremost plant-based meat companies, New Zealand-based Sunfed Meats is shutting down after facing supply chain pressure, high costs, and a loss of faith from its investors.

    A week after it emerged that investors have slashed the company’s valuation to zero, Sunfed Meats founder Shama Sukul Lee has confirmed that the Auckland-based plant-based meat startup is closing after nearly a decade in operation.

    In a video posted on her social media channels, Lee confirmed reports that the brand’s products were no longer available in Australia after inventory ran out in January. Its remaining stock in New Zealand is set to dry up in the next two months.

    “Despite Sunfed’s self-evident competence in unique products and manufacturing and FMCG, Sunfed’s VC investor did not see value in that. And that is of course their prerogative, as they can put their money elsewhere where they can get bigger, faster, easier valuation returns,” said Lee. “It probably needs to be said that Sunfed’s VC investors chose not to clear the way for Sunfed, but instead held on to their preferential claims, which complicated new capital options for the company.”

    A plant-based meat pioneer in Asia-Pacific

    Lee founded Sunfed Meats in 2015 as one of Asia-Pacific’s first plant-based meat startups. Its first product didn’t come into the market until 2018, but the Chicken Free Chicken was instantly popular among consumers and drove the brand’s growth.

    The company’s portfolio is focused on clean labels with a base of pea protein, faba bean protein, extra virgin olive oil and yeast extract. “I was not happy with the vegan junk food options in the market and wanted to see if we could make something which would offer the good things about meat, namely nutrient density, low-carb and allergen-free,” explained Lee.

    “I was also not interested in making mince or its variants like burgers, but instead wanted to make fully formed whole pieces, and it was important to me to make these as cleanly as possible using simply heat and water,” she added. (Although the company did add a minced SKU, presumably to meet market demand.)

    Lee outlined that the company had four phases of growth to chart: R&D, market validation, productisation, and breaking even. She and her husband bootstrapped the business with NZ$112,000 and faced plenty of challenges as a young startup. “The whole thing looked doomed to fail, but we eventually had some major breakthroughs.”

    Courtesy: Sunfed Meats

    In 2016, the company received NZ$1.2M from several VCs during its market validation stage, before its chicken analogue shot the brand to success. It entered all major grocery stores in the country, and led to another $10M capital injection, $5M of which was from Australian VC firm Blackbird Ventures. The investment would allow Sunfed Meats to set up a hygienic food facility, novel manufacturing lines, and an FMCG supply chain, as well as develop and launch new products.

    Its portfolio soon expanded to Boar Free Bacon, Bull Free Beef and Fish Free Tuna, and the company’s success saw it turn over NZ$4M in revenue and enter the Australian market. But just as it was looking to move into its profitability phase, things took a turn with the pandemic.

    Post-Covid troubles had investor ‘write Sunfed off’

    Describing it as “Covid hell”, Lee explained that Sunfed Meats went into “chronic business survival mode” just to keep production going. “There was one crisis after another, with staff shortages, supply chain disruptions and skyrocketing costs.” But Sunfed Meats managed to ride the wave and keep supermarkets stocked,” she said.

    “We were pretty battered and bruised afterwards and needed a capital injection to get on top of things. Unlike other companies in this plant-based space, Sunfed did not take hundreds of millions of dollars of investment,” she noted. The last investment round was in 2018, and Lee said that the startup’s achievements since receiving “that minimal investment” have been “self-evidently remarkable”.

    “However, it also meant that we ran very lean for far too long with not much resources for growth activities, such as distribution and marketing. With Covid, new capital had become harder as markets tightened up and priorities shifted. And Sunfed’s existing VC investors were no longer interested in supporting the business.”

    She added that investors had “written Sunfed off”, explaining that a lot of venture capitalists had jumped into the “plant-based gold rush thinking they could get fast valuation returns” as is the case in the digital space, but manufacturing and FMCG have a lot more complexity and moving parts, and are hence a longer-term play.

    plant based new zealand
    Courtesy: Sunfed Meats

    Eventually, Sunfed was not able to become profitable, and Lee had to make the decision to shut down the company due to unfavourable market conditions. “It has been an edifying decade-long journey in starting, building and now closing Sunfed. I’ve been humbled by it and I’m grateful for it. Thank you for the adventure,” she said.

    It is currently unclear how many jobs are affected, but LinkedIn indicates that the company has 14 employees.

    Lee noted that it’s a “fact that the plant-based bubble burst” and the category has been “undergoing a reality check”. “Fuelled by easy VC money, the category became saturated with junk food masked as healthy, and people now see through that. This also made it more apparent just how different Sunfed is, and why customers value it,” she explained.

    The plant-based meat sector has had a tough couple of years globally, with investment and sales on the decline, and startups like New School Foods, Ordinary Seafood and Nowadays ceasing operations. Within Asia-Pacific, while Australia and New Zealand overtook Singapore as the most well-funded alternative protein region in the first half of 2023, this only totalled to $20M, an 87% decrease from the previous year.

    However, brands like Australia’s v2food are seeing revenue growth (at 6% per year), and between 2022 and 2023, the number of meat analogues in the country’s supermarkets grew by 14%. And to offer dissatisfied meat-eaters a novel take on meat, Vow is in the middle of a public consultation phase to receive regulatory approval for its cultivated quail product in Australia and New Zealand, following its greenlight in Singapore last week.

    The post New Zealand Plant-Based Pioneer Sunfed Meats to Shut Down After Post-Pandemic Pressures appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • THAIFEX-HOREC Asia 2024: Plant-Based Milk Steals the Vegan Show at Thailand Trade Fair

    thaifex horec asia
    8 Mins Read

    At the inaugural THAIFEX-HOREC Asia in Bangkok last month, representation for veganism was strong, particularly for plant-based milk, with a host of startups presenting new innovations in the space.

    March brought with it scorching heat in Bangkok. 35°C really felt like 45°C, and it was on one of those days that I made my way to the Impact Arena in the Thai capital’s Muang Thong Thani development. And boy was I thankful, for there were exhibitors with vegan-friendly slushies, iced drinks and ice creams that as much quenched your thirst as they piqued your curiosity.

    My eye was, of course, on all things plant-based. And in the giant hall, there were plenty of options that caught my eye. Not least from Thai J.Tip Food, which bedazzled me with a ham made from – wait for it – lotus root. It was unveiling its new vegan ready-meal brand Sun N Moon, which also happened to become the source of my lunch (a vegan massaman curry with quinoa).

    But really, plant-based milk was the star of the show, with several different stalls dedicated to championing dairy alternatives in new and innovative ways, including powdered forms and barista milks specifically crafted for specialty coffee.

    Oat milk powders evoke childhood nostalgia

    oat milk powder
    Courtesy: Green Queen

    Plant-based milk already exists in several forms outside the traditional liquid version, including nut milk pastes, frozen concentrates and oat milk powders. But Singapore-based Oatbedient is focusing on something completely novel: a range of malted oat milk powders that you can drink straight up, a la Ovaltine.

    Launched in 2022, Oatbedient offers four products: plain, chocolate, an oat and chia blend, and a sugar-free Lite version. All you do is add the specified amount of hot water to the mix, and voila! You’re living your childhood again.

    “We felt there was a gap in the market, because most of the oat milks are all in liquid form, so we wanted to offer another alternative to give consumers some form of convenience,” Oatbedient co-founder and senior business development manager Alex Seh told me. “Some of the consumers we met say it tastes like Horlicks. That wasn’t an intentional thing – we just wanted to find the right ingredient that’s good enough for human consumption, but can bring up the taste to an optimal level, so you can enjoy a cup of delicious oat milk.”

    Many plant-based foods can be processed, which has become a turnoff for many consumers. But while there’s definitely a health play here, taste remains king. “The product itself has no palm oil, less sugar, non-GMO, etc. But at the same time, it has to taste delicious. Because what’s the point if we give you all the health benefits, but sacrifice the taste?” he noted. After taste, he believed price is the leading consumption driver for plant-based food in Asia. Sustainability continues to be increasingly important too.

    “We have forecast the rise of waterless plant milks some time back, making products more eco-friendly, reducing packaging waste and cutting down on CO2 production and shipping emissions,” said Rachel Tan, food and drink strategist at WGSN. “Opportunities around frozen, shelf-stable and refrigerated are huge, alongside different formats including pastes and concentrates.”

    She added: “These new formats will not only appeal to climatarians who value sustainability, but also a larger cost- and convenience-conscious consumer base when you think about longer shelf-lives, portability, customisability and food waste reduction.”

    Clean-label and barista milks take the cake

    oatbedient
    Courtesy: Green Queen

    For all the talk about convenience, it wasn’t just the malted oat milk powders Oatbedient was showcasing at THAIFEX-HOREC Asia. The company has just entered the liquid space with barista and Zero oat milk varieties. “To be a full-fledged plant-based milk player, I think inevitably, you need to offer what is already out there in the market,” Seh explained.

    He alluded to how consumers want more clean-label products. “The Zero milk is the cleanest oat milk you can find on the market, because it’s just three ingredients: oats, water and Himalayan salt. That’s it,” he said. “The very positive feedback we’ve gotten is: ‘It’s amazing you guys have this alternative. I like oat milk but I don’t like the oil.’”

    “Health-minded consumers are becoming increasingly concerned with how products are made, with plant-based options particularly under scrutiny,” explained Tan. “A recent slump in the sales of plant-based products in the US was partly attributed to a desire for more ‘clean labels’. Pioneer brands are prioritising natural ingredients and scrapping alienating processing methods to increase transparency, enhance health credentials and build consumer trust.”

    milklab
    Courtesy: Green Queen

    As for barista milks, there was Australian representation in this space from the likes of Milklab and The Alternative Dairy Co. Both exclusively work on milks for coffee, with the former having just launched in Thailand. With a portfolio of oat, soy, coconut, almond and macadamia milks (alongside a UHT dairy option too), Milklab is in 29 countries, and has accounts with industry giants like Starbucks in India, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, and McDonald’s in Australia.

    A brand representative for Milklab told me that while soy milk remains the most popular alt-milk in Thailand, oat is now the leading consumption driver of plant-based dairy – playing to the country’s affinity for coffee mocktails, its stall was all about highlighting its milks in iced beverages.

    the alternative dairy co
    Courtesy: Green Queen

    The Alternative Dairy Co., meanwhile, is owned by Sanitarium, the parent company of So Good. But this is geared exclusively towards foodservice, with So Good spearheading the business’s retail market in Autralia. It makes oat, soy, coconut and almond milk – the latter is the most neutral-tasting almond milk I’ve ever tasted. A company spokesperson told me that Australia’s alt-milk culture is similar to the US’s, in that almond milk has always reigned supreme, but oat is catching up, and is the future of the sector.

    Interestingly, she added that plant-based milks now make up about a third of the market in Australia’s coffee industry, and in areas like Melbourne and Bondi Beach, they make up over half of the total. This means that in certain areas, it’s dairy that’s the alternative. How about that?

    Oat milk goes in on the granular

    plant based milk asia
    Courtesy: Green Queen

    The barista milk party didn’t end there. The most intriguing player at THAIFEX-HOREC Asia was Singapore’s Noomoo, which was launched last year and is working on a full range of plant-based milks. While almond and soy are slated for the future, the current lineup – which is in over 250 cafés in Singapore and Malaysia – comprises coconut and two oat milks. You read that right.

    The coconut milk, which is combined with pea protein, is the freshest-tasting coconut milk I’ve had, and might just be one of my favourite plant-based milks overall, given it works as a standalone, in teas like hojicha and genmaicha, and in coffee too.

    As for the dual barista oat milk range, the idea is to create products that have specific functions for different kinds of coffee. The milk titled ‘Barista’ is crafted from Australian oats and high-oleic canola oil, and geared towards medium to dark roasts. “The Australia one is created for when the cups are bigger. In some countries, they like ice and a lot of milk, so it needs to be a bit lighter and goes with darker roasts, which are chocolatey and nutty. This will help to round it and balance it,” co-founder and chief action officer Nick Chan told me.

    He explained that the milk’s formulation isn’t heavy enough to mask the acidity of very light-roasted coffees: “If you’re a coffee connoisseur, you might not like or appreciate the acidity of coffee.” If you are one, though, the Artisan oat milk is for you.

    noomoo
    Courtesy: Green Queen

    Based on Mongolian oats, which he said are naturally higher in protein and enhance the frothability of the milk, this one is a bit heavier on the oats (11%, versus 10% for the Barista blend) and contains low-sodium lake salt, creating a creamy element without interfering too much with the flavour. Adding more oats to make the coffee shine more might feel counterintuitive, but it works.

    Chan explained that given its neutrality and creaminess, oat milk complements coffee better than other milks, and is fast capturing Asia’s plant-based milk market. “If you just go to oat milk for two weeks, you cannot go back to milk,” he suggested.

    “This trend towards barista milk is in line with the rise of fourth-wave coffee which democratises quality, encompasses sustainability and bottom-up creativity. Coffee consumers are becoming more sophisticated, seeking greater sensory engagement, and wanting to participate in the home café trend,” noted Tan. “This will have legs beyond food service to new RTD styles and at-home consumption. Complementary categories like dairy, nut milk, syrups and condiments can create products that elevate drinking rituals at home – including speciality barista milk.”

    Noomoo will be looking to take market share from Asia’s oat milk market leader, Oatside. Oatly, which will also release a light-roast-friendly barista milk this year, is the other major player in the region. Noomoo is already in over 250 cafes in Singapore and Malaysia. Now, it’s launching in Thailand, and aims to target Indonesia and South Korea next. “At the moment, I’m trying to get professional endorsements for the products, which is why I’m working with baristas,” he said.

    As a former barista, I can safely say the endorsement would be universal.

    The post THAIFEX-HOREC Asia 2024: Plant-Based Milk Steals the Vegan Show at Thailand Trade Fair appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Liberation Labs Raises Further $12.5M to Support Construction of Precision Fermentation Facility

    liberation labs
    5 Mins Read

    US biotech manufacturing firm Liberation Labs has secured $12.5M in funding to support the ongoing construction of its large-scale production facility in Indiana, ahead of its Series A round.

    Liberation Labs’ latest capital injection of $12.5M will advance the building of its manufacturing plant in Richmond, Indiana, which is intended to serve an increasing demand for proteins made via precision fermentation.

    Food tech VC firm Agronomics – which now holds a 37.5% stake in the company – invested $10M in this round, with additional funding from existing investor Siddhi Capital. It brings the total equity-linked financing in Liberation Labs to $33.5M, and the company additionally has non-dilutive funding commitments totalling $55M – this includes $30M in equipment financing and a $25M USDA-backed loan.

    The investment will convert on the same terms as Liberation Labs’ upcoming Series A round, which is expected to raise a minimum of $37.5M and support the continued constriction of its Indiana plant.

    “The new funding from Agronomics and Siddhi Capital comes as we continue to make significant progress in building out our operations team and advancing facility construction – including the installation of key equipment like fermenters and spray dryers,” said Liberation Labs co-founder and CEO Mark Warner. “Each day, we’re closer to our goal of unlocking the potential of domestic manufacturing of novel proteins for both food and industrial use.”

    liberation labs facility
    Courtesy: Liberation Labs

    Liberation Labs aims to open facility in early 2025

    Founded in 2022, Liberation Labs aims to commercialise precision-fermented ingredients via a global network of purpose-built manufacturing facilities to produce bio-based products at scale, with a fit-for-purpose design that can enable cost-effective solutions.

    Its factory in Richmond, which is expected to cost around $115M, will be capable of producing between 600 to 1,200 tonnes of protein annually, and bring in $40M in yearly revenue. It will have downstream processing capabilities and support a variety of clients, from well-funded precision fermentation startups to established ingredient and CPG companies.

    If things go well, the company will also look to build another factory five times greater in size, with the potential to generate around $160M in annual revenue (this will be financed via more traditional project financing). “Long term, we’re looking at six geographies worldwide,” Warner told AFN last year. “In each one, we expect to build initially a 600,000-litre launch facility, and ultimately a four-million-litre commercial facility.”

    The company is hoping to address the precision fermentation industry’s capacity bottleneck through the design, build and operation of its purpose-built biomanufacturing platform, Bio3. The Indiana facility is about halfway through its construction and – provided that Liberation Labs secures the targeted Series A funds – is expected to be operational by Q1 2025.

    It chose Richmond as a location due to several key factors, including access to sugar inputs, utility rates, cost and availability of labour, the regulatory environment, and the availability of government incentives. “This type of company and industry is a perfect fit for the Hoosier state given Indiana’s strong agriculture and manufacturing sectors,” Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb has previously said. “We love to see innovative new technologies creating quality jobs and career pathways for both today’s and tomorrow’s workforce.”

    Speaking about the latest investment, Agronomics executive chairman Jim Mellom said: “Liberation Labs continues to deliver on the project milestones of its launch facility in Indiana. We have huge confidence in the team’s ability to execute and believe that Liberation Labs will become the first company in Agronomics’ portfolio to be cash-generative.”

    precision fermentation facility
    Courtesy: Liberation Labs

    A big year for precision fermentation

    Liberation Labs’ raise comes at a time when precision fermentation is progressing rapidly in the US and internationally, whether it’s product launches, investment rounds or regulatory breakthroughs.

    The eventual mainstreaming of this sector was signposted by releases by two of the world’s biggest food companies. Unilever partnered with California’s Perfect Day to use the latter’s precision-fermented whey protein as the base for a new lactose-free chocolate ice cream by Breyers, while Nestlé unveiled an animal-free Better Whey protein powder under its Orgain brand just weeks earlier.

    Meanwhile, San Francisco’s New Culture became the first company to obtain self-affirmed GRAS status for animal-free casein in March, just as Dutch startup Vivici earned this certification for its whey protein a month earlier. In January, Israel’s Imagindairy received a ‘no further questions’ letter from the FDA for its precision-fermented whey. Californian startup Oobli has also received the FDA letter for its Oubli Sweet Protein.

    There has been a spate of funding announcements in the sector too. Just last week, Finnish precision fermentation egg producer Onego Bio closed a $40M Series A round and announced it expects to achieve self-affirmed GRAS status in the US soon. Perfect Day itself closed a $90M Series A funding round in January, while casein producer Standing Ovation (France) secured €3M and precision fermentation biomanufacturer Cauldron Ferm (Australia) brought in $6M.

    Meanwhile, the state of Illinois has committed $600M to its biomanufacturing hub (which focuses on precision fermentation), and in May, the EU will open applications for investments totalling €50M in precision fermentation and algae-based food startups as part of its Horizon Europe scheme.

    Plus, Imagindairy unveiled an industrial-scale facility with a 10,000-litre fermentation capacity, Daisy Lab ramped up production for its beta-lactoglobulin whey powder and diversified into lactoferrin protein, Melt&Marble successfully scaled up its yeast-derived fats ahead of a market launch next year, Yali Bio created what it claimed was the world’s first yeast-derived breast milk fat from precision fermentation, and Bond Pet Foods reached a scaling milestone alongside Hill’s Pet Nutrition to develop pet food products.

    Clearly, a lot is happening in the precision fermentation sector – and it’s why trade bodies have come together to set a refined definition that provides clarity and distinction from other novel food technologies. Liberation Labs’s funding is the latest in a long list of developments, and one would expect them to continue as the year progresses.

    The post Liberation Labs Raises Further $12.5M to Support Construction of Precision Fermentation Facility appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Vow CEO George Peppou on Cultivated Quail Launch: ‘We Need to Change the Food, Not the Production Process’

    george peppou
    8 Mins Read

    As it rolls out its first cultivated meat product following regulatory approval in Singapore, Vow CEO George Peppou speaks to Green Queen about the Forged quail parfait, the need to do things differently, and consumers’ approach to novel food tech.

    As the first Australian cultivated meat brand to earn regulatory clearance anywhere in the world, Vow’s momentous achievement has raised plenty of intrigue – and questions.

    In case you missed it, the Syndey-based startup is today launching its cultivated Japanese quail in Singapore’s Mandala Club, after the country’s regulator gave it the go-ahead to sell the product. But unlike other rollouts of cultivated meat, where chefs are supplied with the meat itself (which they then incorporate into dishes), Vow is taking a novel approach. What restaurant kitchens get is a parfait containing its cultivated quail.

    The product coincides with the unveiling of its premium consumer brand, Forged, and a new metaphorical bird called Quailia, which is supposed to represent an animal that only exists to be eaten, unlike its real-world counterpart. “Quailia is a metaphor for what we are doing: creating new experiences rather than replicating food animals make,” Vow co-founder and CEO George Peppou tells Green Queen.

    It all feels a little different with this latest cultivated meat launch – and that’s because it’s meant to be. “We believe in creating entirely new food experiences,” says Peppou. “Quail is a great way to introduce consumers to this. It’s familiar enough to be interesting, but not something eaten regularly enough for consumers to have a strong view of what it is and isn’t.”

    What’s in the Forged Parfait?

    vow food
    Courtesy: Vow

    Peppou reveals that the parfait is the first of several products Vow is launching the Forged brand this year. But why start with this? “Parfait was the most gentle introduction to our deliberately different products,” he notes. “Parfait is similar to a very light pâté. Forged Parfait combines a flavour and texture combination you can’t find anywhere else. The result is a delightful contradiction: rich yet delicate with a unique weightless, melt-in-your-mouth quality.”

    Companies like Eat Just, Aleph Farms (both of whom are cleared to sell their products) and Meatable are all using a hybrid approach in their initial products, but Vow’s quail itself comprises 100% quail cells. “We don’t hybridise with any other inputs,” confirms Peppou.

    So what goes in the parfait? “Cultured Japanese quail, a bit of garlic, onion, brandy and butter – exactly what you’d find in a pâté, just much lighter and creamier.” The Quailia makes up 60% of the product, which additionally contains butter and port wine that’s clarified with egg whites and milk. Being a meat product grown from real animal cells, this was never going to be vegan, but the company is doubling down on its for-meat-lovers rhetoric.

    “We are exclusively focused on making foods for meat-eaters, which is why featuring butter on the ingredient list is not an issue,” says Peppou. “Vegans and vegetarians eating the food we produce doesn’t have an impact.”

    This chimes with what the Vow CEO – a meat-eater – told Green Queen founding editor Sonalie Figueiras on the Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers in October. “When I think about how can I change the behaviour of people like me, like my family, it’s not going to be by making something which approximates the meat we eat today – that’s a very hard sell for people that already have integrated meat into their diets and have no intention of changing that.”

    He added: “We have to make foods that are better than the meat that we can get today: tastier, more nutritious, offering functionality that animals can’t.”

    To elevate and showcase the potential of such products, cultivated meat companies rely on world-class chefs to incorporate their innovations into dishes. Vow’s debut will come courtesy of a seven-course omakase menu at Mandala Club’s Japanese restaurant Mori, with a series of exclusive dinners running until the end of the month.

    “The product delivered to chefs is a packaged finished parfait,” Peppou says. “The use cases are limited only by the creativity of the chefs, as diners will see at Mandala, and at other venues in the future.” (Vow has a host of other restaurant collaborations lined up for the next two months, but it remains tight-lipped when pressed for further details.)

    APAC ‘more open-minded’ to novel foods

    cultured quail
    Courtesy: Vow

    The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) was the first regulator to approve the sale of cultivated meat, granting that honour to Eat Just back in 2020. Since then, Eat Just and fellow Californian startup Upside Foods have obtained approval in the US, and Aleph Farms in its home country of Israel.

    It cements Singapore’s status as a hotbed for food tech and regulatory progress, despite having one of the most stringent processes globally. Dutch cultivated pork producer Meatable and French cell-cultured chicken startup Vital Meat have also filed for clearance in the island nation, with the former expecting to go to market in mid-2024.

    “It was a very thorough assessment, which was very important to us so that consumers know our products are safe beyond doubt,” says Peppou. “The team at SFA were rigorous across all parts of the application, paying special attention to media components and ensuring our risk assessment around residues was to the highest standards.”

    Europe is still lagging behind when it comes to cultivated meat regulation, given it has the strictest novel foods standards in the world. Up until recently, the UK followed pre-Brexit EU rules too, but now, a shake-up is on the horizon. In the US, while several companies are awaiting FDA and USDA approval, there’s the more immediate issue of dealing with incoming political bans on cultivated meat.

    Consumer surveys show mixed results about the acceptance of these proteins. In the US, one poll suggested that 45% are open to trying these foods. This drops to just over a third (34%) in the UK. Another survey shows 47% of Germans and 42% of Austrians are willing to eat them at least once.

    In India, meanwhile, a 2019 study showed that 56% of citizens are “very or extremely likely” to buy cultivated meat regularly. And recent research polling Singaporean diners who had tried Eat Just’s cultivated chicken found that on a scale of 1 to 5, the acceptance of cultivated meat was high (4.19). In fact, buying and eating these products “significantly boosted” people’s acceptance, with diners expressing a strong willingness to try them again (a score of 4.41/5) and recommending them to loved ones (4.45/5).

    “Asia-Pacific, in general, is much more open-minded to novel food from a consumer standpoint,” says Peppou. “At a regulatory level, it’s much less politicised than in the EU and US,” he adds. Vow is currently in the middle of a public consultation process for its application to the bilateral Food Standards Australia and New Zealand, with the next round due to open in the middle of the year. “We are working with several regulators across four continents in different stages of engagement all the way through to filing,” he says. This includes the US too.

    Tackling bans and backlash

    cultivated meat regulatory approval
    Courtesy: Vow

    Lately, there has been increased attention on what is termed ‘food tech neophobia’. “Often, what we’ve got is a phobia of new stuff, a sort of almost a sort of comfort reaction of regard to cling to the old stuff,” environmental journalist George Monbiot said in an interview with Figueiras last year.

    This fear has been exacerbated by the attack on cultivated meat in the US. The states of Alabama, Arizona, Wisconsin, Texas, Nebraska, Tennessee and Florida have all taken aim at the industry by proposing a series of bans – whether that’s to do with labelling or even production and sale – with the latter on the brink of passing a bill to effectively criminalise cultivated meat.

    Meanwhile, a host of negative media coverage – from Bloomberg to the New York Times – hasn’t helped things. “It’s an inevitable backlash by the media to overly optimistic timelines by companies and failed promises, and by farmers to a movement that calls for an end to their livelihoods,” suggests Peppou. “Naturally, farmers are upset by founders and companies that make them out to be a problem to be solved, and politicians are capitalising on that anger, while the companies have failed to convince consumers to replace a tried and tested product with an expensive, lesser replica.”

    He adds: “We have been very clear from the beginning: we think sustainable, open-range farming – the kind practised here in Australia – is a critical part of the future of our food systems, and that cultured meat only makes sense as a way to create new, delicious foods, not imitate the food we already know and love. We are proud to create an entirely new category of food designed specifically for meat-eaters to enjoy.”

    Peppou disagrees with the notion that novel tech has put many people off. “When Impossible [Foods] launched in Australia, there was zero controversy and now it’s on our shelves.” The Californian plant-based meat giant was something he also mentioned in Green Queen’s podcast last year. He praised Impossible Foods’ marketing and messaging, but said he would do things differently around the consumer angle: “There’s not really any selfish driver to purchase Impossible.”

    Expanding on this, he stated: “It’s a direct, drop-in replacement for beef mince. It’s so meaty that it sort of has been seen by meat eaters, and it’s like: ‘What is any individual meathead getting out of incorporating impossible into their diet?’” He continued: “There’s not really anything in it for me to make my lasagna out of Impossible. In fact, there are reasons not to: it’s more expensive and it’s a bit of a hard choice because I have had to make a conscious decision to do something differently than I would otherwise want to.”

    Peppou echoes this thinking when asked about the challenges – whether they’re political, optics, financial or production-related – facing cultivated meat in what is going to be a very important year for the industry. “By changing the process of production, rather than the food itself, you are asking consumers to change their behaviour for the benefit of the planet alone. Despite what we’d like to believe, those externalities don’t matter as much as we think to a vast majority of consumers when it comes to purchasing,” he says.

    “The only way for us to change our behaviour is to offer new foods that consumers choose selfishly. That’s why Vow is different, because we innovate instead of imitating, and therefore offer something that consumers will selfishly choose, because it is deliberately different.”

    The proof, of course, will be in the pudd– sorry, parfait.

    The post Vow CEO George Peppou on Cultivated Quail Launch: ‘We Need to Change the Food, Not the Production Process’ appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Vow Food Earns Singapore Regulatory Approval for Cultivated Quail, Debuts Parfait at Mandala Club

    vow food
    8 Mins Read

    Australia’s Vow Food has received regulatory approval for its cultivated quail in Singapore, becoming the fourth company to do so globally. It will unveil the product as part of a parfait under its Forged brand at the Mandala Club, followed by other restaurants in the city-state.

    A regulatory greenlight, a restaurant debut, a consumer brand launch, and an entirely new concept animal – it’s a big day for Vow Food.

    The Sydney-based startup is just the second company to be approved to sell cultivated meat in Singapore, which will allow it to launch its cell-cultured Japanese quail product – called Forged Parfait – onto diners’ plates, starting today at the Mandala Club, which will host a series of exclusive dinners using the parfait at its Japanese eatery Mori.

    As part of Forged, its new premium consumer brand, Vow Food also invented Quailia, a new concept animal inspired by quail that serves the sole purpose of being “utterly delicious”. The idea is to present consumers with something they’ve never tasted before. “Quailia is a metaphor for what we are doing: creating new experiences rather than replicating food animals make,” co-founder and CEO George Peppou tells Green Queen.

    “We believe that the future of cultured meat is not in replicating what already exists, but in creating deliberately different foods designed for meat-eaters,” he says. “This is the first product of its kind to be approved anywhere in the world: not an imitation of chicken or beef, but a truly unique cultured meat designed to elevate our experience of food.”

    The Singapore Food Agency (SFA), which assessed Vow Food’s application for over a year, was famously the first regulator ever to approve cultivated meat when it gave the go-ahead to Eat Just’s chicken in 2020. Since then, Eat Just and fellow Californian startup Upside Foods (also making chicken) have received the greenlight in the US, and Aleph Farms has done so in its home country of Israel for cultivated beef.

    Only Eat Just (under its Good Meat brand) and Upside Foods have served cultivated meat products to diners so far, making Vow Food the third to do so with its restaurant launch. Alongside the Mandala Club, the Forged Parfait will land on the menus of several other eateries in Singapore over the next two months.

    A metaphorical bird meant to be eaten

    cultured quail
    Courtesy: Vow Food

    Founded in 2019 by Peppou and chief commercial officer Tim Noakesmith, Vow Food has raised $56M over three funding rounds, including a $49.8M Series A in 2022. It made headlines – a lot of them – last year after unveiling a wooly mammoth meatball from sheep cells. It garnered everyone’s attention, with some questions raised over the intentions of the project.

    “We needed to do something so outrageous that it would break through into mainstream media,” Peppou told Green Queen in the days after the announcement. While the meatball wasn’t something Vow Food was intended for commercialisation, its cultivated quail very much is.

    The startup has always talked about its intention to “invent entirely new meats” that “meat-lovers can and would choose selfishly”, and has been known to work with zebra, alpaca, water buffalo, kangaroo and crocodile cells. The development of Quailia is an extension of this vision, with the company referring to it as a “carefully crafted subspecies of the Japanese quail”.

    It takes inspiration from the bird’s scientific name, Coturnix japonica, adopting the moniker Coturnix Fornax instead. Vow Food describes Qualia as a blend of flavours and textures that unlocks an “unparalleled gastronomic experience” and, crucially, a bird that has no heart, bread, feather or bones. “Quailia is the ultimate expression of what we do – create foods that are intentionally unlike anything we’ve had before,” says Peppou.

    The company conducted a 1,000-person survey of Singaporeans who frequent high-end restaurants, and found that more than half want to experience never-before-tasted ingredients. It’s why it decided to debut the product as part of a parfait, which is made up of 60% of its cultivated quail, butter, shallots, tapioca starch, port wine, brandy, garlic, vegetable and fruit concentrates, olive oil, salt and thyme.

    The Quailia itself, meanwhile, is 100% cultivated quail cells, eschewing the hybrid approach being adopted by the likes of Eat Just, Aleph Farms, Dutch producer Meatable, and others. “We believe in creating entirely new food experiences,” Peppou says. “Quail is a great way to introduce consumers to this. It’s familiar enough to be interesting, but not something eaten regularly enough for consumers to have a strong view of what it is and isn’t.”

    Vow Foods prides itself on speed and cost efficacy

    lab grown meat approval
    Courtesy: Vow Food

    In October 2022, Vow Food opened one of the largest cultivated meat facilities in the world. Dubbed Factory 1, it is said to be capable of producing 30 tonnes of product per year. It simultaneously announced that it had begun developing a sister site, Factory 2, which would have the capability of manufacturing 100 times more cultivated meat. Peppou kept his cards close to the chest about the second facility, but hinted that “it’s going very well”.

    It will help Vow Food push past a huge industry bottleneck. Scalability is one of cultivated meat’s biggest challenges, and has impeded the continued progress of such products’ market availability. “So far, the global cultured meat industry has suffered from a lack of scalability,” says Peppou, “and products that promise improved sustainability or reduced environmental impact but offer nothing new in terms of taste, texture or appeal when compared to the existing meat offerings.”

    He adds: “At Vow, we’ve cracked both those challenges by creating an irresistible product that consumers will want because it’s unlike anything else on offer, and that we are already producing at commercial scale.”

    Vow Food COO Ellen Dinsmoor confirms that at present, the company is producing over 100kg of product per month and “will continue to ramp up production as Forged launches in more venues in Singapore and more jurisdictions around the world”.

    She adds: “We’re doing it for a fraction of the capital of the largest cultured meat companies in the world.” For context, Eat Just has raised over $850M, Upside Foods has brought in $608M, and Aleph Farms $115M. The five-year-old business also notes that it has commercialised in half the time of some of these companies.

    Speaking to Green Queen founding editor Sonalie Figueiras on the Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers in October, Peppou had explained that Vow Food’s first product would be foodservice-only. “How do you make sure people’s first contacts and first experiences are as positive as possible, especially when there is a product that has some assumed knowledge around how you cook it? How do you have a great experience?” he noted, outlining his thinking.

    He now confirms these plans, saying that the company is “entirely focused on foodservice” for Forged, with “no imminent plans” for a retail launch.

    You can taste Forged Parfait as part of a seven-course meal

    forged parfait
    Courtesy: Vow Food

    “We knew we wanted to launch our products into the Singaporean market first, not only because of the globally renowned culinary scene, but also because of the clear regulatory pathways and the ease of doing business,” notes Dismoor.

    The SFA’s assessment process is described by Vow Foods’ head of regulatory affairs Andrew Janis as “amongst the most rigorous in the world”, and one that sets a “clear benchmark for other jurisdictions in Asia”. “Singapore was an obvious choice for Vow given that the SFA has significant experience assessing cultured meat and is regarded as a global leader when it comes to regulatory rigour,” he says.

    “We have been deeply impressed by the SFA’s commitment to food safety and are confident that their approval will set us up well as we look to enter additional markets,” Janis added. Speaking of which, Vow Food is currently in the middle of the public consultation stage of the regulatory process in Australia and New Zealand, with the next round due to open towards the middle of the year. The company has indicated that it is engaged in conversations with regulators on four continents.

    For the Forged Parfait, it collaborated with Ryan Clift, chef-owner of contemporary eatery Tippling Club, who has been working with the brand for two years. “I’m so blown away by the profile of this product. It’s sweet, has a beautiful, delicate flavour, and the texture is always perfect. It’s the perfect parfait.”

    The product’s Mandala Club debut will run from April 12-27, where intimate seatings of only 14 guests will experience a S$289 ($214) seven-course Omakase menu featuring the cultivated quail. Curated by Mori head chef Chun Hong La and Forged chef Adem Kurcan, the menu features savoury cannoli filled with Forged Parfait and served with Black Pearl caviar; a Hokkaido Wagyu Sando (a milk bun topped with A5 Hokkaido Wagyu and Forged Parfait), and Forged Brûlée (layered with port jelly and cognac-poached morels).

    “It’s really about finding those true fans, finding the people that are really engaged, and I’ve been on that journey with us, bringing them together, and learning as much as we possibly can about what they love about it, and how they talk about it,” Peppou said on Green Queen’s podcast last year. “The first few months for us are going to be about learning from consumers and learning from customers before we go and try to scale out to heaps of different restaurants and food service. So, there’ll be lots of small, intimate pop-ups all over the city, which will give you a chance to taste.”

    He added: “We have a chance to really shape and change our food system. We have a chance to take an experiment with meat in a way that no one else has been able to, and that’s always been the thing which excites and inspires me, and do so in a way which creates positive benefits. I think Vow will be successful, if we either directly, or through inspiring the direction of others, are able to shift at least a single-digit percentage of meat consumption away from animals to something else.”

    Vow Food may not be the only cultivated meat company to receive SFA approval this year, with Meatable and France’s Vital Meat both poised to get the greenlight soon.

    The post Vow Food Earns Singapore Regulatory Approval for Cultivated Quail, Debuts Parfait at Mandala Club appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Future Food Quick Bites: Oatly Jiggers, Flavoured Barista Milks & A Factory Farming Vote

    oatly jigger
    5 Mins Read

    In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers flavoured barista milks, Oatly’s new Jiggers, and Quorn’s summer revamp.

    New products and launches

    Florida-based Niúke Foods has rolled out an extensive range of alt-milks and vegan spreads. These include quinoa, peanut and peanut-cacao milk, and eight flavours of chickpea mayos (from beets and carrots to sriracha and merquen). They can be found on the company’s e-commerce site, and are available for foodservice too.

    niuke milk
    Courtesy: Niúke Foods

    In another US plant-based dairy launch, Muscle Milk has introduced its first line of plant protein shakes in chocolate and vanilla flavours. While it is packed with 25-30g of protein from peas and brown rice, the company says it may not be vegan as one of its flavouring agents is processed with bone char.

    Swiss retailer Coop has partnered with Austrian upcycled food producer Kern Tec to launch an apricot kernel milk, which is now available at Coop stores nationwide.

    Also in Switzerland, Oatly has partnered with national rail company SBB to launch the 20ml Jigger product it teased during its Q4 earnings call, which will be available at all onboard dining carriages for no extra charge. The product will roll out in the UK with foodservice distributors Brakes and Bidfood.

    Oatly further announced a deal with Virgin Voyages to serve its Barista Edition oat milk at the onboard Grounds Club cafés across its fleet.

    In the UK, Finnish brand Oddlygood has launched its gluten-free barista oat milks in three flavours – original, vanilla and salted caramel – alongside lemon and berry desserts. The products are available at Asda now (the original barista flavour will be rolled out in June).

    oddlygood milk
    Courtesy: Oddlygood

    South Korean vegan cheese brand Armored Fresh introduced its shredded oat milk mozzarella at the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, following its market entry in the US.

    Harvard spinoff Mooji Meats‘ plant-based ribeye steaks are being trialled at Boston restaurants, including La Voile, Prima and Veggie Galaxy, with a wider rollout expected later this year.

    UK meat-free market leader Quorn has announced a product revamp for the summer, with reformulated cocktail sausages and picnic eggs, and a revamped deli mini fillets line with two new flavours – all in refreshed packaging.

    Colarado-based vegan supplements brand Pet Releaf has unveiled a line of wellness products: a postbiotic for dogs and cats and a fish-free omega-3. They are the company’s first non-hemp supplements, and are designed to be used alongside CBD-infused products.

    Energy bar company Jambar has released a vegan Tropical Trio flavour, featuring bananas, pineapples, coconuts, gluten-free ancient grains, and walnut butter. It’s packed with 10g of protein per bar.

    And in the US, the Kraft Heinz Not Company has unveiled a squeezable bottle for its NotMayo, alongside a marketing campaign targeting mayo haters.

    Finance and company news

    Israel’s Imagindairy – which recently earned GRAS status from the FDA for its precision-fermented whey protein in the US – has partnered with US cell programming expert Ginkgo Bioworks to develop an optimum microbe for cost-effective production of non-whey dairy proteins. The collaboration is part-funded by the joint Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation.

    Swedish cultivated meat company Re:meat, meanwhile, has collaborated with solutions provider Alfa Laval to build an innovation hub for commercial-scale cultivated meat production.

    Washington-based Proxy Foods, an AI tech provider for food businesses, has raised $2.3M for its recipe formulation AI solution, which enables manufacturers to solve complex flavour and nutritional challenges through recipe optimisation and new formulations.

    Hong Kong-based cultivated seafood company Avant Meats is planning a fundraising round and a 30-fold capacity expansion after receiving positive response from consumers at a recent tasting event.

    US vegan chicken startup Daring is witnessing a change at the top, with founder Ross McKay stepping down as CEO and moving into a chairman emeritus role.

    daring chicken
    Courtesy: Daring

    In New Zealand, fellow plant-based chicken company Sunfed Meats has had its valuation slashed to zero by major investor Blackbird Ventures. Its products no longer seem to be available on Australian retail shelves, but a source confirmed to Green Queen that they’re still sold in New Zealand.

    Policy, education and awards

    In Northern California, the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters announced that a citizen-led petition to ban factory farms will now be up for vote, after volunteers submitted 37,000 signatures (about double what was needed). The vote is likely to be held in November, with potential implications for around two dozen concentrated animal feeding operations.

    Alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute Europe has collaborated with the University of Leeds on a new PhD focused on the social and ecological impacts of a large-scale transition to alternative proteins in the UK and Europe. It’s financed by the UK’s largest public funding agency, the Economic and Social Research Council.

    Fellow alt-protein advocacy group ProVeg International has launched the 2024 edition of its Kickstarting for Good incubator programme to support new organisations and impact initiatives with a focus on AI, policy change, food waste, and farming transition, among other themes.

    In response to campaigning by the Open Wing Alliance, hotel operators Hilton, Louvre Hotels Group, and Meliá Hotels International have made significant strides in their cage-free commitments, including agreeing to disclose their percentages of cage-free eggs and laying out a phaseout plan.

    London-based podcast PLANT CEO has partnered with Los Angeles-based streaming channel UnchainedTV, which will host the former’s podcast episodes in full on its website.

    chicken run 2
    Courtesy: Fry’s Family Foods/Aardman/Netflix

    Finally, UK plant-based meat brand Fry’s Family Foods‘ collaboration with animation house Aardman and Netflix to launch vegan nuggets for the Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget movie has received the Best Marketing Campaign honour at the World Food Innovation Awards.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Oatly Jiggers, Flavoured Barista Milks & A Factory Farming Vote appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Molecular Farming Startup Finally Foods Emerges From Stealth with Pre-Seed Funding to Develop Casein Proteins

    finally foods
    4 Mins Read

    Israeli startup Finally Foods has emerged from stealth with a pre-seed investment from The Kitchen FoodTech Hub to develop proteins from potatoes via molecular farming, starting with casein.

    Established by computational biology company Evogene and The Kitchen FoodTech Hub, the investment arm of food giant Strauss Group and the Israeli Innovation Authority, Finally Foods is an AI-driven company that leverages molecular farming tech to produce animal-derived proteins from plants.

    The company essentially modifies plants into bioreactors that can produce animal proteins in a sustainable and cost-effective manner, and is starting with casein, the main protein found in dairy. It’s known for its emulsifying properties, preventing water and fat from separating and lending cheese its melty and stretchy attributes.

    While the amount of capital injected was undisclosed, this marks The Kitchen’s first investment into molecular farming. “The Kitchen has been investing in FoodTech and specifically in alternative proteins since 2015. Our experience shows that when it comes to protein expression and manufacturing, one technology does not fit all,” said the hub’s chief business officer, Amir Zaidman.

    “Precision fermentation might be the right solution for some applications, biomass fermentation for others, and cell cultivation for yet another set of alternatives. We strongly believe that molecular farming has an important role to play in the mix of technologies that will enable a cleaner, more sustainable future for food production. We have been waiting for the right opportunity to invest in this space and when we met Finally, we felt this is it.”

    Producing casein micelles through potatoes

    molecular farming
    Courtesy: AI-Generated Image via Canva

    Finally Foods was co-founded by CEO Dafna Gabbay and CTO Basia J Vinocur, who was formerly the VP of R&D at Evogene. It taps into Evogene’s GeneRator AI technology to optimise its production process by enabling short R&D cycles, more efficient extractions, and accelerated go-to-market plans.

    Evogene holds around a 40% stake in the company, with the rest of the ownership divided between the co-founders and The Kitchen.

    To produce its casein, the company elected to use potatoes as the plant source. “It meets several key parameters that we identified to allow an efficient production, including high yield in the field and an effective protein extraction,” said Gabbay. “We believe a potato will serve as the optimal ‘bioreactor’ for a complex protein such as casein.”

    She added that it was The Kitchen that identified the “unmet need” for a functional animal-free casein protein. “Our goal is to express in one plant all four sub-units,” she explained. In milk, the four kinds of casein proteins fold into a spherical structure known as a micelle, where they are suspended in a highly hydrated solution and bound together with minerals like calcium.

    “But as they say, ‘perfect is the enemy of good’, so if we see down the road that a micellar protein is reached with fewer sub-units, we’ll go for it,” Gabbay said.

    Described by industry think tank the Good Food Institute as the fourth pillar of the alternative protein world, molecular farming entails modifying the cells of plants – instead of microbes or animals, as is the case in cultivated proteins or precision fermentation – to enable them to replicate animal proteins, which can be harvested from leaves or other plant tissues.

    It offers some key advantages over other forms of alternative protein, especially in terms of cost and scalability, given that it doesn’t need expensive bioreactors for larger manufacturing amounts. Since plants are the natural bioreactors here, this tech needs more fields for plant cultivation. “Molecular farming represents a catalyst towards global food security and a more sustainable future,” said Gabbay.

    AI experience and licensed tech sets Finally Foods apart

    the kitchen foodtech hub
    Courtesy: Finally Foods

    Finally Foods isn’t the only startup using potatoes to produce animal proteins – fellow Israeli player PoLoPo is doing the same for egg proteins. Many others – including Moolec, Nobell Foods, Mozza, Miruku, Tiamat Sciences, Bright Biotech and ORF Genetics – have identified molecular farming as a viable solution for producing sustainable analogues to animal products, with the market tipped to reach $3.5B by 2029.

    Finally Foods operates as a B2B supplier, identifying itself as an “ingredient company”. “Finally is a platform technology,” explained Gabbay. “We first focus on casein, [but] haemoglobin and other proteins will follow.”

    She remarked that licensing Evogene’s proprietary AI engines gives the startup a competitive advantage. “That will allow us to significantly shorten time to market, as most of the planning will be done in the lab before we get to the field,” she said. Additionally, she noted that Vinocur’s 17-year stint at Evogene is a major differentiator, “as the key to AI is not just the access to the vast data, but also the experience in what questions to ask it”.

    “Finally is one of the rare cases where we see an extremely strong founding team, in Dafna and Basia, coupled with a proven technology platform based on the leading AI engine of Evogene,” said Zaidman.

    Evogene CEO Ofer Haviv, meanwhile, is optimistic about the possibilities arising from his firm’s tech. “By harnessing the power of our GeneRator AI tech engine, molecular farming has the potential to revolutionise the food industry and promote healthier diets worldwide.”

    Asked about the company’s five-year plan, Gabbay outlined that the team has ambitious goals. “We should have at least two proteins in the market, and should be working on others as well.”

    The post Molecular Farming Startup Finally Foods Emerges From Stealth with Pre-Seed Funding to Develop Casein Proteins appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • ‘It’s Not A Joke’: Pizza Hut France Adds La Vie Plant-Based Ham on All Menu Items for the Same Price

    la vie pizza hut
    6 Mins Read

    French food tech startup La Vie has expanded its foodservice footprint via a deal with Pizza Hut France, which will see its plant-based ham be available on demand for all of the chain’s menu items for 2024.

    When Pizza Hut France tweeted on Monday that it was replacing its conventional ham with La Vie’s vegan version, it felt like another April Fool’s joke. That was the consensus on the social media platform too, until the startup responded with: “It’s not a joke.”

    It definitely ruffled some feathers, with one user finding the ‘joke’ not funny and saying they’ll boycott the brand, and another – presumably a ham lover – warning the pizza chain it has just lost a customer.

    But there was a catch: while Pizza Hut France did switch out all its animal-derived ham with the pea protein ham, it was only doing so for one day. So if you ordered a dish with ham from the restaurant chain yesterday, you ate La Vie ham.

    vegan ham
    Courtesy: La Vie/Pizza Hut

    Starting today, conventional ham is back on the menu, but La Vie’s isn’t going away anywhere, with Pizza Hut making it available as an on-demand option for all its dishes for the rest of the year. And the best part? There’s no extra cost for swapping the hams – Pizza Hut France is offering La Vie without any upcharge.

    “Pizza Hut France continues to innovate and doesn’t hesitate to break new ground,” said the company’s regional CMO, Emilie Genty. “Once again, Pizza Hut France is thinking big by collaborating with La Vie, to offer a plant-based alternative to ham on all our ranges: our Pizzas, our Melts, our Pastas, and our starters!”

    Jambon végétal on your Pizza Hut order

    La Vie says the partnership is built on shared values of conviviality, originality, and deliciousness, and is an extension of the brand’s successful foodservice partnerships. Its flagship bacon rashers and lardons have been a permanent fixture on Burger King menus since May 2022, and the ham was featured in a plant-based version of the iconic jambon beurre by vegan bakery Land&Monkeys.

    But this marks the first time La Vie has teamed up with a pizza chain, allowing customers from across the dietary spectrum – vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians and meat-eaters – to integrate a plant-based meat analogue into their pizza orders. Pizza is highly popular in France, one of the leaders in terms of per capita consumption. In fact, in 2015, it tied with the US as the largest pizza consumer in the world.

    La Vie’s products have already been available at over 4,600 retail stores and 3,000 restaurants across Europe, and its entry into Pizza Hut’s 126 stores in France continues its mission of a responsible food system transformation. It is already featured as default on menu items like Croq-Monsieur Melts and garlic breads, and pastas, as well as the Queen, Texan BBQ, Jambon Beurre (ham and cheese), and yes, even Hawaiian pizzas.

    pizza hut vegan
    Courtesy: La Vie/Pizza Hut

    Its CMO Romain Jolivet cites a 2024 YouGov survey that revealed one in five French youngsters don’t eat meat, chiefly due to ethical and environmental reasons. “Fast food, being a pillar of the dietary habits of this generation, has already started to make the shift,” he said. “The evidence is with Burger King’s veggie offer representing 20% of sales, but that’s not the case in the pizza sector.”

    He added: “That’s why we decided to accelerate the movement in our mission to convince the French to adopt a plant-based diet, while fully preserving gustatory pleasure, with our products rich in plant proteins and made in France, with Pizza Hut France taking the bet to offer all its ham pizzas with the La Vie plant-based alternative to meet this growing demand.”

    La Vie originally launched its vegan ham in September, on the back of selling 2.5 million SKUs in the previous 18 months. What stood out immediately was the ingredient list, which comprised just seven ingredients: pea protein (making up 90% of the total composition), soy protein, natural flavourings, radish juice concentrate, salt, acidity regulator (potassium acetate) and vegan lactic acid.

    Fast-growing La Vie aids Pizza Hut’s much-needed vegan expansion

    The vegan ham is a nutritional powerhouse, with one serving offering 19.5g of protein and only 0.7 grams of saturated fat – compared to 21g of protein and 1g of saturated fat for the country’s market-leading conventional ham. This will appeal to French consumers, for whom, health is the main purchasing driver for plant-based meat alternatives, according to a large pan-European survey last year, where 51% said it was key.

    But an even bigger motivation is the flavour, important to 52% of French consumers. Their concerns will be eased by the (favourable) controversy La Vie has attracted – it was the recipient of a cease-and-desist letter by the pork lobby, which accused it of unfair competition, stating that its plant-based bacon lardons were too similar to their conventional counterparts.

    The same poll also suggested that 57% of French consumers reduced their consumption of meat last year. It came against the backdrop of France’s factory farming push and anti-vegan labelling law, which has prohibited plant-based companies from using 21 words like ‘steak’ or ‘beef’, as well as 120 other terms such as ‘cooked fillet’ or ‘poultry’, on product packaging.

    However, a coalition of businesses led by vegan whole-cut chicken maker Umiami filed an urgent suspension request in late March asking for the decree to be held back, which is set to come into effect within the next few weeks if there are no responses from the government or the courts. La Vie is part of this group.

    la vie ham
    Courtesy: Pizza Hut

    The Natalie Portman-backed startup has weathered the plant-based meat storm – whether it’s sales declines, negative media coverage or a venture capital drain. It completed an oversubscribed €2M crowdfunding round last September, following a record-breaking €25M in Series A round in January 2022. And in the first half of 2023, it witnessed a staggering 379% growth compared to the same period in 2022.

    Pizza Hut, meanwhile, has expanded its growing vegan footprint internationally by incorporating La Vie’s ham into its menu. The chain uses Beyond Meat’s products and offers Violife’s vegan cheese in the UK, for example (the latter is also available in Germany), and introduced vegan wings in its Australia outposts last year.

    That said, an analysis of fast-food menus in nine countries by ProVeg International found that plant-based menu items represent just 8% of Pizza Hut’s overall range, and 5.2% of its mains, placing it fourth on the vegan-friendly list of the Big Five fast-food chains. However, the report did note that the pizza chain is making an effort to offer vegan options, adding that integrating them into the general menu will likely appeal to a wider range of customers, including flexitarians and omnivores.

    Offering La Vie’s ham on its dishes is one big step in that direction.

    The post ‘It’s Not A Joke’: Pizza Hut France Adds La Vie Plant-Based Ham on All Menu Items for the Same Price appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Onego Bio Poaches $40M Series A to Launch Precision-Fermented Egg Protein in North America

    onego bio egg
    5 Mins Read

    Finnish precision fermentation startup Onego Bio has closed a $40M Series A funding round to commercialise its animal-free egg protein, Bioalbumen. It expects to obtain self-affirmed GRAS status in the US soon, paving the way for its market entry in North America.

    The investment round was led by Japanese-Finnish VC firm NordicNinja, with participation from Tesi, EIT Food, and existing investors Agronomics, Maki.vc, Holdix and Turret (among others). It also includes $10M non-dilutive financing from the government innovation organisation Business Finland.

    One of the largest Series A rounds in the Nordics, it brings the company’s total investment to $56M. The funding will be used to fuel Onego Bio’s commercialisation strategy for North America, where it is expecting regulatory clearance for its animal-free Bioalbumen protein soon.

    “Egg protein remains one of nature’s most perfect foods; this single ingredient supplies more than 20 different functional benefits from aeration to emulsification and gelation,” said co-founder and CEO Maija Itkonen, who founded the startup with CTO Christopher Landowski in 2022 as a spinoff from the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland. “While it may sound scientific, the value is in our mouths every day with velvety cake structures, silky-smooth mayonnaises, crispy nugget batterings, or those chewy-fluffy nougat fillings, just to mention few.”

    How Onego Bio makes its Bioalbumen egg protein

    precision fermentation egg
    Courtesy: Onego Bio

    Onego Bio uses a fungal strain called Trichoderma reesei – the same microbe used by Californian precision fermentation pioneer Perfect Day for its whey protein – to create a bioidentical version of ovalbumin, the major protein found in egg whites (making up about 54% of the protein content).

    The company introduced the genetic blueprint of ovalbumin to the fungi cells through a scientific database that acts like a library, which enables them to produce egg proteins instead of their own. The company feeds the microbes on sugar in a process similar to beer brewing, except the end result is not alcohol, of course. The fungus is either starved with little food or allowed to “gorge on glucose” depending on the stage of the production process – essentially, once it’s fed plenty of glucose and then starved off it, the fungus starts sweating proteins.

    The resulting Bioovalbumin is then placed into a fermentation tank with water and fungal biomass. The latter is separated to procure a liquid containing the egg protein, which is then dried into a powder. Onego Bio’s patented tech can produce 120g of protein per litre in 250,000-litre fermentation vessels, which the startup says allows it to reach close to price parity with conventional egg proteins.

    Its Bioalbumin is a nutritionally complete protein, containing all essential amino acids and the highest possible protein digestibility score, delivering over 90g of protein per 100g of egg white. There are environmental benefits attached to this as well, with the company’s protein requiring 95% less land and generating 90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than chicken eggs. It is also working on alternative feedstocks to eliminate its reliance on corn sugar and grasslands and further lower its climate footprint.

    “Eggs are an essential part of food businesses, but with the egg market constantly fluctuating due to avian flu and increased demand for cage-free, manufacturers are challenged to find a viable replacement with a consistent, reliable, and safe supply of high-quality protein at an accessible price,” said Agronomics co-founder and executive chairman Jim Mellon. “A long-term sustainable solution for chicken eggs is needed.”

    Onego Bio expects US regulatory approval soon

    onego bio
    A mockup of Onego Bio’s industrial-scale manufacturing facility | Courtesy: Onego Bio

    Onego Bio will use the Series A capital to accelerate its go-to-market strategy for North America, which includes scaling up to industrial production levels and expanding its US commercial team. As a precision fermentation startup, its product will need safety approval from the US FDA – the company says it’s on track to receive self-affirmed Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status in the country this year, and expected a ‘no further questions’ letter from the regulator in 2025.

    So far, only California’s The Every Co has secured FDA approval for precision-fermented egg proteins in the US – the startup recently secured a third ‘no questions letter’ for expanded applications of its egg white protein, made from Komagataella phaffii. (Germany’s Formo is the only other company working in this space, with its precision-fermented egg alternative set to launch later this year).

    But Onego Bio’s forthcoming self-affirmed GRAS status would join a fast-growing list of regulatory breakthroughs for the US precision fermentation sector – Vivici, New Culture, Oobli and Imagindairy have all announced GRAS (whether self-affirmed or via an FDA letter) status this year alone.

    To facilitate its market entry, Onego Bio is working with co-manufacturers and finalising its in-house production plans as well. This approach involves securing offtake agreements and obtaining non-dilutive funding for the construction of its first manufacturing unit, which would boost a two-million-litre fermentation capacity. This will effectively replace an egg farm with six million laying hens.

    Its animal-free egg protein is said to have a neutral flavour and superior functional properties, making it an ideal industrial ingredient for replacing eggs and enhancing the taste and texture of a wide range of food applications. The startup has already teamed up with over 25 CPG companies, which are incorporating Bioalbumen into products like baked goods, confectionery, snacks, sauces, pastas, and meat analogues, among others.

    “Onego Bio is taking all the right steps to commercialise in record time,” said Nordic Ninja managing partner Tomosaku Sohara. “They are a next-generation precision fermentation company, with a clear path to industrialization, go-to-market, and profitability. With technology that is designed to scale and such a strong team, they really stand out.”

    While Onego Bio is targeting North America as its first point of entry due to an easier regulatory landscape, it eventually aims to expand into South America, Asia and Europe too. “By repurposing a well-established technology from the enzyme industry for food protein production, they are well-positioned to scale to the massive volumes needed to futureproof the supply of the world’s most versatile and popular food protein,” noted Mellon.

    The post Onego Bio Poaches $40M Series A to Launch Precision-Fermented Egg Protein in North America appeared first on Green Queen.

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  • 56% of Americans Open to Trying Novel Protein Ingredients, With Some Willing to Pay Four Times More for Them

    mckinsey survey

    6 Mins Read

    Americans are willing to try novel proteins – including those that are plant-based, fermented or fungi-derived – with more than half happy to pay more for them than animal proteins, according to a new survey, which shines light on the importance of health in the US.

    Lately, a lot of the messaging from plant-based brands has been centred around health. Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat – two of the industry’s giants – have rejigged their marketing strategies to focus on nutrition, just as Unilever is hoping to capitalise on the Ozempic boom by doubling down on gut health with its vegan portfolio.

    These companies are playing to consumers’ demands, with one poll from last year suggesting that health is the main factor behind Americans eating meatless diets, after six in 10 cited it. In a post-pandemic world, nutrition is top of mind of consumers, and this can be evidenced in a new survey by McKinsey, which gauged 1,517 Americans’ opinions on novel proteins.

    The poll found that a majority of Americans are open to trying new ingredients and over half are willing to pay more for them. But the way they respond to labels, and the products they really are happy to shell out more for, exhibit the importance of health in their food purchasing decisions.

    McKinsey identified 12 novel protein categories and classed them into three groups for the survey. Animal-free bioidentical products comprised precision-fermented dairy proteins, collagen and eggs; biomass proteins consisted of prebiotic, cultured, postbiotic, fermented, microbial and gas-fed ingredients, and fungal proteins included nutritional fungi protein, mycelium protein and mycoprotein.

    The research also looked into plant-based ingredients like almond, oat, chickpea, soy, pea and barley proteins, but they were not the main focus, as they’re already established in the market

    Over half of consumers willing to try novel proteins

    novel protein survey
    Courtesy: McKinsey

    Depending on the ingredient, between 49-67% of consumers are willing to try food or drinks that contain novel proteins, with animal-free dairy and biomass-fermented prebiotic proteins garnering the most support. In fact, 63% of respondents are open to trying precision-fermented products, and 56% said the same for biomass fermentation. This drops to 49% for fungal proteins, making up an average of 56% acceptance across the three categories.

    In contrast, 77% are happy to give products with plant proteins a go, with almond and oat proteins being the most popular (82% each), followed by chickpea protein (77%), which trumped soy (75%) and pea (74%).

    On average, 28% of respondents are more willing to try a novel ingredient if it makes the product healthier, with those aged 18 and above showcasing the highest degree of importance for health. For older demographics, however, taste is the most crucial aspect for acceptance of these ingredients. But unwillingness to try such products stems from a lack of awareness or questions about how these are made, with taste, naturalness and price also key. People who make over $100,000 a year expressed greater doubt (33%) about the long-term health effects.

    Sustainability and health speak louder than ‘vegan’

    plant based labelling
    Courtesy: McKinsey

    There has been tons of research about the best way to label vegan food on product packaging, with a dislike of the word ‘vegan’ being apparent globally. McKinsey found that familiar terms and well-understood nutritional statements like ‘good or complete source of protein’ or ‘antibiotic- and hormone-free) are the most compelling. ‘Sustainably produced’ is similarly impactful.

    But while consumers understand words like ‘vegan’, ‘vegetarian’ and ‘plant-based’ well, these don’t significantly drive the trial of products. Even less effective are terms that indicate production methods, such as ‘bioengineered’, ‘made with biotechnology’ or ‘next-gen’, which highlights the neophobia associated with food tech.

    vegan labelling
    Courtesy: McKinsey

    The survey also tested various names that could represent novel product aisles or sections in supermarkets. While ‘plant-based’ was ranked top by the highest number of Americans (32%), the most popular term overall was ‘sustainably made’ (ranking in the top three for 61% of respondents, versus 51% for ‘plant-based’. McKinsey earmarked this and ‘consciously made’ (in the top three for 51%) as category names to consider, while retailers should stay away from terms like ‘fermented’ or ‘fungi’.

    Americans would pay more for novel proteins – lunch and snacking are key

    alternative protein survey
    Courtesy: McKinsey

    Respondents displayed much greater openness to try novel foods at lunch (46%) or in on-the-go snacks (55%) than breakfast (39%) or dinner (32%). McKinsey suggests that product development may benefit from a spotlight on the former two, with a lower focus on breakfast, and potentially avoiding centreplate dinner proteins.

    precision fermentation survey
    Courtesy: McKinsey

    And in what may come as a surprise to some, more than half of consumers are happy to pay more for products whose animal-derived counterparts cost less than $2. For nutritional beverages like protein shakes, 58% are willing to pay between 25% and four times more, which rises to 59% for burger patties, and 64% for protein bars. Respondents were less open to shelling out more for products like ice creams, sandwiches or cookies.

    In terms of channel, they were more receptive to paying higher for retail and CPG products than in foodservice settings, which is interesting given that out-of-home consumption has been a crucial driver for meat analogue consumption. People’s willingness to pay for novel proteins didn’t vary significantly across ingredient types, however.

    Key takeaways for novel protein producers

    breyers lactose free
    Courtesy: Perfect Day

    McKinsey highlights that many of the novel proteins it polled Americans about haven’t been commercialised yet, but added that there are several considerations for companies and investors in this space.

    First, investing in consumer education is vital, with fewer than half aware of novel ingredients, and uncertainty about production being the largest barrier to their adoption. The survey found that people are more likely to try products if they’re recommended by professionals like doctors or nutritionists (44%), or family and friends (27%).

    The importance of the health-environment-taste trifecta cannot be understated either, with respondents feeling novel proteins should be healthier than conventional animal sources, and more likely to eat those that are. Plus, those that have a comparable flavour or desirable alternative to taste and texture can increase adoption.

    Next, innovation should prioritise the end application and channel. If companies want more consumers to dig into novel proteins, they should consider launching products for lunch, snacking or breakfast, and blend familiar terminology like ‘a good source of protein’ with emerging language such as ‘sustainably made’.

    Finally, despite varying levels of awareness and trial, there wasn’t a significant gap in willingness to pay based on ingredient type. Instead, this was more linked to the category than the type of protein. This signalled that the underlying technology might not be too tall a hurdle, even if it’s new to human consumption.

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  • CJ CheilJedang Now Sells Bibigo Plant-Based Dumplings in US Military Bases

    us military vegan
    5 Mins Read

    Korean food giant CJ CheilJedang has introduced its plant-based dumplings to grocery stores inside US military bases in South Korea, with plans to extend the range and expand in other countries too.

    Plant-based options for US military personnel are growing, with CJ CheilJedang now offering its vegan Bibigo dumplings at grocery stores in four United States Forces Korea (USFK) bases in South Korea.

    On Sunday, the company launched its Giant Dumpling product range under the Bibigo brand in original, japchae and kimchi flavours, following a three-day tasting event at the USFK. While the military declined to comment on the exact bases that stock the products, it confirmed that each pack was priced at $6.43, according to The Korea Times.

    The ready-to-heat dumplings contain a mix of vegetables, wheat gluten and soy protein, and take only about seven minutes to prepare. The company’s plant protein contains an ingredient called TasteNrich, which helps add a rich umami flavour to products like meat analogues, and is produced in a dedicated $50M facility in Indonesia.

    According to the company, one soldier who tasted the japchae dumplings remarked: “This is my first time trying plant-based food, and it tastes just as good as the regular dumpling products I used to eat.”

    The development enables CJ CheilJedang – which is South Korea’s largest food company – to secure a new distribution channel, following a year in which sales of Bibigo’s vegan dumplings doubled year-on-year. In 2022, the brand’s overall sales totalled $8.2B.

    CJ CheilJedang set to expand plant-based options for US military

    bibigo vegan
    Courtesy: CJ CheilJedang

    In South Korea, food companies are only allowed to sell US-grown meat inside USFK bases, which means they’re forced to import from the US to meet military regulations. So until now, its shipments to the USFK were solely dependent on Cj CheilJedang’s US subsidiary, Schwan’s Company. But with the introduction of the vegan Bibigo dumplings, the company has gained more flexibility in this matter.

    “The criteria for opening a grocery store in a US military base are very strict compared to general export channels, so we put in a year of effort, including tasting sessions and inspections of manufacturing plants,” 

    “Entering the market at USFK bases is much harder than other local markets here because of the American authority’s strict standards for products,” said Lee Jeong-chan, plant-based food manager at CJ CheilJedang. “We’ve invested the past year for this marketing to work out, holding tasting events for Americans and inviting them to our manufacturing plants.”

    He added: “We plan to continuously secure a diverse customer base in line with the expanding trends of health and environmental friendliness.”

    The company aims to expand its USFK offerings with rice balls and frozen gimbaps, and aims to launch its plant-based foods at US military bases in other countries as well, including Japan and Guam.

    CJ CheilJedang has previously earmarked plant-based food as its “growth engine”, targeting ₩200B ($152M) in sales in the sector by 2025. “As these three trends – health and wellness, sustainability, and animal welfare – merge together, plant-based is becoming a global mega-trend. We project the global plant-based food market to grow up to ₩35T [about $26B] in the next 10 years,” a company representative said during a press conference in 2022.

    This is the second instance of a plant-based company working with the US military to increase vegan options for service members. In February, Californian giant Impossible Foods – whose products have been available at various military operations for a few years now – announced it was working with the US Army Central, which coordinates foodservice at an army-wide level, to serve its vegan beef and burgers in military dining facilities in North Africa, the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia.

    Is there demand for vegan food among US troops?

    us army plant based
    Courtesy: US Army

    In July 2022, the US House of Representatives passed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, one of whose requirements was that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) produce a report on plant-based Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs), which are dehydrated field rations for troops in the US. The study was meant to determine the demand for vegan MREs among troops, including cost and feasibility analysis to produce at least two plant-based MREs, service member demand, and an implementation plan. (The results aren’t public yet.)

    MREs have historically been meat-heavy, with the first vegetarian meals introduced only in 1986. The current menu of 24 dishes only contains four meatless options. “There may have been a vegetarian entree that was also vegan. “To date, there has been no military service requirement for vegan MREs,” the DLA told the Guardian in 2019.

    But a 2022 Mercy for Animals survey of 226 American troops found that 3.5% are vegan, and 42% either didn’t eat meat, were flexitarian, or trying to decrease their animal product intake. The majority (81%) would pick climate-friendly MREs, and the same number feel the military should provide plant-based MREs – in fact, 63% suggested they’d choose a vegan MRE over a meat-based meal.

    Additionally, 70% said they’d climate-friendly food options if available, and 63% believed plant-based foods are more sustainable than animal-derived foods. Many also felt vegan food is healthier (52%) and provides more energy (51%) too.

    And in 2019, one vegan soldier successfully campaigned to include a plant-based main at every meal in a US Army dining facility. Given the army’s influence over wider food culture, well-known names like CJ CheilJedang and Impossible Foods joining its food offering will only serve to grow the footprint of plant-based foods in this sector.

    The post CJ CheilJedang Now Sells Bibigo Plant-Based Dumplings in US Military Bases appeared first on Green Queen.

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  • Dutch Brands Agree to Make Half of the Recipes on Food Packaging Meatless

    wakker dier plant based
    4 Mins Read

    In response to campaigning by Dutch animal rights group Wakker Dier, seven brands have agreed to make at least 50% of the recipes on food packaging vegan or vegetarian.

    Seven CPG brands have agreed to increase plant-based and vegetarian visibility on-pack in the Netherlands, accepting animal advocacy group Wakker Dier’s request to make at least half of the recipes on product packaging meatless.

    Conimex, Fairtrade Original, Jumbo, Knorr, Koh Tai, Patak’s and Plus will all make the adjustment, while Grand’Italia (with 48% of on-pack recipes free from meat and fish) and Lassie (53%) already do so.

    “These brands inspire consumers and show that you don’t have to cook meat the old-fashioned way every day,” Collin Molenaar, campaigner at Wakker Dier, said. “Packages are ideally intended to inspire consumers with simple dishes. And so they can also help people to choose plant-based more often.”

    Meanwhile, Albert Heijn and Maggi have plans to add plant-based tips to recipes, but haven’t said they’ll remove meat from half of them. And according to Wakker Dier, Honig (80% of whose packaging recipes are not suitable for vegetarians) is the only brand that hasn’t promised a shift.

    On-pack recipes drive meat overconsumption

    wakker dier
    Courtesy: Wakker Dier

    Currently, over 80% of all recipes on packaging and bags recommend meat or fish, according to an analysis of 657 recipes on product packaging by Wakker Dier. In fact, none of Maggi’s recipes are vegetarian, while only 6% of Patak’s recipes don’t feature meat or seafood. In fact, apart from Grand’Italia and Lassie, only Jumbo has more than 20% of recipes that are suitable for meat-free consumers, and even this is by a small margin (21%).

    Given that many consumers follow back-of-the-box recipes, this encourages the overconsumption of meat. In fact, 29% of the recipes with red meat contain a larger amount than what’s recommended by the national dietary guidelines. Wakker Dier notes how the Health Council of the Netherlands recommends eating a diet where 60% of a person’s protein consumption comes from plant-based sources.

    The Dutch eat 1.8 million kgs of meat every day, which makes up 60% of their diet. And while last year, 49% of consumers in the country reported reducing their meat consumption from the year before, government data revealed that only 5.5% are vegetarian or vegan. But on the flip side, as of last June, retail sales of meat had fallen for nine consecutive quarters in the Netherlands, down by 13% from 2019.

    And analysis in 2022 from the Good Food Institute revealed that the Netherlands is the sixth-largest market in terms of plant-based sales, but its residents have the highest per capita consumption rates of plant-based foods.

    Wakker Dier’s 60-40 plant-based campaign

    dutch plant based
    Courtesy: Wakker Dier

    One of Wakker Dier’s campaign goals is to have at least 60% of the proteins sold by food vendors in the country be plant-based by 2030, and ensure that the total amount of protein sold won’t increase. This target has been embraced by nine supermarkets and 16 caterers, including Albert Heijn, Lidl, Aldi, Jumbo, Compass Group, Van Leeuwen Catering and Albron.

    These companies have pledged towards 50% plant-based proteins by 2025 – and 60% by the end of the decade – agreeing to monitor and publicly report their sales’ plant-animal ratio. “These caterers together make a huge impact for the animals,” Molenaar said in December. “If people experience how tasty and easy it is to eat fewer animals, they can also continue that good habit at home.”

    Currently, Aldi has the lowest share of meat alternatives (12%), while Albert Heijn has the highest (36%). The latter ranks second in terms of physical shelf space for plant-based products, which make up 24% of its area, behind only Jumbo (25%). In fact, Jumbo made headlines earlier this month after announcing it will cease all meat promotions in its stores from May, following intense criticism by animal rights groups, including Wakker Dier.

    Now, its campaign has effected another change, with Fairtrade Original, Jumbo, Knorr, Koh Tai, Patak’s and Plus all promising to introduce an even split between meat and meatless in on-pack recipes by 2025, and Conimex saying it will do so by 2026.

    In other alternative protein news, the Dutch government recently became the first EU nation to develop a framework to allow public tasting events of cultivated meat. Speaking at an EU Agrifish Council meeting, its food quality and agriculture minister Piet Adema said: “We believe that it is important to support innovations that create production methods for animal proteins complementary to, and not as a substitute to, conventional sustainable production.”

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  • SuperAA: PoLoPo’s Molecular Farming Platform Turns Potatoes Into Egg Protein Factories

    polopo
    4 Mins Read

    As molecular farming gains steam as an alternative protein pillar, Israel’s PoLoPo joins the party with a tech platform that can transform potatoes into protein-producing factories, starting with egg proteins.

    Your egg and potato hash could soon be a potato and potato hash. Emerging from stealth this week, Israeli food tech startup PoLoPo is using molecular farming technology to increase the native protein content in potatoes, and produce the main protein found in chicken eggs.

    The company has unveiled its SuperAA platform, which it describes as the first step towards producing proteins from common plant crops. This is currently deployed at greenhouse scale, and is capable of generating patatin and ovalbumin via proprietary metabolic engineering techniques.

    Molecular farming, which has been described by industry think tank the Good Food Institute as the fourth pillar of the alternative protein world, uses genetic engineering methods to biohack plants and produce functional ingredients and nutrients.

    “The SuperAA platform uses plants as living factories, and leverages their natural productivity and storage organs to grow proteins that are identical to protein derived from a chicken’s egg,” said PoLoPo CEO Maya Sapir-Mir, who co-founded the startup with CTO Raya Liberman-Aloni in 2022.

    How PoLoPo turns potatoes into egg proteins

    molecular farming
    Courtesy: PoLoPo

    PoLoPo’s Super AA platform grows target amino acids within a potato’s tuber, which are harvested when they reach sufficient size. The protein is then extracted and dried into a powder that can be integrated into existing food processing lines and formulations.

    Essentially, the startup inserts a DNA sequence into the potato to teach it to produce an egg protein that is fully functional, nutritionally equivalent and chemically identical to chicken eggs, but without any animal input. The latter is what sets it apart from other alternative egg products. While PoLoPo’s potato-derived egg proteins are vegan, unlike its plant-based competitors on the market, they’re not suitable for people with egg allergies.

    The company claims the product has undergone rigorous testing and meets all the necessary food safety standards, deeming it safe for consumption after quality control assessments.

    PoLoPo began with potatoes due to their resilience in diverse climates, low growth costs, short maturation time, relatively large storage capacity (in the form of tubers), high yields, and compatibility with existing technologies. Strategically, it is an efficient and sustainable ingredient that offers attractive financial opportunities for established agrifood producers, which will allow PoLoPo to chart a cost-effective course towards scaling its Super AA system.

    Patatin is a group of native proteins found in potatoes, and PoLoPo’s powdered version can be used as an allergen-free protein for a host of applications, including plant-based meat and dairy, baked goods, cereals, snacks, beverages, sports nutrition and nutraceuticals. Additionally, it can improve food security in regions hit by malnutrition.

    Molecular farming on the rise

    polopo potato
    Courtesy: PoLoPo

    Molecular farming differs from cell cultivation and precision fermentation in that it modifies plant cells – not microbes or animal cells – so they can replicate animal proteins, which can be harvested from leaves or other plant tissues. It’s a process that occurs when microorganisms infect plants, transferring some genes in the process – scientists use similar methods to give plants new instructions to create proteins.

    It offers some key advantages over other forms of alternative protein, especially in terms of cost and scalability, given that it doesn’t require bioreactors to produce ingredients – the plants themselves are the bioreactors in this case. Many companies – such as Moolec, Nobell Foods, Mozza, Miruku, Tiamat Sciences, Bright Biotech and ORF Genetics – have identified it as a viable and sustainable solution for producing planet-friendly analogues to animal products, and research suggests it’s a market that could be worth $3.5B by 2029.

    “The high-scale production of proteins in plants via molecular farming has the potential to economically transform not only potato farming and processing, but broader agriculture and agtech, for a more resilient and sustainable food system,” explained Sapir-Mir, whose company closed a $2.3M pre-seed investment round last year.

    PoLoPo’s proteins will soon be available to food manufacturers for testing. They will appeal to companies looking to diversify their portfolio, make their products more allergy-friendly, and remove their reliance on industrial farming – in the US alone, most (if not all) egg-laying hens are part of concentrated animal feeding operations. Plus, eggs themselves have gone through supply chain issues over the last few years, with avian flu leading to shortages and subsequent price hikes.

    Ovalbumin, meanwhile, is a protein widely used in the CPG sector, given its textural and stabilisation characteristics. It also enhances nutritional value and increases the shelf life of products, and is set to hit $36B in market value by 2032.

    Other companies working with egg alternatives include Just Egg (which represents 99% of all sales in the US vegan egg market), Yo Egg, Hodo, Simply Eggless, WunderEggs, Oggs, Crackd, Perfeggt, Neggst, and Neat Egg, among others, while The Every Co, Onego Bio and Formo employ precision fermentation.

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  • PrimeJack: Why Fiber Foods is Championing Dehydrated Jackfruit as A Solution for Plant-Based & Blended Meat

    fiber foods
    7 Mins Read

    Ugandan women-led company Fiber Foods is using a food that often goes to waste, and turning it into an ingredient that can solve plant-based and blended meat’s texture problems, servicing consumers’ increased fibre needs, and supporting local farmers via value chains.

    An ingredient that can produce better meat analogues, help reduce meat consumption via more appetising blended meat products, provide a whole-food, fibre-packed option to increasingly health-conscious consumers, and boost the side income of local farmers through agricultural value chains. Sound intriguing?

    That’s exactly what Fiber Foods is doing. A female-led business based in Uganda, the company is championing jackfruit as an ingredient that can address multiple pain points in the food system: whether that’s our overconsumption of meat, concerns surrounding meat alternatives, or food insecurity.

    Jackfruit has already been adopted as an alternative protein solution by many producers, including Jack & Annie’s, Upton’s Naturals, Karana, Jack & Bry, and The Jackfruit Company. But Fiber Foods is approaching the fruit in a novel approach, opting to dehydrate it and offering it as an ingredient called PrimeJack, which comes in multiple shapes and sizes for manufacturers to use jackfruit as an ingredient in plant-based or blended meat applications.

    “We started the company to create opportunities for women and girls in agro-processing,” says co-founder Ineke Aquarius. “[We do this] by selecting a crop that was already growing in the traditional agroforests of smallholder farmers and was not yet commercialised, which means it is the domain of women.”

    She notes that while living in Uganda, she and her co-founder Inez van Oord “saw a lot of Jackfruit going to waste”, just as it appeared in more and more vegan applications in Europe. While jackfruit trees are “true climate champions” in smallholder agroforests, the lack of a market meant these were being cut down. “The fact that the trees were already there, but without commercial value, made it a ‘female crop’, which gave us the opportunity to work with women,” she says.

    A fibre-packed product for meat analogues

    jackfruit meat
    Courtesy: Fiber Foods

    The company developed its patent-pending tech for PrimeJack over three years, turning young fruit into an ingredient that can be produced on a large scale. It has established a production line, lab and research time in East Africa, to boost growing, harvesting and processing efficiencies for jackfruit. Meanwhile, it has a lab in the Netherlands, which is responsible for designing new applications and ingredients using PrimeJack.

    Aquarius explains that the company decided to dehydrate jackfruit for sustainability reasons, reducing the volume of the product by 90%, which drastically cuts transportation emissions. “We found various other advantages,” she adds. “PrimeJack absorbs flavours in the rehydration process up to the core of the fibre, has a long shelf life and can be shipped in normal sea containers, and is not kept in brine like the pasteurised jackfruit and has therefore no sour off taste and is easier to apply in an industrial setting.”

    The product will also appeal to food producers looking to improve their Nutri-Score. While jackfruit itself is low on protein (the rehydrated formulation has 1.7g per 100g), the real benefit is the fibre content, which is 8.1g per 100g once rehydrated. Fibre is an increasingly important nutrient for people, with fibre-rich diets linked with a lower risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, strokes, high cholesterol and heart disease. Plus, it regulates incretin, a hormone described as our body’s “natural Ozempic”, given it boosts GLP-1 to control appetite and metabolism – this makes fibre-packed foods a priority in the booming gut health era.

    Animal products like meat, meanwhile, don’t contain any fibre, contributing to the lack of fibre in our diets. To tackle that problem, Fiber Foods is targeting the alternative protein space, offering PrimeJack for both vegan and blended meat (which combine conventional meat with plant-based ingredients) products.

    “In plant-based meat formulations, we have developed products that consist of up to 70% rehydrated PrimeJack,” says Aquarius. “However, the market for such products is smaller,” she adds. “In blended meat, up to 30% of the meat can be replaced by 4% PrimeJack, and the rest is water.”

    Jackfruit makes for better blended and plant-based meat

    blended meat
    Courtesy: Fiber Foods

    Blended applications enable a product that is “lower cost with better nutrition and footprint”, according to the company. To illustrate this, Fiber Foods explains how a 100% beef burger has more fat (including saturated fat) and sodium than a 70% blended burger, which has 1.7g of fibre versus none for the former. In terms of protein, the conventional burger has 25g per serving, while one blended with PrimeJack contains 19g.

    The ingredient has a natural flavour too, meaning it wouldn’t take away from the taste aspect of meat, which is the most important consumption driver for consumers. “The advantage of having no flavour or taste, but a high absorption potential, is that the food developer can add any flavour they desire,” says Aquarius. She reveals this could also work with cultivated meat in hybrid applications. “But the quickest win is to replace 20-30% meat for PrimeJack and reduce price, footprint and improve Nutri-Score without changing the recipe.”

    All this is why Fiber Foods secured financing from agrifood tech investment fund FoodSparks, which was launched by PeakBridge and EIT Food, in January. “Fiber Foods has a strong value proposition to improve the healthiness, Nutri-Score and sustainability of existing meat alternatives and hybrid meats,” says Thomas van den Boezem, principal at PeakBridge. “Their unique product and process also make a strong business case, backed by an experienced and inspiring founding team, with a high understanding of customer needs.”

    He adds that as an ingredient, jackfruit ticks all the boxes: no bad taste, low price, fictional, and sustainable. “With Fiber Foods’ unique process, jackfruit addresses a number of key problems in existing meat alternatives and hybrid meats. Jackfruit fibres provide structural benefits to the end product, with zero negative taste impact,” he explains. “The health benefits are substantial, since it’s fibre-rich, and allergen and cholesterol-free. Plus, jackfruit trees are abundant and can be accessed with existing infrastructure, making the ingredient a highly affordable option for plant-based meat alternatives.” 

    Fiber Foods has just completed a life-cycle assessment, which revealed that its current production line emits 0.34kg of carbon per kg of rehydrated PrimeJack – compared to 15-30kg and 5-12kg for the same amount of beef or pork, respectively, as well as 0.7kg for Quorn’s mycoprotein. “Based on our LCA results, we are developing a plan to further lower our footprint to move to net zero in the new factory that we are establishing,” says Aquarius.

    To make PrimeJack, the company peels its jackfruit first – research has shown that about 70-80% of a jackfruit consists of waste and byproducts. The peel also makes up 30% of the Fiber Foods’ jackfruit waste, one of its biggest sources of emissions. But it leaves no traces of the product in its processing hubs, having partnered with Ugandan insect protein producer Proteen.

    Fiber Foods’ mission as a social enterprise

    fiber foods jackfruit
    Courtesy: Fiber Foods

    Beyond the nutrition and climate aspects, the social element of Fiber Foods is what really stands out. As a women-led company, its focus has always been to champion women’s rights and provide them with economic opportunities. The company has been building agricultural value chains to help smallholder farmers in Uganda and Kenya with an additional source of income.

    These value chains allow farmers to earn a side income out of crops that still need to be commercialised, but maintain the regenerative balance in their farms, alongside cash crops like coffee, cacao and vanilla. The company is now developing a second value chain through oysternuts, and says it’s contributing to UN Sustainable Development Goals 1, 5, 8 and 12 through fair prices for farmers, gender-sensitive value chains, economic growth for the agriculture sector, and promoting sustainable food systems.

    Fiber Foods currently has 3,000 farmers in its value chain, with 30% of them being women. By next year, it hopes to double the number of smallholders in its system to 6,000, with at least half of them being women. The startup has further created an ESG tool to trace its ingredient from farm to fork. “We have developed a traceability tool that works in the context of our farmers, in a multi-cropping food system both off- and online. The farmer data is connected to another tool, ISO2HANDLE, to link the jackfruit all the way to the consumer,” notes Aquarius.

    “The traceability aspect is extremely important: applying regenerative agriculture principles and high ethical sourcing standards to produce their dehydrated jackfruit in Uganda,” says van den Boezem.

    Aquarius says over 10 products containing PrimeJack made by its B2B partners have already been approved (or are in the process) to appear in big retailers this year. It is now preparing a large-scale production of blended meat products for retail and – as she ascribed to above – building a new dedicated jackfruit facility in a joint venture with its current production partner.

    Despite all that, the social mission still remains high on its priority list. “Jackfruit grows year-round and provides farming families with a reliable side income, besides their seasonal cash crops like coffee or vanilla that are volatile and affected by climate change,” Aquarius says. “By processing the jackfruit in Uganda and Kenya, close to the source, job opportunities are created for mostly young women.”

    The post PrimeJack: Why Fiber Foods is Championing Dehydrated Jackfruit as A Solution for Plant-Based & Blended Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

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  • Dare to Be Limeatless: Green Rebel Enters Philippines with NutriAsia Partnership

    green rebel philippines
    5 Mins Read

    Indonesian plant-based company Green Rebel will grace supermarket aisles in the Philippines with its shelf-stable and frozen ready meals via a partnership with Filipino condiment manufacturer and distributor NutriAsia.

    Filipinos will soon be able to buy ready-to-cook vegan rendang, fried chicken, ribs and steaks in supermarkets, with Indonesian plant-based meat pioneer Green Rebel announcing its launch into the country through a collaboration with Manila-based condiment and sauce giant NutriAsia.

    The development follows a consumer pilot conducted by the Indonesian brand last year, where it says it received “overwhelmingly positive responses” on its steak, rendang and crispy fried chicken products, which were sold online on e-commerce platforms in the Philippines.

    “Crafting delicious, sustainable food isn’t just our passion; it’s our commitment to redefining the future of dining,” said Green Rebel co-founder and CEO Helga Angelina. “Every dish we create at Green Rebel is a testament to our belief that flavour, and sustainability go hand in hand, offering a tantalizing glimpse into a world where every meal nourishes both body and planet.”

    Green Rebel taps into NutriAsia’s vast network

    plant based meat philippines
    Courtesy: Green Rebel

    The announcement was made at a launch event titled Dare to be Limeatless, which was attended by company executives, influencers and media personalities. It featured Green Rebel co-founder and R&D director Max Mandias showcasing the versatility and functionality of the company’s plant-based whole cuts.

    The brand’s products are already available in over 1,200 foodservice locations and more than 300 retail stores across Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam, with the Philippines and Malaysia the latest to join that list. It has demonstrated its pedigree by establishing landmark partnerships with Starbucks, AirAsia, Tous Le Jours, NTUC FairPrice and Annam Gourmet.

    The company says its products need 80% less energy and 67% less water than animal-derived meat, and have reduced 48,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions in the last two years – that’s equivalent to removing 1,100 cars from roads for an entire year. Its offerings are geared towards busy customers, with the ready-to-cook nature meaning they take less than 10 minutes to prepare, which can be done via a bunch of cooking methods, including high-moisture hotpots, steaming, stir-frying, wok cooking, and grilling.

    These products leverage its proprietary Rebel Emulsion Technology, which helps recreate the mouthfeel of meat via an emulsion of coconut oil, water and natural plant-based seasonings. This allows the meat analogues to absorb deep flavours and marination, while presenting with the distinctive taste, aroma, and juiciness associated with animal protein.

    So its link-up with NutriAsia, which is the country’s largest producer of condiments and sauces, makes sense. “We see a great synergy with NutriAsia as they have an extensive distribution network and complementary product range,” Angelina told Green Queen. “NutriAsia is the leading sauce and condiment manufacturer in the Philippines, while Green Rebel focuses on Asian-flavoured plant-based meat and dairy-free cheeses. This also opens a product collaboration opportunity, targeted for Filipino consumers.”

    “With this partnership, we are moving from the side of the plate to the centre, added Mario B Mendoza Jr, NutriAsia’s head of new business development. “We are confident that just as our products have become staples of every Filipino home, our consumers would also welcome these delicious, healthier, and more sustainable meat alternatives. This synergy will add yet another flavour to the Masarap, Masaya Pinoy [NutriAsia’s tagline] at-home dining experience.”

    Encouraging signs for plant-based meat in the Philippines

    philippines vegan
    Courtesy: Green Rebel

    Citing a 2024 survey by alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI) APAC, Helga noted that Indonesian and Filipino consumers have the most positive perceptions around plant-based meat. “Indonesia and the Philippines share similar characteristics: strong economic growth, increased appetite to eat more protein, increased malnutrition issues linked to modern diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer,” she said. “We see this as an opportunity to offer healthier and more sustainable protein into the market with Southeast Asian flavours.”

    The survey, which involved 960 respondents from the Philippines, found that 24% of them are looking to reduce their meat consumption this year, and 55% are looking to increase their intake of plant-based meat – across multiple metrics, health is the primary driver for these dietary shifts.

    For example, 75% think vegan meat analogues are healthier, and 49% say more nutritious offerings would encourage them to increase their consumption of these products. In fact, health is by far the top factor that would influence Filipinos to choose plant-based meats over their conventional counterparts, with 66% citing this.

    Price is an important consideration too, with 48% of consumers finding cost a barrier for plant-based meat consumption. The survey also highlighted gaps in the market and an opportunity for customer education, with only 37% of Filipino respondents agreeing that meat analogues are high in protein, and just 49% thinking they taste good.

    Green Rebel says its products are high in protein and fibre content, and contain up to 50% less saturated fat, 30% fewer calories, and zero cholesterol, compared to conventional meats. This will appeal to the health-conscious population in the Philippines, 48% of whom have heard of these products, but never tried them. But there are signs that this will change this year, with 75% of those who haven’t tried plant-based meat likely to do so.

    The introduction of Green Rebel’s products will make it easier for them to do so. Its shelf-stable SKUs – Indonesian Rendang Curry, Blackpepper Steak Bites, Korean-style BBQ Slices and Thai Green Curry – will initially be available in select Robinsons, Landmark and The Marketplace branches in May. And its frozen Steak, Beefless Bites, Crispy Fried Chick’n and Rybs are currently in the R&D stage with 50 NutriAsia foodservice accounts. All products will eventually be available across the country and online at Shoppe and Lazada.

    Armed with the NutriAsia partnership, Green Rebel will now look to capitalise on the Philippines’ growing appetite for plant-based meat. “We are doubling down our penetration into existing markets, while expanding into the Philippines and Malaysia,” said Angelina. “In terms of product innovation, we are also rolling out our new exciting category, dairy-free cheese in Q2.”

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  • Beyond Meat Reformulates Beef Crumbles with New Flavour and Heart-Check Certification

    beyond beef crumbles
    5 Mins Read

    Continuing its health-centric marketing drive, Beyond Meat has reformulated its line of plant-based beef crumbles, which now come in three flavours and are certified as heart-healthy and suitable for diabetes prevention and management by health associations in the US.

    It’s a big year for product revamps at Beyond Meat. Weeks after announcing its Beyond IV platform, which saw its signature burger and mince undergo a recipe change to become meatier and healthier, the frozen Beyond Crumbles are now getting a makeover.

    The range now includes a third flavour in the form of Italian sausage crumbles, which will roll out in the summer, while the new versions of its existing original and feisty beef crumbles are entering supermarkets across the US now, with a. bright yellow bar on the top of the packaging differentiating the new from the old.

    The packaging of the bite-sized Beyond Crumbles now boasts important health certifications from the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Heart-Check Food Certification Program and the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Better Choices for Life Program, joining some of Beyond Meat’s other products on the list of these nutritionist-approved products, and extending its increased focus on consumer health.

    “We continue to innovate across our product lines to deliver delicious taste and health benefits alike. For consumers who love the taste and versatility of beef, but want to reduce saturated fat and cholesterol in their diet, Beyond Crumbles offer a convenient, healthy protein for the cenrer of the plate,” said Beyond Meat founder and CEO Ethan Brown, who credited the health certifications to the products’ “strong nutritional profile” and “simple and clean ingredient list”.

    Beyond Meat hones in on heart health and diabetes

    beyond meat recipes
    Courtesy: Beyond Meat

    The news comes shortly after Beyond Meat posted better-than-expected Q4 results, despite an 18% decline in annual net revenue. The company had already been amping up its messaging around nutrition and health, having just announced the Beyond IV products a week earlier. This approach was first evident in a marketing drive in October, which highlighted the health credentials of its Beyond Steak.

    The offering was certified as heart-healthy by the AHA, then the first plant-based meat product to boast that stamp. The Beyond Crumbles followed next – and the alt-meat giant wants to amplify that on-shelf, with the new packaging bearing the AHA Heart-Check mark.

    The Heart-Check programme is a part of the AHA’s drive to fight heart disease and stroke – cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the US, killing one American every 33 seconds. Red and processed meats have been consistently linked with heart disease risks, and in the US, overconsumption of these products is a real problem.

    The AHA’s certification provides customers with an easy, reliable way to identify healthy foods when perusing nutrition labels. For products to meet its requirements, they need to be low in saturated fat and sodium, and contain at least 10% of the daily recommended value of essential nutrients. Beyond Meat’s chief rival Impossible Foods has also recognised the importance of this – its Beef Lite product was launched with a Heart-Check last year, the only other meat analogue to carry the certification.

    But red and processed meat products aren’t just associated with ill heart health – they’ve also been linked with higher risks of developing type 2 diabetes, a condition that plagues over 11% of Americans. This is why it was important for Beyond Meat to also get certified by the ADA’s Better Choices for Life initiative, which has established evidence-based guidelines to help consumers make informed choices about the foods they purchase.

    Nutrition is a key part of diabetes treatment and prevention, with adequate protein consumption essential for both those with and without the condition. With more than a third of Americans having prediabetes – and over 80% of them not knowing that – consumer education and awareness about the foods they eat is vital, and the ADA suggests that plant-based proteins provide quality protein, healthy fats, and fibre.

    How health is influencing plant-based meat consumption

    is beyond meat healthy
    Courtesy: Beyond Meat

    Beyond Meat is stepping up its support of scientific research into a transition from animal to plant-based proteins. One study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has reported the positive impacts on cardiovascular health by replacing conventional meat with Beyond Meat’s version over an eight-week period, including the improvement of several cardiovascular disease risk factors.

    The company is backing other ongoing studies, like the Plant-Based Diet Initiative at Stanford University School of Medicine, and has a multi-year agreement with the American Cancer Society for increased research into plant-based meat and cancer prevention.

    It’s doing so because consumers are largely conflicted about the health effect of plant-based meat. One survey from last year revealed that nutrition is the second-biggest reason (35%) deterring Americans from trying plant-based meat. Another poll – from the International Food Information Council (IFIC) – found that health was the main factor these consumers follow vegan or vegetarian diets.

    But earlier this month, an analysis of annual IFIC surveys spanning 2012-22 suggested that 74% of Americans find plant proteins healthy, but only 39% feel the same for animal protein. But despite the consumption of plant-rich diets doubling over the years surveyed, this still stands at just 26%. At the same time, red meat intake has increased too.

    A big reason for this is the rise in misinformation campaigns from meat industry interest groups over the years, which has borne apprehension about plant-based meats and their status as ultra-processed foods. This is something Brown touched upon during Beyond Meat’s Q4 earnings call last month, noting: “The current climate of misinformation and efforts by incumbents – including, sadly, pharmaceutical interests – to poison the plant-based meat well push us to accelerate gains in the health profile of our product platforms.”

    He added: “We had to right the message. We can do that by yelling from the rooftops about the benefits of our existing products, or we can just try to make them even more healthy and unassailable.”

    And with the new range of plant-based beef crumbles, that’s exactly what Beyond Meat is attempting to do.

    The post Beyond Meat Reformulates Beef Crumbles with New Flavour and Heart-Check Certification appeared first on Green Queen.

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  • Berkeley Researchers Earmark Koji Mould as Game-Changer for Meat Alternatives

    koji meat
    5 Mins Read

    A centuries-old ingredient that has been underutilised, according to researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, koji mould could hold the key to better-tasting meat analogues with a superior texture.

    In Japan, it’s known as the national fungus, forming the base of fermented foods like miso, shoyu and mirin, and alcoholic beverages such as shochu and soju, for centuries. But while companies like Prime Roots, Formo and Imagindairy are all using Aspergillus oryzae – or, as it’s popularly known, koji mould – to power their meat, egg and milk analogues, some are arguing that this fungi isn’t being harnessed to its full potential in modern food applications.

    Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggest that genetically engineering koji could unlock enhanced nutritional, taste and texture properties in meat analogues. Fungi-based foods are exploding in the alternative protein world, and the fungal protein market is predicted to reach nearly $400M by 2029. The Berkeley Lab argues that while a ton of biomanufactured products are made by engineered bacteria and yeast – which are “single-celled cousins of mushroom and mould” – multicellular fungi haven’t been harnessed as cellular factories to the same extent.

    This is because their genomes are far more complex, with adaptations that make gene-editing a challenge. “These organisms have been used for centuries to produce food, and they are incredibly efficient at converting carbon into a wide variety of complex molecules, including many that would be almost impossible to produce using a classic host like brewer’s yeast or E. coli,” said senior author and UC Berkeley professor Jay Keasling.

    “By unlocking koji mould through the development of these tools, we are unlocking the potential of a huge new group of hosts that we can use to make foods, valuable chemicals, energy-dense biofuels, and medicines. It’s a thrilling new avenue for biomanufacturing.”

    Using CRISPR tech to transform koji into heme-containing meat

    koji mould protein
    Courtesy: Marilyn Sargent/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

    Vayu Hill-Maini, a postdoctoral researcher at Keasling’s lab, worked with colleagues at UC Berkeley, the Joint BioEnergy Institute, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability to explore the potetial of this strain of fungi, publishing the results in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications journal.

    The team used CRISPR technology to develop a gene editing system that can make consistent and repreatable changes to the genome of koji. CRISPR itself has been touted as a potential embryonic treatment for hereditary diseases, but on the other hand, studies suggest altering the DNA of embryos or eggs and sperm could cause mutations that lead to other health threats.

    Once the researchers established a toolkit of edits, they used the system to make modifications that elevate the mould as a fodo sorce. They first honed in on the production of the iron-based molecule heme (Impossible Foods makes a precision-fermented version for its burgers), which is responbiel for giving meat its colour and defining flavours. Next, they focused on the production of ergothioneine, an antioxidant found exclusively in fungi, which is associated with cardiovascular health benefits.

    These changes transformed the colour of the fungi from white to red, and after removing excess water and grinding the harvested biomass, the mould could be shaped into a patty and fried just as you would a burger.

    Hill-Maini’s next target is texture, a major pain point for meat alternatives. In 2023, a study leveraging Kroger data from 60 million US households found that texture is the aspect Americans dislike most about vegan food. Globally, too, the texture of plant-based meat alternatives’ texture is as important as their conventional counterparts for 75% of consumers, but only about 60% are actually satisfied with the former’s texture.

    It has led to other researchers also exploring the best way to improve the texture and mouthfeel of meat analogues. “We think that there’s a lot of room to explore texture by varying the fiber-like morphology of the cells. So, we might be able to programme the structure of the lot fibers to be longer which would give a more meat-like experience. And then we can think about boosting lipid composition for mouthfeel and further nutrition,” said Hill-Maini.

    He added: “I’m really excited about how can we further look at the fungus and, you know, tinker with its structure and metabolism for food.”

    A fungi project involving Michelin-starred chefs

    fungi protein
    Courtesy: Marilyn Sargent/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

    The researchers indicated that this is only a snapshot of the potential of fungal genomes to create new foods, but said it demonstrates their promise as easy-to-grow protein sources that can eschew the long ingredient lists of many meat analogues, which represent another major consumer concern. Plus, these can also allow manufacturers to sidestep the cost barriers associated with cultivated meat, which has been facing fierce backlash from certain political groups.

    Hill-Maini wants to make the next generation of fungi-based products not just palatable, but really desirable to consumers. In a separate research project, he and Keasling collaborated with Copenhagen-based Michelin-starred eatery Alchemist to explore the potential of a fellow multicellular fungus, Neurospora intermedia, which has been traditionally used in Indonesia to make oncom (produced from the fermentation of byproducts like okara).

    The chefs and scientists discovered that this strain can produce many enzymes as it grows. When grown on starchy rice, it secretes an enzyme that liquifies the rice and makes it intensely sweet. “We developed a process with just three ingredients – rice, water, and fungus – to make a beautiful, striking orange-colored porridge,” said Hill-Maini. “That became a new dish on the tasting menu that utilizes fungal chemistry and colour in a dessert. And I think that what it really shows is that there’s opportunity to bridge the laboratory and the kitchen.”

    Hill-Maini called it a “fundamental aspect of synthetic biology that we’re benefitting from organisms that have evolved to be really good at certain things”. Expanding on his team’s approach, he added: “What we’re trying to do is to look at what is the fungus making and try to kind of unlock and enhance it. And I think that’s an important angle that we don’t need to introduce genes from wildly different species. We’re investigating how we can stitch things together and unlock what’s already there.”

    Backed by the US Department of Energy Office of Science, can the Berkeley Lab change how we see fungi and make a mark in a burgeoning alternative protein category?

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