Canada’s Sensible Hot Dogs has gone public on the NEO Exchange and raised nearly $12 million in non-brokered private financing for its plant-based hot dogs.
Sensible took its plant-based hot dog business public last month, launching on Canada’s NEO Exchange in late December under the ticker “HOTD.” Now the company says it has raised more than $11 million for its expansion plans.
Disrupting the hot dog market
“Sensible has attracted start-up capital to fuel its food innovation and go-to-market strategy,” Shawn Balaghi, Sensible’s CEO said in a statement. “The Company is well capitalized to launch its operations with goals to disrupt the hot dog market. We’ve taken out all the not-so-great ingredients from the hot dog that are infamously mysterious and created a healthier and tastier frank. The revolution in nutrition, taste, and reduced environmental impact starts with us,” he said.
Sensible’s hot dogs include the Classic and a Cheesy version both made from ingredients including mushrooms, bean protein, wheat protein, and root vegetables.
Balaghi called last month’s launch on the NEO Exchange a significant milestone for Sensible, specifically as the company looks to leverage the capital markets to fuel its growth. “After thoroughly reviewing all of the potential options to list in Canada, we are convinced that listing on the NEO Exchange, a senior stock exchange, best raises our profile among retail and institutional investors and provides a platform from which to expand our shareholder base as we execute our growth and value creation plans,” Balaghi said.
Sensible has listed on the NEO Exchange | Courtesy
Sensible is fueling its growth to target the increasing demand for hot dogs. According to The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, Americans consume about 20 billion hot dogs every year, with 95 percent of Americans eating about 70 hot dogs per year.
Data from market analysis firm Statista found that more than 255 million hot dogs were consumed in 2020 and an estimated 261 million will be consumed in 2024 — just in the U.S.
That brings the market value to nearly $600 million in 2022 — a 20 percent YoY increase. Globally, the hot dog market is expected to reach nearly $2 billion by 2032. Plant-based hot dogs are seeing sales increases, too; the vegan meat market sector is expected to grow to $15.7 billion by 2027, up from $7.9 billion last year.
“The current meat, dairy, egg, and seafood industries from source to sale cause tremendous suffering, are highly unsustainable, and contribute to a wide range of lifestyle diseases. Sensible aims at a healthier, more sustainable, and more humane food option for consumers,” said Balaghi.
Processed meat
Conventional hot dogs have another problem, too. They aren’t healthy. Recent research found processed meats such as hot dogs can reduce life span by nearly 40 minutes. Those findings, published in 2021 in the journal Nature Food, were based on an index designed to calculate the net benefits or detriments of food. It was modeled after a study called the Global Burden of Disease, which looked at the morbidity associated with certain foods.
“For example, 0.45 minutes are lost per gram of processed meat, or 0.1 minutes are gained per gram of fruit. We then look at the composition of each food and then multiplied this number by the corresponding food profiles that we previously developed,” Olivier Jolliet, professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan and senior author of the paper, told CNN in 2021.
Sensible is targeting the booming hot dog market | Courtesy
“The index is primarily there to help aid in selecting and using calories consumed on a daily basis to tweak a minimum of habits and make the minimum of change to obtain a maximum benefit for health and the environment from our food experience,” he said.
Vegan processed food comes with consequences, too, according to another 2021 study. But the benefits of avoiding animal meat continue to be significant, the research found. It split subjects into four groups, and the group with the higher avoidance of animal-based food in their diet saw the greatest nutritional quality.
Israel’s Chief Rabbi, Yisrael Meir Lau, says cultivated steak from Israel-based Aleph Farms is kosher.
Cultivated meat startup Aleph Farms has achieved an industry first. Jewish people who observe kosher rules — only eating food blessed by a rabbi — can consume steak produced from cultivated animal cells, says the chief rabbi of Israel.
Kosher cultivated steak
While the steak is not yet approved for sale or consumption, regulatory approval is expected later this year. The kosher certification opens the door to a large percentage of the country’s population once the meat achieves approval.
Israel’s Aleph Farms has earned kosher status. | Courtesy
“This ruling is meaningful not only for Aleph Farms as a company but also for the entire cultivated meat industry. It sets a foundation for an inclusive public discourse about the intersection of tradition and innovation in our society. At Aleph, we innovate in order to provide quality nutrition to anyone, anytime, anywhere in service of people and the planet, and that includes people with different culinary traditions,” Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, said in a statement.
“We’re excited that more groups of diners can enjoy our products regardless of their religion, helping us to advance our inclusive vision for food security and tap into different food cultures around the world,” Toubia said.
Kosher beef demand
Demand for kosher meat is on the rise globally, according to Aleph. It’s expected to reach more than $100 billion globally by 2030, with demand increasing in the U.S., France, and Israel, which combined make up more than 86 percent of the global Jewish population. Nearly 74 percent of Israel’s population is Jewish.
Aleph Farms is producing cultivated meat from a single cell source. | Courtesy
Aleph Farms says it’s working closely with regulatory agencies around the world in preparation for commercial launch. Its first product to market will be a cultivated thin-cut beef steak. It’s also developing different steak cuts as well as collagen made from cultivated cells.
Lucy, a Black Angus cow who lives on a breeding farm in California, produced the fertilized egg that has served as the base for all of Aleph Farms’ products. The company says it can grow “thousands of tons” of cultivated meat from that single cell source for a more sustainable and ethical protein source.
Aleph Farms says it is also in contact with Muslim, Hindu, and other religious authorities in order to certify its products as a viable dietary option for groups that have different religious practices.
AI startup The Live Green Co., which has developed a platform dubbed ‘Charaka’, used to discover plant-based replacements for animal ingredients, synthetics, and highly processed ingredients has unveiled a precision fermentation division.
Boston-based The Live Green Co., founded in 2018 by Sasikanth Chemalamudi and Priyanka Srinivas, says diving into precision fermentation is the logical next step for a tech-focused food company.
The company has operations in the U.S., India, Chile, and Singapore. The new precision fermentation focus is happening at its India R&D facilities.
AI ingredients
“There are several reasons we got into precision fermentation,” Chemalamudi told Food Navigator News. “One is that there are almost 450,000 plants in nature, but modern science has only explored one to two percent of them, and most of the recommendations our AI ML platform [Charaka] gives are not readily available in a commercial form, so precision fermentation helps us synthesize them in a scalable way,” he said.
“We have about 100 liters of fermentation capacity, but we also have partnerships with [the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotech] and a few [Contract Research Organizations] that can take us up about 300 liters, and by then we would need to scale the facilities for commercial production, which is why we are working in partnerships with established companies who can take this to the next level,” Chemalamudi said.
Nestlé and Perfect Day’s Cowabunga milk is now available in select locations | Courtesy
Precision fermentation is seeing widespread adoption by some of the largest food manufacturers including recent launches by Nestlé, General Mills, Mars, and an announcement by Unilever. But The Live Green Co. says it differs from the category, Perfect Day, which has been focused on alternative dairy. The Live Green Co. is working to develop what it calls “plant-only” products.
“The entire food industry currently relies on a single fungal host, Trichoderma. And there’s a huge need to tailor the machinery of other fungi as per the food industry’s requirements to produce the ingredients of interest in higher amounts much faster, with fewer resources and in a more sustainable way,” Dr. Kavish Kumar Jain, precision fermentation lead, The Live Green Co., told Food Navigator.
One ingredient, methylcellulose is a widely used plant-based ingredient in processed foods. But producing it involves a process that relies on toxic chemical solutions. The Live Green Co. is working to produce an alternative. Chemalamudi says the company is about “70 percent there” in finding an alternative.
Precision fermentation tech
“And it’s areas like this where we see precision fermentation can help, because when you use natural ingredients in their natural state, you often have to use a lot of that ingredient to get a desired property, but with precision fermentation, you can just focus on [identifying individual plant components such as proteins with] the desired property and then produce them at scale,” he said.
The Live Green Co. launched its own line of products in Chile last year.
The company’s efforts mirror that of Chilean startup The NotCo, which recently announced a partnership with Kraft Heinz, releasing a co-branded knock-off plant-based version of the popular Kraft Singles. Like The Live Green Co., NotCo uses AI (it calls its tech Giuseppe). NotCo is focused for now solely on meat and dairy analogues while The Live Green Co. says it’s working to make food labels cleaner overall, with alternatives to ingredients like methylcellulose.
“From day one, our model has been to collaborate with the industry – ingredients companies, food manufacturers and retailers – because we want to create large-scale change, and we don’t see that being possible by focusing on developing a CPG brand, although we have launched a few [Live Green branded] products in Chile in order to validate the technology,” Chemalamudi said.
The company sees a future where not only are the animal ingredients replaced but so are the additives such as gums and fillers.
“We have identified 150 additives commonly used in food and beverages in 30 different product categories across 25 geographies that consumers buy on a fairly regular basis, but our pipeline is guided by what our partners are looking for,” Chemalamudi said.
“Charaka helps us identify the key base formulation or a base set of ingredients really fast.”
New Zealand’s NewFish and the Cawthron Institute have entered into a strategic partnership aimed at commercializing microalgae for use in specialized protein.
Alternative seafood startupNewFish, with offices in New Zealand and the U.S., has been working with algae fermentation for specialized ingredient development. The new partnership with Cawthron is aimed at accelerating its work and the overall seafood successors category growth.
Blue protein
According to Toby Lane, incoming NewFish CEO, resource-efficient and functional “blue” ocean-based proteins play a critical role in shaping the future of the protein sector.
Photo by Vita Marija Murenaite on Unsplash
“With CO2 at its highest point in more than two million years, and the global population growing, we urgently need new sources of naturally sourced, high quality protein with reduced ecological externalities,” Lane said in a statement. “We have a responsibility to provide consumers and customers with great tasting, healthy protein that has a light environmental footprint. Microalgae will play a pivotal role in delivering this.”
Alternatives to seafood are critical in developing a sustainable food system. Overfishing is depleting fish stocks around the world, and the fishing industry is a leading cause of ocean plastic pollution, with ghost fishing gear making up about ten percent of all ocean plastic. Fishing is also tied to human rights violations, bycatch, and environmental pollution. Fish farming is also a leader in ocean pollution.
Seafood successors
A growing number of companies have begun exploring alternatives to conventional seafood, from Good Catch’s popular plant-based tuna to vegan shrimp from Thai Union, one of the largest conventional shrimp producers in the world.
The Cawthron Institute is a world leader in seaweed and microalgae, working with bioactive compounds including algae. Cawthron is home to the Culture Collection of Microalgae, which includes more than 600 types of both marine and freshwater algae.
OMG Shrimp launched in August from Thai Union
Cawthron and NewFish will share research and resources on the development of algae-based nutrition.
“With the ocean making up 96 percent of Aotearoa New Zealand’s territory, there is a significant opportunity for our waters and its natural resources to provide for us now, and into the future, said Volker Kuntzsch, Cawthron Chief Executive.
“What fascinates me is that the environmental impact of growing algae and seaweed is so much smaller than traditional protein,” Kuntzsch said. “Exploring the untapped potential of marine bioactives could signal the establishment of an exciting new industry for our country, with the aim of creating an exemplary blue economy with a healthy natural environment as the ultimate ambition.”
London-based Multus Biotechnology has closed a $9 million Series A funding round to help accelerate its technology aimed at reducing cultivated meat costs.
The funding was led by Mandi Ventures with participation from SOSV, Big Idea Ventures, and SynBioVen, alongside sustainable materials-focused company, Asahi Kasei. Multus also secured a $2.5 million grant from Innovate U.K. through the EIC Accelerator — Europe’s most competitive start-up grant.
Building the world’s first growth media facility
“Multus’ technology has the potential to revolutionize the cultivated meat industry by significantly reducing production costs and accelerating the commercial scale-up of the sector, benefiting cultivated meat producers, consumers and the environment,” Julio Benetti, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Mandi Ventures, said in a statement.
Proliferum M is Multus Biotechnology’s first product
The fresh funding follows a $2.2 million raise in 2021 and the launch of its first product, Proliferum M — an all-in-one media that eliminates the controversial fetal bovine serum still widely used in cultivated meat development.
Multus says the new funding will go to support the development of the world’s first growth media facility for cultivated meat development. Growth media are historically the most expensive component to producing cultivated meat.
“We are excited to use this funding to drive innovation in novel ingredient discovery, intelligent formulation design and food-safe growth media production for the affordable scale-up of the cellular agriculture industry,” said Multus CEO Cai Linton. “We are confident that our unique approach to growth media will play a key role in making cultivated meat a sustainable and affordable choice for all.”
The funding comes as the cultivated meat industry is poised for commercial production as regulatory approval in key markets could come within the year. Late last year, California-based cultivated meat producer Upside Foods cleared the first hurdle toward U.S. regulatory approval by earning the FDA’s GRAS status.
Earlier this week, California’s Eat Just Good Meat division earned the first regulatory approval for serum-free media. The approval was granted by the Singapore Food Agency, which also approved the company’s cultivated chicken in 2020. It’s currently the only cultivated meat approved for sale in the world.
Good Meat has earned regulatory approval for its serum-free media | Courtesy
Multus says its growth media formulations and ingredients will enable the industry to reach affordable at-scale production of animal products. It’s working beyond the cultivated meat scope to other animal-based products as well including dairy and leather.
The company says its tech enables a “genuinely sustainable alternative to intensive animal farming which continues to erode biodiversity, monopolize arable land, and emit high levels of greenhouse gasses.”
Germany-based Veganz has secured a license for its patented vegan milk printing process.
Veganz Group AG — Europe’s only multi-category vegan food provider — has partnered with U.S.-based Vitiprints LLC to bring its newly patented two-dimensional (2D) printed milk to market.
2D milk
Veganz says the partnership will allow it to produce a market-ready line of vegan milk that is environmentally friendly by reducing the package volume and eliminating water usage, which reduces shipping weight by more than 90 percent.
The new milk will be packaged in plastic-free packaging at a CO2 reduction of more than 75 percent and a 53 percent reduction of other greenhouse gases compared to the impact of typical plastic milk containers, the company says. More than 380 million tons of plastic are made every year, and most of it is not recycled.
Veganz says the new patented tech increases the shelf life of its milk to more than two years.
Courtesy Pixels
The milk is printed into quick-dissolving sheets, discs, or pads made from oat, almond, or soy, which the company says can be mixed in a standard blender or dropped directly into coffee and tea as a stand-in for conventional creamers. Veganz says the 2D milk is free from added sugar, gluten, fillers, and preservatives. It will roll out consumer-facing products as well as food service options.
“The Vitiprints license for printed milk alternatives will allow us to leverage a leading-edge printing technology, helping us address consumer needs in a healthy, green and sustainable way, while at the same time enabling us to expand our portfolio of products into new target markets,” Jan Bredack, founder and CEO of Veganz Group AG, said in a statement. “We are incredibly excited that our new printed products will offer environmentally superior, great tasting and even heathier alternatives that our customers look for in every Veganz product they purchase.”
Andrew Ferber, Chairman of Vitiprints, says the innovative new process will enable Veganz not only to produce a superior tasting product, “but will dramatically reduce the standard milk footprint at retail and beyond,” Ferber said. “We look forward to working together and introducing the Vitiprints technology in Europe with a great partner like Veganz and introduce an all-new standard in the food and beverage marketplace.”
‘Rising consciousness of food sustainability’
Veganz announced its plans to IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (VEZ) late in 2021, with the goal of using those funds to support innovative tech to develop new products such as the printed milk.
Veganz delivers products across categories | Courtesy
“With ten years of experience, Veganz is a ‘first mover’ in the plant-based food market.,” Bredack said at the time. “[We] offer a highly innovative product range that is able to satisfy consumers’ needs from breakfast to dinner,” he said.
“We see a positive momentum for purely plant-based food products driven by several trends like the rising consciousness of food sustainability and for animal welfare,” Bredack said.
Veganz products are sold around the world and include a range of categories including frozen ready meals, meat and cheese successors, and confectionery products.
Texas startup Crafty Counter has launched its flagship product, an entirely vegan hard-boiled egg made from nuts at Whole Foods grocery stores across the country.
Crafty Counter, an Austin-based consumer packaged goods company, has launched Hard Boiled WunderEggs, the first plant-based hard-boiled eggs to be made in the U.S., are now available in ready-to-eat six packs at Whole Foods stores nationwide and on the company’s website.
These WunderEggs are crafted with closer-to-earth ingredients that the company says “are kind to bodies and the planet.” Recently awarded ‘Best New Meat or Dairy Alternative’ at the 2022 Expo West NEXTY Awards, these nut-based eggs are delicious and free of seven of the top eight allergens. They look, feel and taste like chicken eggs, offering a wholesome alternative with natural ingredients like cashews, almonds, and coconuts.
Crafty Counter was founded in 2018 by Hema Reddy, a former IBM executive, with the goal of helping people eat more plants. The female- and BIPOC- owned company has since evolved and emerged into the plant-based scene, launching WunderBites in 2020 in select locations of Sprouts, Target, and Thrive Market. Each Crafty Counter product is made using simple ingredients and manufacturing process innovation, and lately, cutting-edge food science.
2023 marks the company’s strategic pivot into focusing solely on developing plant-based egg offerings to address the gap in a category that the company says needs more innovation and variety. The brand will dedicate its early-stage startup resources to penetrating a nascent and ripe-for-disruption category.
WunderEggs, Courtesy Crafty Counter
According to data by Data Bridge Market Research, the global plant-based egg market is projected to reach 11.89 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 28%. Crafty Counter intends to position itself as an innovator and market leader in the category while staying true to its founding mission of introducing more plants into a consumer’s diet. The company is set to expand its plant-based egg offerings with additional retailers throughout 2023, with the promise of creating additional line extensions.
Kevin Goradia, an early investor in Crafty Counter said in a statement: “It has been a pleasure watching first-hand all the hard work the team at Crafty Counter has put in to keep innovating with a steadfast focus on solving the needs of that mindful consumer who is looking for sustainable products that are better for them and the environment. The time to act and play our role in slowing down climate change is now, we have no time to wait!”
Crafty Counter is committed to introducing more plants into consumers’ diets and intends to position itself as an innovator and market leader in the plant-based egg category.
Courtesy Eat Just
Compared to plant-based meat, seafood and dairy, there are far fewer plant-based egg startups.
Eat Just, the California-based global market leader of plant-based eggs in terms of sales made waves recently with a full-page advertisement in the New York Times with the tagline ‘plants don’t get the flu’ in reference to the avian flu outbreaks that has caused egg shortages across the US. The company offers both a chilled plant-based liquid egg replacer and a frozen plant-based pre-cooked egg omelet patty alternative.
Good Meat, the cultivated meat division of San Francisco’s Eat Just, has secured the world’s first regulatory approval for a serum-free media.
The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has granted Eat Just approval for its new media used for its cultivated meat. Eat Just’s Good Meat cultivated chicken was the first in the world to receive regulatory approval for sale and distribution by SFA in 2020.
Serum-free media
Eat Just says the approval of the new serum-free media will lead to greater scalability while lowering its manufacturing costs. The company says it will also make its cultivated meat more sustainable.
“Not too long ago, observers thought removing serum was a major limiting step to scaling cultivated meat. I could not be prouder of our team for doing just that and receiving approval to commercialize it this week. It’s yet another step forward for our company, the cultivated meat industry and the health of our planet,” Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, said in a statement.
An ABEC bioreactor that produces Good Meat | Courtesy
Cultivated meat has historically relied on fetal bovine serum (FBS), a controversial growth media that kept livestock tied to the meat’s production. A growing number of cultivated meat manufacturers have been working to develop viable alternatives in anticipation of widespread regulatory approval. Upside Foods, another Bay Area cultivated meat producer, earned FDA GRAS status late last year — the first step toward U.S. approval.
According to recent findings published in the journal Communications Biology cultivated meat holds the potential to reduce land use by 90 percent, reduce water use 75 percent, while producing 75 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
The research also found that FBS, the most common growth media, is responsible for 99 percent of the cost of current cultivated meat production systems. FBS is a “notoriously expensive, unsustainable, and inconsistent component, which is inherently antithetical to the aims of cultured meat,” the researchers noted.
Eat Just’s approval comes on the heels of its expanded production efforts in Singapore. The company is adding bioreactors, including the largest one in the cultivated meat industry, to its Singapore production center that will allow it to scale up to “tens of thousands of pounds” of cultivated meat per year.
‘A milestone in scaling’
“We congratulate Good Meat on achieving this milestone in scaling up cultivated meat production. This complements the company’s work in Singapore to build and operate its bioreactor facility where over 50 research scientists and engineers will develop innovative capabilities in the cultivated meat space such as media optimisation, process development, and texturization of cultivated meat products,” said Damian Chan, Executive Vice President of the Singapore Economic Development Board.
“GOOD Meat is a key member of our growing ecosystem of more than 70 alternative protein companies and we look forward to their continued contributions in driving agrifood innovation from Singapore for the region and beyond,” Chan said.
Cultivated meat comes to its first butcher shop in Singapore | Courtesy Eat Just
“Today’s announcement is yet another significant step for this cutting-edge industry. AMPS Innovation members continue to advance the food landscape with new methods of producing high-quality, safe products to support commercialization of cultivated meat, poultry, and seafood,” said Robert Rankin, Executive Director, Association For Meat, Poultry And Seafood Innovation.
Mirte Gosker, Managing Director of the Good Food Institute APAC, the industry’s leading think tank, says removing serum from cultivated meat production can drive down costs and “set the stage for expanded commercialization of sustainable protein.”
“Given Singapore’s reputation as a global launchpad for scalable food security solutions, we’re hopeful that other nations will also soon embrace this smarter way of making meat,” Gosker said.
Vegan entrepreneur Noah Hyams shares his top 3 future of food finds at CES 2023, from fermented plant-based soy protein to bioengineered microbe-based soft serve.
CES never used to be a food-forward show. But in 2019, plant-based meat startup Impossible Foods changed the rules of the game by debuting their Impossible Burger 2.0 at the annual gathering of the who’s who in tech. According to CES, which published a case study about the success of the launch, the pioneering food company garnered over 446 million media impressions. Thanks to this bold move, CES is now a conference mainstay for tech-forward food companies who are keen to showcase their tech-forward missions and products, not to mention nab some extra media headlines.
This year, there was plenty to get excited about foodwise. Asia-based foodtech companies in particular stole the show with innovations ranging from a proprietary plant-based fat and a plant-based replica of milk protein to a novel fermented soybean technology.
It was a dream come true for me to make my way through the show, tasting and discovering all the innovative new future food products on behalf of Green Queen. Below, I share my top three picks – the startups whose product or technology I found the most noteworthy.
Lypid: Plant-Based Fat Technology
Lypid’s plant-based pork belly bites featuring their proprietary PhytoFat at CES 2023
To start my foodtech journey at CES, I headed over to Lypid’s’s booth to try their newly developed PhytoFat, which the company says “accurately mimics the texture, mouthfeel, transfer of flavor, and cooking behavior of animal fats.” The IndieBio-backed company plans to sell its product to manufacturers to add animal meat-like juiciness and mouthfeel to plant-based meats.
The company, which raised US$4 million back in March 2022, says it uses physics and fluid dynamics to recreate a highly stable fat that can hold its texture for six months and melt at high temperatures just like animal-derived fats.. The trans-fat-free ingredient list is mostly made up of water and canola oil. Crucially, the company claims the fat is cheap to produce and requires zero hydrogenation. The company is based in both Taiwan and San Francisco and is currently looking for food service partners to bring its fat innovation to market in the US.
The plant-based pork belly sample I tasted was surprisingly realistic and tasty. As plant-based meat companies look to increasingly mimic animal meats, ingredients such as realistic-tasting fats are playing an increasingly important role. Plant-based fats on their own don’t perform like animal fats which leads many products to lack the mouthfeel, juiciness, and texture consumers would expect. After its up-and-coming launch in the U.S. in food service, Lypid says it will be looking to expand throughout Europe and Asia.
A booth panel describing AFT’s bioengineering technology, used in its new soft serve ice cream at CES 2023.
Next, I headed over to Armored Fresh Technology’s (AFT) booth to try their new bio-engineered soft-serve ice cream, a new product line for the South Korean company, and it was delicious.
According to AFT, the core of their raw material technology is an emulsifying function that allows them to create a replica of the milk protein casein as a plant-based protein. The company says that dairy’s unique taste and texture features such as the stretchiness of cheese, chewy ice cream, and creamy yogurts all come from casein, which is not available in plants. It’s also why it has been difficult for plant-based proteins to get plant-based dairy to taste like its animal counterpart. Like Perfect Day, AFT uses precision fermentation technology to recreate molecularly identical animal casein from microbes.
AFT raised $23 million back in June and then launched their plant-based cheeses made from almond milk and a proprietary plant-based lactic acid in the US market this past October. Currently, the cheeses are available in more than 100 stores on the East Coast. The company has secured a number of patents for its cheese production processes and has now brought some of this same technology to the ice cream category.
Kwang Jin Corp’s DNS: Fermented Plant-Based Protein Powder Meal
Closeup of Kwang Jin Corp’s DNS Da Neung Sik product, a plant-based fermented soybean protein meal, at CES 2023.
My last stop was at South Korean startup Kwang Jin Corp’s booth. The company was a Korean showing off its latest plant-based food product, ‘DNS Da Neung Sik’ a sort of healthy powder beverage/meal replacement mix. The soybean meal is inspired by Chungguk jang, a traditional Korean fermented food. Kwang Jin has spent many years developing a modernized version of the traditional method of natural fermentation using rice straws to isolate and culture the Chungguk jang bacteria. While the product is primarily from fermented soybeans, there are loads of other healthy ingredients in it such as oat, brown rice, Konjac, cranberry, lemon, sweet pumpkin, broccoli, spinach, sunflower seed, almond, peanut, and banana. It is intended as a fermented alternative (plant-based) milk. I mixed it with water to try it, and it tasted like healthy oatmeal to me. The company says the powder is rich in both protein and gut-friendly probiotics and contains more nutrients than many plant-based milks and meal replacements on the market. The company is targeting US market entry and plans to start selling its products on Amazon as early as February.
Other Exciting Food Tech We Sampled
Some of the other noteworthy companies that exhibited their products this year included SavorEat, an Israeli company whose 3-D printer robot makes 3-D printed plant-based burgers. The printer allows customers to even choose their preferred protein-to-fat ratio as well as the size of the patty and how they want it cooked—juicy or well-done. Another exciting company that sampled their products is Chicago-based Nature’s Fynd, which makes fungi-based meat products from a microbe dubbed ‘Fy’, a nutritional fungi protein with all 9 essential amino acids. The novel fungi was discovered by the company’s scientists in the volcanic springs of Yellowstone National Park.
For a complete guide to the foodtech and agtech companies that participated in the show, check out The Spoon’s helpful list.
About the author: Noah Hyams is an entrepreneur, musician, and digital producer based in New York City and the founder of Songathon and VEGPRENEUR – Connect with Noah.
China-based cultivated meat company Jimi Biotech has closed an angel funding round of ¥20 million ($3 million USD) led by Plum Ventures and Fanqie Capital with funding from Green Leaf Ventures and Joyvio Capital.
Jimi Biotech, which launched in 2021, says the new funding will assist with key talent hires and its ongoing R&D efforts. The funding follows its cultivated beef launch just over a year ago.
The fast-moving cultivated meat industry
“Plum Ventures’ investment focus has always included both consumer goods and cutting-edge technology, and cultivated meat is at the intersection of the two; Fanqie Capital has a great portfolio of food and beverage companies, as well as extensive supply chain investment in the food sector, which will help us better enter the market in the future; Green Leaf Ventures has always focused on ESG, which is exactly what we are seeking for in terms of social welfare. Joyvio Capital, a firm believer in cultivated meat, and is committed to continued investment in the field,” Zhehou Cao, the founder of Jimi Biotech, said in a statement. According to Cao, Jimi’s investors share the value and goals of the brand, bringing along resources as well.
Jimi’s cultivated meat | Courtesy
“In the fast-moving cultivated meat industry, we highly value Jimi’s in-depth and unique thinking on the technical path and future product forms of cultivated meat,” said Shichun Wu, founding partner of Plum Ventures.
“Jimi has established its leadership position in cultivated meat technologies, and with its strong capabilities in both R&D and commercialization, we believe that Jimi will become a unicorn company in cultivated meat in the future. Plum Ventures hopes to leverage its rich resources to help Jimi achieve this great cause,” Wu said.
Yong Qing, founder of food-focused Fanqie Capital says the Jimi Biotech team has strong backgrounds in both engineering and biology, which plays a role in its tech-forward platform.
“Its strategy focuses on independent research and development and is not in a hurry to launch products in the short term,” Qing said, calling Jimi an “excellent early entrepreneurial team.”
Qing says Fanqie Capital is optimistic about the cultivated meat market in the long run, “and also believes in the ability of Jimi Biotech to become a market leader. In the future, Fanqie will bring its own resources in the food sector to continue to empower Jimi.”
‘New forms of meat’
The company is working to develop “new forms” of meat through its new technology. It says its goal is to reduce public health risks, and address food safety, environmental pollution, and animal welfare problems caused by industrial animal farming, while also working toward a sustainable and slaughter-free protein production chain.
Jimi’s team is developing cultivated meat | Courtesy
The last year has seen Jimi develop a serum-free and animal-component-free culture media for cultivated meat. It says the media works better than fetal bovine serum. The company has also reduced media costs by 20 times and implemented a media recycling system that sees microorganisms replace expensive media components and use waste media as their culture. The company has made other advancements across myoblasts, feeder cell systems, and scaffolding.
“Cultivated meat requires expertise from many fields, so it is crucial for the team to have innovative thinking and multi-disciplinary discussions,” Cao said.
“[T]o fully convince consumers, we ultimately need to have an outstanding product.”
Thai Union, leading producer of Thai seafood, has invested in France’s Algama algae innovation platform.
Thai Union’s Corporate Venture Capital Fund joined Algama’s recent €13 million Series A funding round to help accelerate its industrial algal ingredients for the food and beverage sector.
“At Thai Union, we are committed to “Healthy Living, Healthy Oceans”, Thiraphong Chansiri, President and CEO of Thai Union said in a statement. Chansiri says algae, as a sustainable, marine ingredient, is aligned with the seafood giant’s goals.
Algal protein
“Algama and its experienced team have strong tech and commercial capabilities to create a positive impact on the protein industry. We are excited to work with them and explore further collaboration opportunities,” Chansiri said.
Photo by Vita Marija Murenaite on Unsplash
Tamalga, the ten-year-old Algama’s flagship product serves as an egg replacer in baked goods. The company says the new funding will accelerate the commercialization of its innovations as well as the development of new applications. It will also add a new 10,000m2 bio-refinery in Liege, Belgium.
With Thai Union on board, Algama says its also exploring the seafood successors category with protein innovations at the forefront.
“We are excited to work with Thai Union to create the next generation of seafood ingredients that are sustainably sourced and health-promoting,” Alvyn Severien, Algama’s co-founder and CEO, said. “By exploring the untapped potential of algae, we aim to push the boundaries and develop innovative products for the future.”
Alternative seafood
Last spring, Thai Union announced it was exploring cultivated seafood following the launch of its OMG range of plant-based seafood products. The company says the seafood sector is lagging behind other protein sectors when it comes to plant-based options.
OMG Shrimp launched in August from Thai Union
“The bigger opportunity lies with flexitarians, who are flexing between meat, seafood and vegan propositions,” Maarten Geraets, managing director of alternative proteins at Thai Union told the Bangkok Post last year. “Plant-based solutions are a trend that people would want to buy into. It’s something you want to be seen with, eating or drinking. It can be very aspirational.”
The company established its CVC fund in 2019 with its focus on alternative protein, functional nutrition, and biotechnology. The fund is focused on investing in and partnering with early-stage, entrepreneurial companies aligned with Thai Union’s commitment to Healthy Living, Healthy Oceans.
The VegTech plant-based Innovation & Climate ETF, EATV, is now certified carbon neutral — a feat it achieved without buying offsets.
EATV (NYSE: EATV) says its carbon-neutral status comes by way of avoiding animal products in food and materials supply systems. “This means that the investments made by EATV are actually helping to solve the problem – i.e., avoiding creating emissions – rather than using the Band-Aid of offsets,” reads a press release issued by the platform. EATV received its certification from Ethos ESG.
Plant-based potential
“Offsets are really important for mitigating global warming, but it is also critical that we address the underlying problem, including the massive emissions generated by our meat-based food system,” said Luke Wilcox, ACA Group Partner and Founder of Ethos ESG. The United Nations says offsets are not a long-term solution in fighting the climate crisis.
Replacing animal agriculture makes EATV carbon neutral | Courtesy of Dan Hamill via Unsplash
“I’m excited to highlight the impact potential of switching to plant-based products through our certification of the EATV ETF,” says Wilcox. “From an emissions reduction perspective, the plant-based protein sector may be one of the most accessible and impactful areas in the market.“
EATV’s aggregate carbon avoidance potential was deemed greater than its estimated footprint, making an investment in the fund equal to a net reduction in carbon, the platform says. EATV’s global temperature warming potential of 1.18°C is below the U.N.’s goal of 1.5°C and “very far below” the S&P 500 warming potential of 3.2°C, the platform said.
LCAs on the impact of switching from beef to plant-based alternatives, along with other sector innovations, compared the carbon footprints of EATV’s holdings including Scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions and the expected impact of emissions avoided. Its holdings include Ingredion, Sensient, Givaudan, Dole, Yara, Smurfit, MGP Ingredients, ABinBev, E.L.F Beauty Inc., and Vitasoy International. Also in the fund are Amyris Inc, Beyond Meat, Oatly, and Gingko BioWorks.
Source: Ethos ESG
Emissions avoidance
The EATV Plant-based Innovation & Climate ETF is “leading the way for a more aggressive approach in helping to solve climate change by avoiding emissions in the first place,” read the press release.
“The emissions avoidance thesis through replacements of carbon-heavy animal products has always been at the core of EATV’s philosophy,” said Dr. Sasha Goodman, Fund Manager of EATV. “We have always believed that avoiding emissions can be even more impactful than participating in a carbon market, which can have intermediaries, and be complicated and inefficient. We are happy to confirm our thesis through certification by a reputable third party, Ethos ESG.”
Oatly is a portfolio company in EATV. Courtesy
According to Dan Carreno, Director of Business Development at Ethos, the EATV VegTech Invest investment approach “seeks groundbreaking solutions” aimed at addressing the global food and materials supply systems.
“With EATV, VegTech Invest offers a distinct strategy that seeks to capitalize on the new food revolution paradigm of Plant-based Innovation and Alternative Proteins,” he said. “Ethos is proud to partner with VegTech Invest as we take actionable steps toward a net-zero economy.”
With more than $10,000 in prize money on the table, young Asian tech teams competed in the ProVeg Food Innovation Challenge APAC.
China, Korea, India, Indonesia, and Thailand were all victorious in the 2022 ProVeg Food Innovation Challenge APAC. This was the first year the challenge included all Asia Pacific regions. It focused on South-East Asia in 2021 and Mainland China in 2020.
The winners
Students from China’s Shanghai Ocean University and Hainan University won top prize for its plant-based pork floss designed for infants. The plant-based meat is fortified with vitamins A and D.
Second prize winners came from Thailand and Indonesia; the Thai team, from Kasetsart University, created “DeCrab Jumbo Lump Crab Meat”, a plant-based crab meat with the taste and texture of conventional crab.
A plant-based crab meat was a winner this year. Courtesy David Abbram via Pexels
The Indonesian team, from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Universitas Indonesia, Universitas Katolik and Indonesia Atmajaya, developed “PepShot” — a plant-based energy shop designed for workaholics to boost productivity. It comes in fully biodegradable packaging.
Korea, Thailand, and India shared the third prize. Korean students from Sung Kyun Kwan University and Yonsei University developed a new range of K-bakery products for South Korea’s biggest chain bakery using Beyond Pork, and vegetables.
India’s team hailed from NIFTEM-Kundli, IIHM-Kolkata, St. Xaviers College-Kolkata, and NMCCE Mumbai. They developed plant-based kebabs and chicken modeled after HaoFood’s peanut-based chicken.
Thailand’s team from Panyapiwat Institute of Management created the “Hi Burger” — a satay-flavored plant-based burger made from jackfruit and herbs and spices.
Meeting Asia’s demand for plant-based food
“This is the third year we have run the ProVeg Food Innovation Challenge and I am pleased to see that the competition is growing in scale and influence,” Shirley Lu, Managing Director of ProVeg Asia, said in a statement.
OmniFoods worked with the teams | Courtesy
David Yeung, co-founder and CEO of the leading Asian pork and seafood successor brand, OmniFoods, said his company was delighted to have partnered in this year’s challenge. “Our team has been impressed by the creativity and passion of the younger generations who are committed to driving positive changes and accelerating sustainability through food innovation,” Yeung said.
In total, 179 food ideas representing 163 universities, vied for the prizes. The students had to not only develop the food but also a go-to-market strategy for the products. The event was sponsored by PepsiCo, Unilever, Omnifoods, Beyond Meat, Oatly and CPF with the goal of raising awareness about the benefits of plant-based food as well as the innovative skills of young talent.
“I’m proud of the quality and creativity of students’ work,” Lu said. “Young innovators from Asia are transforming the food systems across the region and we look forward to even more participation from the APAC region next year.”
Canada’s No Meat Factory has announced the closing of a $42 million Series B funding round to help accelerate its plant-based meat production.
The new financing was led by new investor Tengelmann Growth Partners. Existing investor Emil Capital Partners also participated.
No Meat Factory, which launched in 2019, says it plans to expand its plant-based meat production footprint across North America with the fresh funding as well as work to expand globally.
Plant-based production
The company currently develops plant-based products including nuggets, burgers, and whole muscle meats for its brand partners through its BRC-certified facility in British Columbia. It’s bringing a second facility online this year which will enable increased production and new product capabilities including deli slices and sausages.
Photo by Александр Трубицын via Pexels
“The traction No Meat Factory has experienced in just a few short years is evidence that consumers want greater access to plant-based alternative proteins and brands are looking for ways to deliver quality at an affordable price,” Dieter Thiem, CEO and co-founder of No Meat Factory, said in a statement. “With this latest funding round, we are excited to not only expand our operations to meet the needs of our partners, but to take advantage of the support and expertise of our investors as we expand our footprint globally.”
Thiem co-founded No Meat Factory alongside Leon Bell; combined, the two bring more than 65 years of experience in the plant-based food industry – specifically in plant-based meat production.
Rapid growth ahead
“No Meat Factory has an exceptional founding team with decades of experience in the plant-based industry, and we are thrilled to come on board to support the company’s next phase of growth,” said Patrick Schaich, Investment Partner at Tengelmann Growth Partners.
Daniel Bentrup, Investment Partner at Tengelmann Growth Partners, says No Meat Factory is poised to experience “rapid growth” and increasing demand for its manufacturing capabilities as consumers continue to seek out plant-based successors to conventional animal products.
Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
“We invested in No Meat Factory at their earliest phase just a few short years ago, and seeing their continued growth underscores the importance of what they’re doing for plant-based protein alternatives as an industry,” said Marcel Bens, Managing Partner and Chief Operating Officer of ECP.
No Meat Factory says part of the funding will also support its expansion into new territories, namely food service. Recent data from Sodexo showed an uptick in plant-based menu items across its U.K.-based food service partners.
“We will continue to work closely with Dieter and the team to offer our guidance, expertise and connections as No Meat Factory executes its vision to offer truly high-quality plant-based protein products globally,” Bens said. “We’re highly optimistic for the future of No Meat Factory as they plan to evolve beyond servicing brand owners and pursue private-label and foodservice opportunities more broadly.”
Editor’s Note: This piece came about because Dan commented on a Linkedin post about our original article. We appreciated his insights so we invited him to write this piece to share his thoughts.
I am writing this rebuttal in response to the recent article “Our Junk Food Addiction Is Bad News For The Planet, Study Finds” and the publication by Musicus et al, which the article references. I want to contest some of the statements made in the article, starting with the title and the associated cover figure of the news article, which incorrectly associates plant-based meat with adverse environmental and health impacts.
The goal of the recent study by Musicus et al. was to determine health and environmental impact as a function of diet, from a longitudinal prospective study. One-hundred fifty foods were included in the survey, and the authors split a subset of these foods into different categories, according to four established health indices – the alternative healthy eating index-2010 (AHEI), plant-based diet index (PDI), unhealthy PDI, and healthy PDI. For each index, study participants were split into five groups of equal size (quintiles) based on their score – i.e., the first quintile is the 20% of participants with the lowest scores, the fifth quintile is the 20% of participants with the highest scores. Then for each group/quintile, the authors calculated some environmental and health impacts.
Before looking at how the different subgroups compare, it’s worth looking at the sum of the data first. Across all participants in the survey, animal-derived products account for the vast majority of environmental impact. For instance, red and processed meat accounts for 31% of greenhouse gas contributions and 59% of cropland needs. If we group the categories into animal, healthy plant-based (vegetable, fruit, tea and coffee, legumes, nuts, whole grains, vegetable oils) and unhealthy plant-based (fruit juice, sweets, sugar-sweetened beverages, refined grains), the overall contributions are largest for animal foods by a wide margin. For instance, 78% of greenhouse gas emissions and 88% of cropland needs are accounted for by animal foods (including “other foods”, which are largely animal-derived).
Because the environmental impact of animal products, particularly red and processed meat, is so large, variation in their consumption drives most of the differences across the diet indices, including the plant ones. For instance for AHEI, the decrease in red meat consumption was by far the largest difference in environmental impact between the first and fifth quintiles (the data for other diets is not presented in the paper). Red and processed meat, not plant foods, also explains the modest differences in environmental impact comparing the 1st and 5th quintiles of the unhealthy PDI.
The authors gauged healthiness by comparing the relative risk of cardiovascular disease in study participants across each dietary index. As presented in Table 1, the relative risk of cardiovascular disease decreases monotonically across the quintiles for AHEI, PDI and healthy PDI and the three indices are basically indistinguishable in terms of relative risk of cardiovascular disease (note however, that the plot of these data in Supplemental Figure 1 does not match the data presented in Table 1!). As noted by the authors “Reduced red and processed meat consumption was the largest contributor to these observed beneficial effects”.
In contrast, there is a modest increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease for those with a diet disproportionately high in unhealthy plant-based foods, which is why the authors write “whereas healthy plant-based patterns were associated with indicators of better human and environmental health, including significantly reduced cardiovascular disease risk; greenhouse gas emissions; and use of cropland, irrigation water, and fertiliser; unhealthy plant-based patterns were associated with adverse human and environmental health effects, including significantly increased cardiovascular disease risk and use of cropland and fertiliser.” We already covered that the environmental impact of those in the 5th quintile of unhealthy PDI is driven by differences in red and processed meat. The specific foods contributing to the moderate health effects are not probed in the paper (and the authors informed me that said data is not available). But based on Supplemental Figure 3, the categories with the biggest increases in consumption are red and processed meat, sweets and sugar-sweetened beverages, all of which are linked to cardiovascular disease when consumed in excess. So rather than emphasizing that not all plant-based diets are equal, I think a better takeaway is that excess sweets and sugar-sweetened beverages can offset some of the health benefits of a plant-based diet.
But what about the environmental and health impacts of plant-based meat and dairy? The food survey started over 30 years ago and so has limited inclusion of plant-based meat and dairy. Under “vegetables”, there is a category “Tofu, soy burger, soybeans, miso or other soy protein.” However, no plant-based meat or dairy are included in the PDI scoring system, so this study does not directly address the relative environmental or health impacts of plant-based meat and dairy products.
While plant-based meat and dairy foods were not included in this study, we can apply the same approach to assess environmental impact. For instance, Impossible Foods (my employer) performed a life cycle assessment comparing the potential environmental impacts of an Impossible Burger and conventional, industrially-reared ground beef burger from farm field to manufacturing gate. Producing an Impossible Burger took 10X fewer greenhouse gas emissions and 20X less cropland than a ground beef burger. Likely, these dramatic differences broadly apply to plant-based meats and dairy.
But what about the health impacts of plant-based meat and dairy? Unlike environmental impact, there is not a simple categorical answer. One, there is tremendous variation among these products (e.g., soy milk vs. almond milk). Two, health benefits depend on what you are comparing them to (e.g., broccoli vs. a hamburger) and are influenced by the other foods you eat (e.g., burger with salad and water vs burger with french fries and a soda). Third, the metrics by which nutrition and health benefits are assessed are generally rudimentary (and often wrong) – e.g., the degree of “processing” has a negative health connotation and is considered in current nutrition guidelines, but has little to no correlation with actual micro- and macronutrient content.
We can at least compare nutrition profiles of plant-based replacements and their animal counterparts. Compared to an industrial ground beef burger, the Impossible Burger macronutrient content is purposely similar, with matching protein quantity and quality, and similar total fat. Both burgers have high levels of heme iron, which is absorbed much better than non-heme iron. The Impossible Burger has 20% less saturated fat than the beef burger and does not contain cholesterol. Saturated fat and cholesterol intake have repeatedly been linked to negative health outcomes, in particular cardiovascular disorders. Micronutrient content is pretty similar too, but with the Impossible Burger having higher levels of several vitamins and minerals. Impossible Burger has some fiber, whereas ground beef has none. The Impossible Burger also has a modest amount of sodium (~1/6th of daily recommendation). All in all, the nutrition profile of the Impossible Burger is superior to its animal counterpart.
More sophisticated health comparisons are now emerging. For instance, a recent randomized crossover clinical trial showed that replacing animal burgers with Beyond Meat burgers led to improved cardiovascular disease risk factors.
In addition to nutrition content, we should consider (and emphasize) the many indirect positive impacts on population health from replacing animal products with plant-based counterparts. Without a doubt, animal agriculture is the most destructive practice in the history of the planet. Animals in the food system are the primary drivers of climate catastrophe and biodiversity collapse, which have profound indirect effects on health and life quality everywhere. Additionally, animals in the food system contribute to widespread antibiotic resistance and are the driver of most zoonotic diseases.
In conclusion: as a general good rule of thumb, the best diet for you and the planet is one rich in plant foods, which can include plant-based meats and dairy, and low in animal products and junk food.
About the author: Dan Hogan is a Research Fellow at Impossible Foods developing transformative protein technologies for plant-based foods. Prior to joining Impossible Foods in 2020, he led the bioinformatics and core technology groups at Tocagen Inc, which utilized retroviral gene therapies for cancer treatment. He earned his PhD in Biochemistry from Stanford University.
German food-tech startup Project Eaden has announced a €10.1 million seed funding round for its novel fiber technology used to create plant-based steak.
Creandum, Atlantic Food Labs, Shio Capital, Trellis Road, and several angels including former Rügenwalder MD Godo Röben led the new funding. The initial funding round was last June. And last month, Magnetic and Atlantic Food Labs increased their investments by another €2.1m.
Project Eaden says the financing will further the development of its proprietary bio-fiber technology that creates meaty steak that looks, cooks, and tastes like conventional.
Fiber spun meat
“Project Eaden is a technology company, so we’ll be investing in our own R&D activities and the initial production setup,” Project Eaden co-founder Jan Wilmking said in a statement. Wilmking co-founded Project Eaden last year with materials scientist Dr. David Schmelzeisen and Mymuesli founder Hubertus Bessau.
“We’ve built a highly-motivated team of professionals to further develop our unique, proprietary technology over the past nine months, including tissue engineers, food technologists, material scientists, and culinary professionals,” Wilmking said.
Photo by tommao wang on Unsplash
Carl Fritjofsson, General Partner at Creandum says that eating meat is associated with excessive land and water usage and unsustainable levels of greenhouse gas emissions. “But, for most people, it’s simply too much of a pleasure to give up on,” he says.
“Until today, existing plant-based options haven’t solved this dilemma, as they lack compelling taste, texture, and look despite higher prices. Project Eaden has the potential to become the industry’s game changer. That’s why we’re so excited to lead this round, which is one of the largest in the European plant-based meat tech sector,” Fritjofsson said.
“Project Eaden is meaningful innovation at its best, representing our mission to back world-class teams with a maximum possible footprint. We are happy to continue our long collaboration with the team,” said David Rosskamp, founding partner at Magnetic.
Project Eaden says its bio fiber technology recreates the taste, texture, and appearance of animal meat. The tech is similar to fiber spinning for synthetic fiber use across other industries including textiles, aerospace, and automotive. It says it’s using the same technology for meat — noting that it’s highly scalable and affordable.
Fiber spinning is an ancient practice; Egyptians used spindles to turn flax fiber into yarn. By 1665, after the development of the spinning wheel, Robert Hooke explored the idea of producing synthetic threads. It wasn’t until the 1930s that the world saw the first spinning of fully synthetic fiber, giving rise to nylon and polyester, which revolutionized the fashion industry. Project Eaden says it’s now time for another evolution to spinning — this time for food.
Plant-based meat 2.0
“Both plant and muscle fibers are versatile building blocks with fascinating material properties, which is why so many of today’s high-tech materials are natural fiber-inspired,” Schmelzeisen said. “For example, we use carbon fiber for rockets and satellites, and biomaterial-based implants for humans. Now, for the first time, we’re replicating meat, fiber by fiber, using proven and easily scalable textile industry technologies.”
Project Eaden says these fibers can be designed with precision to meet technical requirements including elasticity, water-binding ability, and strength. The ultra-thin fibers are bundled into strands that mimic conventional muscle tissue. The fibers are then combined with vegetable fats for a marbled, plant-based meat nearly identical to its animal-based counterpart.
Courtesy Juicy Marbles
Project Eaden joins Juicy Marbles, another European startup working to displace whole-cut animal meat. But Project Eaden says its tech is unrivaled in taste and texture.
“Our ultimate goal is to offer consumers a product that eliminates every single reason there is to eat animals,” Wilmking said. “We intend to fully recreate and even improve on the sensory profile and the overall pleasure people experience when they eat meat.”
Bessau says a delicious plant-based steak isn’t only associated with benefits for the consumer market, “but also for the planet because livestock are responsible for six percent of all greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “The ‘carbon hoofprint’ is just as large as the carbon footprint of the entire global transport sector – road, air and sea combined.”
In the race to clean up the food system, molecular farming is emerging as one of the protein industry’s most viable contenders.
Molecular farming was first demonstrated more than 30 years ago when scientists produced a recombinant antibody and human serum albumin in transgenic plants and cell cultures. The tech has since expanded its reach with a number of companies working to utilize and commercialize these proteins to create a more sustainable food system.
What exactly is molecular farming?
In simplest terms, molecular farming is producing proteins with plants instead of animals. Plants are modified so that their cells replicate the desired proteins, and are then harvested from the leaves or other plant tissues.
Molecular farming is seen when microorganisms infect plants, transferring some genes in the process. Scientists use similar methods to give plants new instructions for creating proteins.
Photo by Louis Reed at Unsplash.
Why is molecular farming used?
Companies are turning to molecular farming for a number of reasons. It’s been hailed as a viable solution to producing vaccines and other necessary pharmaceuticals. It’s also being hailed as one of the best steps to shift our food system away from carbon-intensive animal products and toward more sustainable alternatives.
Benefits of molecular farming
Just like we’re seeing benefits from other meat and dairy successors both in the health and quality of the food to the smaller environmental impact, molecular farming offers similar benefits. These advances in food tech also hold the promise of a cleaner, more sustainable, and more efficient food system.
Molecular farming companies
The molecular farming landscape is growing rapidly. These are a few of the companies leveraging it to transform the global food system.
1. Miruku
A New Zealand-based future food company developing advanced dairy proteins in plants, Miruku emerged from stealth mode last spring with an oversubscribed $2.4 million Seed investment round.
“Our goal is to provide nutritious and functional animal-free dairy, economically,” Miruku’s CEO Amos Palfreyman said in a statement last spring. “The Miruku team is amped to have been joined by a special set of local and international institutional food tech investors backing our vision of delicious and ecologically sustainable food production, and of course our growth plans.”
2. Bright Biotech
U.K.-based Bright Biotech is working to make plant-based affordable recombinant proteins for R&D, therapeutic, cosmeceutical, agri-food, and industrial applications. It raised $3.2m last November in an oversubscribed Seed round.
The company says it uses “game-changing innovative technology” which uses chloroplasts to express high amounts of high-value proteins in plants. The company is currently producing and supplying recombinant growth factors to the R&D sector.
Courtesy William Mattey via Pexels
3. Mozza
Mozza says its mission is to make cheese from plants that’s indistinguishable from cheese that comes from animals. “It’s not nut cheese. It’s not soy cheese. It’s cheese made from the same proteins found in cow’s milk, but produced in plants rather than in a cow,” reads the Mozza website. And, the company says, because it’s dairy cheese, it will melt like dairy cheese, stretch like dairy cheese, and taste just like conventional.
4. Nobell Foods
Expect to hear the name Nobell Foods a lot more in the near future. The company recently raised $75 million to bring its molecular-based dairy proteins to market. The company uses a patented approach to making dairy from plants — a process that involved more than four years of research and development from founder Magi Richani, an engineer by training. Richani has tapped into caseins, the proteins in cheese that give it its texture and flavor. The company creates these key dairy proteins from soybeans for cheeses that it says taste, smell, melt, stretch, and even age like those made from animals.
ORF’s barley crop | Courtesy
5. ORF Genetics
Iceland’s molecular farming company ORF Genetics sells growth factors to cultivated meat companies. It developed Orfeus, a barley grain based vehicle for recombinant protein production. ORF’s portfolio includes growth factors for the stem cell research market, the skincare market, and cultivated meat. “We are confident that ORF Genetics has the perfect production platform to drastically reduce the cost of growth factors in your cell-cultured meat production and to provide the quantity of growth factors required,” Liv Bergþorsdottir, CEO of ORF Genetics, said in 2020.
6. Tiamat Sciences
North Carolina-based biotech startup Tiamat Sciences raised $3 million in Seed funding in 2021 for its proprietary plant molecular farming platform. It says using plants is less costly than bioreactors but produces the same or superior quality protein.
“Our technology can help to promote animal-free alternatives not only for food but also for the pharmaceutical industry,” France-Emmanuelle Adil, founder and CEO of Tiamat Sciences, said in a statement. “Plants are a great system to work with; they grow fast, are small water and energy consumers, and they are compostable. The technology offers flexibility with production for a diversified product portfolio.”
What does the alt protein industry have in store for us amidst a very turbulent 2023 ahead? A lot, actually. Below, I share my 12 crystal ball takes (in no particular order).
I sat down to write these trends and ended up writing a whole piece about where plant-based meat is going. Amidst predictions, I wanted to share my views on the sector as a whole, given all the brouhaha out there, and I think it’s worth a read.
Author’s Note: This is my third year making alt-protein-specific trend predictions. You can see my 2021 ones and how I did (pretty well, actually!), and here’s last year’s list, as well as my performance (less well, 2022 was rough folks, but still in the running).
This one may seem obvious for industry insiders and has been coming for a while. While affordable and scalable cultivated meat flesh on supermarket shelves is likely years away, cultivated fat is achievable and startups are already collaborating to create sausages, meatballs and more. So much more to come here, because fat is an integral part of animal meat’s mouthfeel so a cultivated fat add-on could help win over those sitting on the plant-based meat fence.
2) Affordable Flexitarianism
Food shoppers are watching their budgets more than ever. They are chasing value and that means brands need to be creative on the pricing front. I foresee a slew of more affordable plant-based products, perhaps reformulated to be cheaper to manufacture. In this vein, my crystal ball suggests a lot more vegan-ready meals (same as I predicted last year) and more plant-based brands venturing into this space à la Impossible Bowls. Also, lots more value packs coming your way, such as Quorn’s Costco Value Packs and Beyond Meat’s pandemic value pack iterations.
Courtesy The Better Meat Co
3) Fungi Forward Fun
I once hosted a Clubhouse chat during which participants told me that many Americans are scared of mushrooms and don’t buy them. I am not sure if that is still true (this was 2020) but as someone who lives in Asia, it’s really hard to believe. Here in Hong Kong, we regularly eat at least 5 kinds of mushrooms every week. Mushrooms are delicious, versatile, budget-friendly, and ideal as replacements for animal meat in so many dishes because of their terrific textures and minimal processing. I’m thinking in 2023 we will see more in this space. And in various formats too, from mycoprotein to mycelium and beyond.
4) More Culinary Diversity, Please
One of the reasons alt protein is still such a niche sector is that it remains far too Western-centric. A majority of the products that have been launched are burgers, nuggets and mince, most with European-derived cuisines in mind. Folks, the proverbial “West” is basically less than a billion people. The 7-billion-plus-strong ROW (rest of world) is who we need to be serving (especially since animal protein demand is growing fastest there) and there are hundreds of cuisines begging for smarter protein product drops. I predict a lot more action on this front, particularly in Asia, where the alt-protein revolution is only just beginning. This prediction dovetails well with general food trend reports that are forecasting mega growth in ROW culinary heritages including Cambodian, Filipino, Nigerian, Dominican and many more. Alt protein should serve wider food trends and meet consumers where they are, which is a much more diverse and authentic gastronomic place.
Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva from Pexels.
5) Canteen Impact
A lot of the data around plant-based meat sales being flat is based on SPINS data, a company that tracks retailer sales, ie grocery stores. What’s missing from this is food service data- ie how much plant-based meat/dairy/seafood/eggs large-scale food catering companies like Sodexo and Compass Group are cooking up. These companies have two main audiences: students (schools and universities) and employees (corporate cafeterias) and collectively serve hundreds of millions of people a day (Sodexo: 100+ million, Compass: 150+ million). When they adjust their menus/feature plant-based options, they can have a ginormous impact in terms of lowering our food emissions. And these companies are committed to plant-based meat in a big way. And not just out of good-heartedness, but also because they have their own Net Zero goals, and decreasing the volume of high-emission animal protein products on their menus is a big part of achieving those goals. Further, in a Gen Z-forward world, catering to diversity is KEY. That means offering up menu items to suit all kinds of dietary preferences. Both education and corporate institutions are under increasing pressure to do so, which means the food service operators have to adapt.
Note: SPINS data doesn’t include fast food/QSR chain data either. And there’s plenty to be excited about on that front too. Moral of the story: plant-based meat is going nowhere.
6) Nostalgia Branding Reigns Supreme
I can’t say this is a Sonalie original, but after having read over a dozen Gen Z trend reports, I feel low-key confident in telling you: expect a lot more nostalgia-induced packaging across all food sectors (currently dominating snacks and beverage aisles), including meat, dairy and seafood analogues. When the economy sucks, we all crave comfort, and that’s what nostalgia branding offers our loud and proud inner child. This trend goes beyond packaging- it extends to product selection too. Think animal-free dairy mac and cheese boxes, vegan fish fingers, plant-based instant ramen, “chickn” pot pie, and more.
Nestlé and Perfect Day’s Cowabunga milk is now available in select locations | Courtesy
7) Big Food x Animal-Free Dairy Go Steady
This is a continuation of my 2022 prediction around precision fermentation- I had a feeling the space was going to take off in a big way and it did. But what I foresee for this year is Big Dairy going full-steam ahead on animal-free dairy formulations, from cheese to yogurt to milk to ice cream. The headlines have already started from the likes of giants such as Fonterra, Bel Group, Unilever and Nestle among others. One of the biggest drivers of these collaborations is the industry’s need to account for their GHG emissions profile. For years, meat took most of the climate activist heat. But in the past couple of years, dairy has come under the spotlight, and rightly so. Expect to see a slew of announcements on this front.
8) Healthy Plus Formulations
In an age of inflation and recessionary pressures, companies must give their consumers every reason to choose their brands over others. And for alt protein brands, who are already perceived to be more expensive and “less than”, health is where they should be investing when it comes to product formulation. We need to give consumers more than just meat replacements and I think some brands get it and are going to jump on this. While I have predicted cleaner-label products before (to muted success, I still think plant-based brands need to do better in this area), this is more than that. Gen Z consumers in particular are hungry for food products that are both delicious AND good for you. Study: the phenomenon that is Mid Day Squares, aka functional organic chocolate energy bars. Also look at Athletic Greens’ unicorn valuation and Olipop fiber-rich prebiotic soda (because soda can’t just be soda anymore). Plant-based meat/seafood brandings should be experimenting with super nutrients and functional ingredients to give consumers that healthy plus bang for their buck (plus with the new US FDA healthy food guidelines, they may not have a choice).
Because, Animals cultivated mouse meat
9) Alt Protein Pet Food FTW
As much as millennials delayed having kids, millennials are choosing to forage the experience altogether. And they are replacing babies with pets. Pet ownership is on the rise and we can’t help but want to spoil our fur babies. That means best-in-class nutrition and food. Pair that with social media ensuring that more pet owners than ever grasp the environmental cost of their furry friends, and this is a massive area of opportunity. There’s already some decent action on the plant-based side of things. But I’m thinking the cultivated pet food opportunity is going to grow. My prediction? Not only will you see more alt-protein pet companies burst onto the scene, but you will also see some existing human-focused players diversify into the pet world, especially seeing as Big Food is jumping into this 112+ billion dollar opportunity.
10) The Quiet Quitting of PB Founders
Word on the VC street is that funding has dried up for plant-based meat. Not only for economic reasons (inflation, looming recession, freefalling public markets), but also for category reasons (plant-based meat is over, or haven’t you heard?)- too many brands, lackluster products, non-recurring customers. Less funding doesn’t just mean fewer new startups, it also means more existing startups will have to close shop because they will run out of money. I predict that over the next year, we will lose 10-20% of the plant-based meat landscape. Unlike with other industries, you won’t hear about it in your Linkedin feed. Why? Well because the majority of these companies (and their investors) are impact-driven. And it’s not good for the mission to talk about failure too much. It just feeds the (Big Meat Lobby) haters. And when you are talking about the future of the planet, the stakes (steaks!) are just too high. Hence…the quiet quitting of plant-based founders.
One of these 'milks' has been shipped halfway round the world and tastes like dust, it also contains stabilisers, emulsifiers, synthetic vitamins and a health warning. The other is produced in Britain, contains milk and no health warnings at all… #februdairy@februdairypic.twitter.com/TS8rr79oVK
An example of an anti alt dairy tweet, part of the pro dairy campaign Februdairy
11) The Politicisation of Alt Protein
Folks it’s been fun. But our time in the “new and innovative sector” sun has ended. For the first few years, Big Food (and Big Meat, Big Dairy, Big Seafood) was happy to let us grow and prosper in our tiny little market share corner. But we’ve made enough of a scene to get their attention and they aren’t too happy about how we’ve managed to get a decent chunk of their customers to question their product’s ethics/health/eco credentials. In my 2021 edition I predicted the revenge of Big Meat. And that’s more than come true. But it’s about to get a lot more sinister. As the industry continues to mature, Big Food is coming for us with its big guns (think Big Oil tactics), and that means politics. We are headed for an Alt Protein = Woke Liberal, Red Meat = Healthy Conservative world. It’s going to get ugly. Examples given: The Nebraska governor’s raging against plant-based meat ahead of the US midterm elections. Big Dairy infiltrating TikTok with anti-oat milk content. Farmers across the world are rebelling against climate action. More to come.
12a) Cultivated Meat Regulatory Approval Continues – US
Last year I predicted that we would see regulatory approval in the US or Israel. I was semi-right. Cultivated chicken meat maker Upside Foods made history to be the first US company to earn GRAS status by the FDA (aka their chicken was deemed safe for human consumption). But that’s only half the battle. To sell their product commercially, they need approval from the USDA. I predict that at least 1 US company gets USDA approval by the end of the year. Upside is strongly positioned to be the chosen one, but cultivated sashimi startup Wildtype could just as likely achieve the milestone. As could BlueNalu.
Meatable’s cultivated pork is coming to Asia soon | Courtesy
12b) Cultivated Meat Regulatory Approval Continues – Global Outlook
I predict the Singaporean government will grant commercial approval to at least 1 local cultivated meat player (I vote for MVP Shiok Meats, which focuses on cultivated seafood), and at least 1 more foreign player (likely Dutch cultivated pork player Meatable or Mosa Meat, given recent announcements).
Despite what remains an optimistic outlook for cultivated meat in China and some recent notable discussions, I don’t believe we will see commercial approval there in 2023. And I have changed my mind about Israel. While I do believe the country is home to some of the most exciting alt protein startups in the world (I do predict the country will continue to produce incredible cultivated meat innovation) and the government is very supportive with funding and talent, commercial approval is unlikely in 2023, thanks to a new ultra-conservative government and domestic geopolitics.
Over in Europe: again, lots of innovation and industry support, but Brussels is well known for being ultra-careful when it comes to approving novel food technologies (see: GMOs) so while I do think the Continent will eventually say yes to cultivated meat, it’s going to take a while. As for the UK, well, while some folks believe it will lead in this area, I remain skeptical. Firstly, their domestic political landscape is a mess (ref: every political headline for the past 4 months!) and secondly, UK farmers have a powerful voice. The government is not going to rock that boat.
For an overview of the ten most supportive countries when it comes to cultivated meat, see here.
Other stuff I am watching:
Seaweed as a super ingredient > we’ve barely scratched the surface of this wonder group of sea vegetables and we will be seeing more seaweed-fortified foods across the board as companies scramble to make their products more sustainable and more healthy (seaweed serves both).
More upstream supply chain biotech funding > (machinery, serums, scaffolding, cell lines) > as VCs get increasingly gun-shy around backing new cultivated meat and precision fermentation end-product teams, they will turn to upstream technology plays, which is very good for the space. The sector can’t scale with sorting out the fundamentals.
Alt food growth > we need to rethink how we produce more than just meat, seafood, eggs and dairy. Coffee, chocolate, palm oil, and sugar- all have problematic ethical and environmental footprints, from child labor to exploitative working conditions to deforestation. So many more companies will come to market to (try to) wrong the rights!
Philippines-based plant-based meat manufacturer WTH Foods has launched Umani, a new range of frozen plant-based products drawing on Filipino culture.
The mission-driven WTH Foods says its new range of frozen meals is part of its goal of helping to feed the planet’s estimated population of ten billion people by 2050.
Umani
The new WTH Foods Umani range, a combination of the Japanese word “umami”(“delicious) and the Filipino word “ani” (“harvest”), the frozen range includes sausages, burgers, meatballs, mince, sisig, tapa, tuna, and a holiday ham roast.
Umani’s products are made from wheat, soy, and microalgae. The company says they offer a good source of protein and fiber while being free from trans fats, cholesterol, hormones, and antibiotics common in conventional meat.
“We, at WTH Foods, innovate food experiences and transform the way the world eats one plate at a time,” Carissa Lim, co-founder and chief operating officer, told The Philippine Star.
“We hope to raise awareness on nutrition, sustainability and food security, and find new ways to satisfy the population’s dietary protein requirements,” Lim said.
Diving into plant-based seafood
The company, which Lim co-founded alongside Stephen Co and Carlo Ng, says it will also turn its attention to the booming plant-based seafood category beyond the tuna offered in the Umani range.
“We use microalgae for food applications, such as plant-based seafood, beverages, sauces and high-moisture extrusion,” Lim said.
Umani is taking on traditional meaty Filipino dishes like sisig with plants | Courtesy
“Our R&D will develop our microalgae solutions for biomass supply, extraction of value ingredients, and development and isolation of our own strain,” she said.
WTH has been working with universities, government agencies, and R&D teams to develop new products and expand its reach. It’s eyeing expansion to Southeast Asia, Europe, North America, and the Middle East over the next few years.
“We expect to grow in terms of distribution and register the products with appropriate regulatory agencies for global expansion and presence in Asia Pacific and Europe. We would collaborate with other businesses and improve accessibility to our products and services,” she said.
Lotteria Co. Ltd., the South Korean quick-service restaurant chain with more than 1,300 locations, has added a new version of its Ria Miracle plant-based burger to the menu.
The Ria Miracle Burger II, which follows its Ria Miracle Burger launch in 2020, is now on the menu at Lotteria locations across South Korea.
The chain, known for Korean-style hamburgers and fried chicken, says the new burger is soy based. Its predecessor was made from wheat gluten.
The Ria Miracle Burger II
Lotteria received pushback when it launched its first Ria iteration; the burger buns contained milk and eggs and the sauce had beef extract in it. The chain reformulated to meet the growing demand for plant-based options.
“These days, a growing number of Koreans are interested in plant-based burgers,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Our new burger would be good for those who eat and have started to eat plant-based food.”
Lotteria’s Ria Miracle Burger || is made from ‘veef’ | Courtesy
Ria Miracle Burger II is made from soy protein, which the company says gives it a meaty texture and flavor. It comes with a soy-onion sauce and tomato. Lotteria also launched ‘Lea Miracle Burger II’ and ‘Double Ria Miracle Burger II’ options.
“Customers who prefer alternative meat are gradually increasing due to the expansion of new consumption trends among customers,” An official from Lotte GRS said in a statement. “We plan to take the lead in the athletic burger market.”
‘Ethical consumption’
Following the 2020 launch of its first Ria Miracle Burger, Lotteria said it sought to reflect the market trend, “in which more people are showing an interest in ethical consumption. We will continue to expand the market, so that customers who care about the environment and their health can enjoy various types of veggie burgers.”
Burger King is launching 2 new vegan burgers for Veganuary
In a LinkedIn post, The Good Food Institute said the menu update “is just the latest sign that alternative proteins are picking up steam among local consumers.” It cited data from The Korea International Trade Association, which has previously predicted that plant-based meat “could overtake conventional meat for market share by as soon as 2040.”
The launch comes as other fast-food chains, chiefly, Burger King, are leaning into plant-based offerings. Burger King just unveiled a new vegan bacon cheeseburger at its U.K. locations for Veganuary.
The idea that plant-based meat is over is ridiculous. Sure, too many mediocre brands launched too fast and too early. But amidst a burning planet and worsening climate crisis, the category is just getting started.
Over the past few months, media headlines decrying plant-based meat’s demise have dominated US airwaves. These headlines are grossly misleading. First of all, it’s a very North America-centric view of the world- around the world, there is evidence that consumers are decreasing their animal meat consumption and embracing plant-based meat. In fact, we published an entire report on the growing alt protein industry across Asia Pacific. Secondly, a lot of these headlines use Beyond Meat as the industry avatar by which to judge a sector that has over 1,000 companies. This is a misguided way to look at things, as I write about here.
The idea that plant-based meat is over is ridiculous. Did too many brands launch too fast? Sure. Did a lot of mediocre products end up on grocery shelves? Absolutely. Does that mean we should pack up our plant-based leather bags and go home? Heck no.
Reality check: in the US, plant-based meat sales are down or flat. Investment into the space has more than halved according to Crunchbase data (from $ 2 billion in 2021 to $800 million in 2022). And anecdotally, I used to get dozens of new product pitches and funding announcements in my Green Queen inbox every week and now we are down to less than five. Across the world, plant-based meat is taking a beating. For a deeper look at what’s going on with plant-based meat sales in the US and abroad, I recommend this alt protein investor’s analysis.
I am in no way suggesting that the industry does not have its problems. There are too many plant-based products that simply don’t taste great – vegan commercial cheese is a particularly disappointing area. A number of consumers find the products overly processed (though let’s get real about what’s in our meat and remind ourselves that it’s carcinogenic!). Investors absolutely got caught up in the hype and didn’t always do their DD, backing companies that were undeserving. The products are often more expensive than their animal counterparts, which is highly problematic, especially when regular folks are battling skyrocketing food inflation due to an uneven economy, rising interest rates and supply chain chaos.
All that said, Impossible Foods just reported a 50% increase in retail sales in 2022, which shows that good governance + good branding + good product R&D (over the past 18 months, the company debuted chicken nuggets, meal bowls, sausage links and more) is still a recipe for success and repeat consumers. Hot take: Beyond Meat is having a bad year because the company could be run better, not because plant-based meat is done and dusted.
If anything, the justification for the sector has never been clearer. Here are some of them. 1) Gen Z is hyper climate aware and they are ditching meat, and their friends and families are becoming social omnivores. 2) Our global food supply is increasingly interrupted by climate change-related extreme weather- your pantry will not look the same in five years- many of your favorite foods will be too expensive or impossible to source. 3) Food insecurity continues to be a major problem and governments are turning to alternative protein as a solution – Singapore’s 30 by 2030 plan is a good case study. 4) Industrial meat production requires too heavy a GHG emissions price. 5) Industrial meat consumption is linked to a slew of diet-related diseases. That means sick folks, skyrocketing healthcare costs, and a less productive population. 6) Industrial meat requires more land, more water and more energy than we have to give if we are being realistic about our resource allocation. 7) It also produces more methane and demands more antibiotics than we (humanity) can afford. Cue the superbug resistance crisis. 8) Demand for animal protein keeps growing, particularly in Asia, where hundreds of millions of people are becoming middle class and looking to increase their dietary status via meat consumption.
I could go on and on (I haven’t even touched upon the ethical case against eating meat- here are the best books to get you started if you learn more) but you get the gist. Animal protein production is broken and the status quo needs to be upended. Hence, the case for plant-based meat.
Are you an advocate of organic, whole food, plant-based diets who can’t understand why folks need beef replacements? Good for you! Keep on enjoying the healthiest diet around.
For everyone else, we need lower emission options. The world’s largest fast-food chain, McDonald’s, sells over 2.36 billion burgers a year (this is a 2021 stat). That’s the industrial meat we desperately need to convert to plant-based.
Some back-of-the-napkin climate math. The average burger is responsible for around 2.84 kg of CO2. So that’s approximately 6.7 million tonnes of CO2 in McDonald’s burgers alone (excuse my crappy, back-of-the-napkin math). According to tree offsetting data, you’d have to plant 300+ billion trees* to offset the carbon cost of the burgers, not to mention everything else on the menu. And all the other fast food chains. And all the industrial supermarket meat. For perspective, we currently plant 1.9 billion trees a year.
And no, we can’t feed the world’s animal protein appetite using 100% grass-fed, regeneratively-grown beef, sorry. That type of meat will remain a tiny proportion of total meat production and only be eaten by an elite, privileged (mostly Global North-dwelling) sliver of our global population.
So, onwards for plant-based meat! Tomorrow, I will share my 2023 alt protein trend predictions, and they include plenty of suggestions and ideas for the industry on how we can better serve our customers and our purpose. Stay tuned.
*According to the agency Encon, “to compensate 1 tonne of CO2, 31 to 46 trees are needed.” So 6.7 million tonnes x 46 trees is how I got to the 300+ billion trees needed.
Israel-based Vgarden, Ltd., has launched its first vegan tuna in tins and pouches.
Vgarden says its plant-based tuna has the same appearance, texture, and flavor as conventional tuna. And it is competitively priced to other canned tunas, too. It joins a growing category in the protein successors market.
‘Clean-label, scalable, affordable, and sustainable’
“Tinned tuna has a very distinct flaky, yet moist and chewy texture, with a powerful fresh-from-the-sea aroma,” Ilan Adut, CEO of Vgarden, said in a statement. “Our new tuna-like product is clean-label, scalable, affordable, and sustainable. But for our plant-based creation to serve as a true substitute, even beyond compellingly mimicking all of the sensory qualities, it also has to match tuna as much as possible in nutritional value.”
Vgarden, founded by Kibbutz Gan Shmuel and the Eliav family, has already brought vegan meat and dairy products to market under the MashuMashu brand with placement in Australia, Canada, Asia, and Europe.
Vgarden tuna is sustainably made | COurtesy
The company says it dived into vegan tuna as a growing number of consumers are becoming more concerned about seafood and overfishing, especially wild tuna populations. According to the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation,13 percent of tuna stocks are considered overfished.
Tuna is the world’s most popular fish; the global tuna market is expected to grow from more than $41 billion in 2022 to nearly $50 billion by 2029.
Tuna is an affordable and accessible protein, but consumers are also wary of ocean pollutants including heavy metals and microplastics, both of which are increasingly common in tuna.
Vgarden tuna
The new vegan tuna was a 12-month development process. The “short list” recipe includes pea protein for a protein count of 11.2 to 14 percent. The company says the manufacturing process used minimal energy and water, further lifting the burden on marine life. The tuna comes in pouches for chilled storage and shelf-stable tins that use patent-pending technology to protect its flavor and texture.
Vgarden’s tuna is canned in a patent-pending process | Courtesy
“Aquaculture and the overfishing of this high-in-demand fish has had a devastating effect on their numbers to the point that it has put several species, such as the yellowfin and the Atlantic Bluefin, on the edge of extinction,” said Tom Rothman, Head of global sales at Vgarden.
“This not only poses problems in terms of food security but also negatively impacts the delicate and fragile balance of the marine environment,” Rothman said. “Our plant-based tuna solution can help turn the tide on this ecocatastrophe and contribute to the restoration of the ocean’s wild tuna populations.”
In a sign that widespread regulatory approval for cultivated meat is imminent, regulatory experts from the U.S. and China met to discuss the next steps.
A recent virtual event organized by the AgFood Future Center of Excellence (AGF) and the Agriculture Food Partnership (AFP), saw the meeting between China and the U.S. regulators come just after Upside Foods became the first cultivated meat producer to earn U.S. FDA GRAS status (generally recognized as safe).
The event saw Jeremiah Fasano, senior policy advisor at the FDA’s Regulatory Review Office, deliver a keynote address. Fasano encouraged the industry to connect “early and often” to keep the sector moving forward.
‘Preparing public guidelines for the industry’
“FDA is communicating with different companies, and we are preparing public guidelines for the industry,” Fasano said. “As companies engage with more regulators, more reviews and approvals get completed, adding to the global body of knowledge to jointly promote food technology innovation and food safety.”
Meatable’s cultivated pork is coming to Asia soon | Courtesy
Ryan Xue, chairman of Agfood Future, says the meetings provide vital opportunities for “all players involved” in the protein innovation sector including the start-ups producing the meat and their financiers. “This in-depth sharing between the U.S. and China will have far-reaching significance for governments and industries interested in seeing the adoption of food innovation that will help shape food innovation and the future of food in the U.S., China and the world,” Xue said.
China says it will focus on safety assessments of cultivated meat this year. “In addition, 2023 plans include setting up expert working groups to ensure innovation, industry development, and food safety move forward together,” said Yan Song, director of Division III Risk Assessment at CFSA.
Regulatory approval for cultivated meat
Currently, Singapore is the only country in the world that’s approved the sale and consumption of cultivated meat. It granted Bay Area food tech company Eat Just regulatory approval for its cultivated chicken in 2020.
GOOD Meat cultivated chicken | courtesy Eat Just
The GRAS status granted to Upside Foods, another Bay Area cultivated meat producer, is the first step in the U.S. toward receiving approval. The meat must also receive USDA approval.
According to Wired, the GRAS status came through a “premarket consultation process,” during which “food manufacturers provide the FDA with details of their production process and the product it creates, and once the FDA is satisfied that the process is safe, it then issues a ‘no further questions’ letter.”
New data from leading food service distributor Sodexo shows ten percent of all meals sold through its U.K. and Ireland sites in 2022 were vegan or vegetarian.
The number of plant-based meals sold through Sodexo’s nearly 500 U.K. client sites grew from eight percent in 2021 to ten percent last year. Leading the growth were clients in the health care industries, selling an average of 17 percent vegan or vegetarian meals. Clients in the East Midlands saw the biggest proportion of plant-based meals at 21 percent.
‘A shift in consumer awareness’
“Whether people are vegan, vegetarian, or just want to try something new, it’s great to see that more and more customers are trying plant-based meals across our sites. This really demonstrates a shift in consumer awareness, a wider range of options, and a marketplace responding,” Claire Atkins-Morris, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Sodexo, said in a statement.
Sodexo’s vegan options include lentil celeriac chestnut pie, potato mixed bean chilli, tofu summer tart, Southern Indian vegan chickpea curry, vegan mushroom burger, vegan chicken nuggets, and aubergine masala among others.
Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva from Pexels.
Sodexo says its Energy and Resources clients saw the biggest increase in vegan and vegetarian meals year-on-year, growing from two percent in 2021 to 12 percent last year. Schools and universities were surprisingly lower at five percent, despite younger generations driving demand for plant-based options. Government sites grew from five percent to seven percent. Corporate Services client sites made up 13 percent of meals, up from ten percent in 2021.
Veganuary
Sodexo released the data ahead of Veganuary, the popular U.K.-based campaign that encourages people to eat vegan for the entire month of January.
“We’re delighted to see Sodexo reporting an increase in sales of vegan and vegetarian meals across their UK and Ireland client sites,” Toni Vernelli, Head of Communication & Marketing at Veganuary said.
Veganuary is coming
“Veganuary is here to support anyone who wants to try being vegan, but it makes our job a lot simpler when organisations like Sodexo are offering delicious, nutritious, and easily accessible options,” Vernelli said.
“We are a proud supporter of Veganuary, and our community of chefs are encouraging more customers to try our plant-based meals by developing delicious vegan and vegetarian recipes that show the variety of meal options people have at our client sites,” Atkins-Morris said. “As part of our Net Zero commitment, we have set ourselves the goal of increasing the number of plant-based meals and recipes our clients choose from to 33 percent by 2025.”
Burger King has launched a new Bacon King range with two vegan options for Veganuary: The Vegan Royale Bakon King and The Plant-Based Bakon King (Single or Double).
The new burgers, available at U.K. locations, build on Burger King’s growing vegan offerings. The new burgers feature vegan from Natalie Portman-backed brand La Vie and dairy-free cheese from Greek company Violife. Last month, Burger King made La Vie’s vegan bacon a permanent menu item at more than 500 locations.
‘A diverse and innovative range of products’
“We’re incredibly proud of our new menu additions and confident that our customers will enjoy the new plant-based bacon and cheese as much as we have in taste tests,” Katie Evans, a Burger King U.K. representative said in a statement. “The extension of our plant-based offer reflects our ongoing commitment to serve a diverse and innovative range of products, whilst aiming to reach a 50 percent meat-free menu by 2030.”
Courtesy
Romain Jolivet, La Vie’s chief marketing officer, praised Burger King for its “open-mindedness” and its leadership that allows “millions of consumers” to be able to try “our next generation of plant-based bacon.”
“With only 7 ingredients and a product packed with proteins and fibers, this is a bakon for the kings, not for the clowns,” Jolivet said.
Soco Núñez de Cela, brand and communications director at Burger King U.K., said the fast-food chain is thrilled to be joining forces with La Vie.
“The synergy between our two brands and fierce campaign tactics meant this partnership was a match made in heaven.
Nuñez says that after the success of the Bristol and Leicester Square meat-free restaurants, the chain is looking forward to building on its partnership with La Vie “to ensure we meet our goal to become 50 percent plant-based by 2030 in the U.K.”
50 percent plant-based by 2030
Last year, Burger King added vegan nuggets to its U.K. locations. And following its plant-based location in London and Bristol, it hosted similar pop-ups in Portugal, Austria, Spain, and Switzerland. In Germany, the chain now offers a vegan version of everything on its menu
Burger King vegan pop-up | Courtesy
“Adapting to customer preferences is a key focus at Burger King,” the chain’s U.K. chief executive Alasdair Murdoch said in a statement.
“We are committed to helping our guests make good decisions about what they eat and drink and providing them with informed choices.”
The California-based Climax Foods is using biotech and plants to create ‘moonshot’ cheese — a sustainable dairy alternative that can help fight the climate crisis.
Climax’s German-born founder and CEO, Dr. Oliver Zahn came to the category with a science background; he worked at Google, SpaceX, and Impossible Foods prior to launching the vegan cheese brand in 2020 and was armed with a deep understanding of the climate crisis and the need for tangible solutions.
Climax Foods
Following its Seed funding round — $7.5 million, the largest Seed raise for a food-tech startup — the company turned an old chocolate factory in Berkeley, California, into its cheese laboratories.
Climax Foods’ first products are Blue cheese, Brie, Chèvre, and Feta | Courtesy
That work is now coming to fruition as the company has announced plans to launch its artisanal cheese in three U.S. markets: New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
The first cheeses it’s bringing to market include Blue, Brie, Feta, and Chèvre. Climax says they taste and perform like conventional cheeses. The dairy-free cheeses are made from seeds, legumes, and plant oils.
Rethinking ancient practices
“We started from a profound appreciation for the complex flavors and textures of dairy products,” Zahn said. “Cows have made our milk for thousands of years. However, less than ten percent of the plants they eat get turned into food for humans, which has led to significant environmental and health problems in today’s much more crowded world.”
Zahn says It is human nature to rethink ancient practices, “so we came up with a smarter way. By using data science to accelerate plant-based ingredient and process discoveries, we are saving thousands of years of tinkering to create products that are just as tasty as the cow-based predecessors without the downsides, today.”
The company is using tech it calls “Deep Plant Intelligence” — a combination of molecular-level data about animal products and its proprietary plant-based ingredients database. The tech allows Climax to create its recipes from thousands of plants.
Climax Foods is building a new production facility | Courtesy
Climax is partnering with Caroline Di Giusto — a world leader in conventional cheesemaking. Climax is also building a new production and pilot hub in Petaluma, California.
“Our technology and ingredient discoveries will soon power the replacements of bigger categories with successors that will be equally delicious and nutritious but more sustainable and – because our products are not heavily processed – substantially more economical and environmentally friendly,” says Zahn.
Hello Plant Foods can’t keep its vegan foie gras, Fuah!, in stock.
Following King Charles’ recent ban on foie gras at all royal residences, the longtime decadent favorite food got an ethical makeover. The royal ban follows other efforts to restrict foie gras including bans in California and New York.
Spanish plant-based meat brand Hello Plant Foods first announced its vegan foie gras last month, several weeks after King Charles announced the royal ban. The brand says it’s also the first vegan foie gras for food service distribution.
Fuah! Gras
Hello Plant Foods didn’t take the responsibility of recreating the popular luxury food lightly; the company says it tested 800 recipes over the course of a year before its launch.
The market appeared to be ready; just 12 hours after it launched 5,000 units of the product, it sold out at supermarkets and specialty stores across Spain. A second production round of 30,000 units also sold out.
Fuah! Gras is the first vegan foie gras for for food service | Courtesy
Hello Plant Foods is capitalizing on a market gap; only Nestlé’s limited edition vegan foie gras has widespread European placement, but demand is high.
“We’re absolutely gobsmacked,” Javier Fernández, Hello Plant Foods founder, told The Guardian. “Our plan was to start slowly … but we’ve just increased our production sevenfold. It’s crazy.”
Fernández launched Hello Plant Foods during the pandemic with the goal of developing vegan products that mimic organic meats; foie gras is made from duck and geese livers.
Hello Plant Foods says it mimics the taste and texture of conventional foie gras using cashews, coconut oil, lentil flour, potato starch, and spices. The Spain-produced foie gras costs about half as much as conventional.
“Our vegan foie gras is so similar to the traditional animal product that consumers will not notice the difference. Everyone who tries it says that it is hyper-realistic. We are sure that soon many more people will take the step and join our vegan alternative because more and more consumers are becoming aware of the food’s impact on the environment,” Fernández said.
Late last year, Nestlé’s Garden Gourmet laucnhed a limited-edition vegan ‘voie gras’ ahead of the holidays season.
Nestlé’s Garden Gourmet launched vegan foie gras last year | Courtesy
“Hello Fuah! will become the category’s benchmark product and will be available throughout the year,” says Fernández. The company also makes vegan burgers and bacon.
But all focus is now on Fuah! as Fernández says there’s a “hidden” consumer that loves foie gras. “But what happens is that a photo of the ducks with the tubes sticking out of them flashes before them and they don’t want it,” he said. “When they try Fuah! their eyebrows shoot up and they go: ‘Madre Mia.’”
Climate change will affect hundreds of millions of Indians and bring about widespread food insecurity- government support of alternative proteins is essential to achieving national food security and independence.
By: Ambika Hiranandani of the Good Food Institute India, MPhil., Public Policy, University of Cambridge and Shyam Mehta, Vice President at CREAEGIS India, Consumer, Retail and Consumer Technology Sector
Implementing strategic sustainable food policies today will be the foundation that will help bridge nutritional gaps and feed India in the future. This month, a report from the World Bank jolted the billion-strong nation by forecasting that India will be one of the first countries to face heat waves that break the human survivability limit. According to the report, over 160-200 million people in India will be vulnerable to heat waves by 2030 and 34 million people will lose their jobs because of heat stress associated with productivity decline.
Climate scientists have long cautioned that heat waves caused by global warming will create obstacles in India’s quest for food security. This March was the hottest on record and shrunk wheat production in key producing states, increased the price of the crop by 20%, and led to an export prohibition. Other crops that will bear the brunt of these heat waves will be soya, barley, and mustard. Faced with weather-related uncertainty and other challenges, India’s farming communities are forced into debt which they can often never return. In the Marathwada district of Maharashtra alone, 600 farmers have committed suicide because of their inability to pay back debt and make their operations profitable. Over 70% of rural Indian households depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, by 2030 73.9 million Indians will be at risk from hunger; if one were to factor in the effects of climate change this figure increases to 90.6 million.
Flaws with the government’s response to food security concerns
To meet food security needs, the government is investing heavily in the livestock sector which is yielding tremendous financial results. Over a six-year period that ended in 2021, the livestock sector registered a compound annual growth rate of 8%. India is currently home to over 35% of the world’s livestock and India is one of the top 5 methane emitting countries. We are aware that 14.5% of the total GHG emissions come from livestock and 44% of these emissions are composed of methane. Over 20 years, methane’s global warming impact is 80 times that of carbon dioxide. India has not signed the Global Methane Pledge. The Global Methane Pledge was signed by over 100 countries at COP 26 who have committed to reducing their methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Professor Partha Dasgupta in his report on the Economics of Biodiversity emphasized the need for us to understand the hidden costs of environmental destruction and for us to quantify this in economic terms. If we were to analyze India’s livestock growth with this lens, it would perhaps tell a very different story.
Alternative proteins: sustainable hero foods
This is where alternative proteins come in as a sustainable hero food to provide nutritious, tasty and inexpensive food to the nation and help strengthen the economy. India’s sherpa to the G20, Mr. Amitabh Kant, in his speech at the Good Food Institute’s Future of Protein Summit referred to this sector as a “sunrise sector” which is filled with potential to help mitigate problems ranging from malnutrition to climate change. By 2030, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, the plant-based food market is expected to be worth USD 162 billion and account for 7.7% of the global protein market. In a high growth scenario India’s local market will be worth approximately USD 713 million and, in a low growth scenario, will be USG 217 million. So far there are start-ups that have brought plant-based mince, kebabs, and patties. These companies have created high-end products which are gaining popularity in an urban environment; however, the rural consumer has not been catered to. The potential for plant-based meats to meet the nutritional needs of those at the margins remains largely unexplored. The global CM economy is expected to be worth USD 450 billion by 2040. There are a couple of CM start-ups in India, Clear Meat has developed and tasted its first cultivated chicken mince product in early 2020 and is planning to launch its first market-ready product by 2023. Sutapa Sikdar of Clear Meat explains that as there is no specific regulatory framework for cultivated meat in India, they have not been able to apply for regulatory approval. However, they are in touch with the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and are hopeful that structures will be put into place. MyoWorks, an early-stage start-up, is looking to manufacture a range of ingredients and scaffolds for the cultivated-meat industry globally. MyoWorks has received USD 50,000 from the Department of Biotechnologyto demonstrate preliminary proof of concept.
India has the foundation needed to develop alternative proteins; its agricultural biodiversity lends itself to developing plant-based meats from a diverse range of crops. It produces 25% of the world’s pulses and is of the world’s largest producers and exporters of millet. Startups are working with indigenous farming communities to grow Pongamia seeds which are a rich protein source and creating livelihoods for otherwise disenfranchised people. Its biopharma sector has the potential to pioneer innovation in cultivated meat.
The Food Safety Standards (Approval of Non-Specified Foods and Food Ingredients) Regulation, 2017 details the procedure for the pre-market authorization of ‘novel’ foods. Novel foods, according to the regulations, are new additives; processing aids; food ingredients consisting of or isolated from bacteria, yeast, fungus, or algae. However, the definition of ‘novel’ food stops short of making a direct reference to ‘animal cell culture’. Regarding plant-based products, the usage of the terms ‘milk’, ‘butter’ and ‘cheese’ for plant-based products was prohibited by the FSSAI through an executive order dated 15th July 2021. The reasoning behind this order was that the ‘General Standard for Milk and Milk Products’ under the Food Safety and Standards (Food Products and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011 did not permit the usage of a dairy term for a plant-based product. The order also directed that action be taken against companies flouting this rule and that e-commerce sites delist plant-based products using such terms. However, coconut milk and peanut butter were spared from the application of this order due to the international usage of these terms. This was challenged in the Delhi High Court by plant-based product manufacturing companies. As the issue currently stands, the court has temporarily permitted plant-based product manufacturers to use dairy terms pending their final decision on the issue.
The critical importance of government support
The government sets the public policy agenda which determines where research funding goes, details enterprises that will receive fiscal benefits and that those at the margins benefit from novel innovation. So far, India has not set the public policy agenda in favour of the growth of alternative protein companies. Food security is a major theme of India’s G20 presidency and India advocated for 2023 to be declared as the International Year of Millets by the United Nations. The building blocks for an alternative protein-positive policy are there and can be built on with tangible targets which also ties into India’s net zero commitment.
Policy options to mainstream these hero foods
Policy options such as creating a favourable regulatory framework, providing economic incentives to companies that leverage plant-based proteins to meet the rural needs of those at the margins, and creating structures within the government that focus exclusively on the development of alternative proteins need to be explored. The Swachh Bharat Mission focused on sanitation was the world’s largest nudge campaign and changed the habits of millions of Indians. Similar nudges can be employed to change India’s eating habits to nutritionally rich sustainable food.
Alternative proteins have the potential to ameliorate previously unsolvable wicked problems ranging from food insecurity to GHG emissions from food to malnutrition. Innovation can only go so far with limited government support to achieve its potential. India can get ahead of the curve by changing its local landscape and becoming a global player; however, the time to act is now.
Ohio-based Matrix F.T., a leading developer of plant-based scaffolds and microcarriers for the alternative protein industry, says it has developed the first cultivated chicken made in Ohio.
The team at Matrix F.T. says it has created a proof of concept cultivated chicken nugget to showcase its technology — edible microcarriers and scaffolds that function as key ingredients in cultivated meat products that look, cook, and taste like conventional.
Currently, the most common types of microcarriers used to provide a scaffold for cells are inedible and must be removed from cultivated meat before consumption. A number of companies and researchers are working to develop edible microcarriers. Last summer, UCLA researchers announced they had created an edible particle that produces a more natural muscle-like texture for cultivated meat. The researchers say they’re using a process that could be scaled up for mass production.
Ohio’s first cultivated nugget
Matrix F.T.’s headquarters include engineering labs and biological testing facilities where cell culture experiments are conducted to test performance, food safety, and sterility on its scaffolds and microcarriers. The company also conducts contracted research in its wet lab for cultivated meat companies.
GOOD Meat cultivated chicken | courtesy Eat Just
Microcarriers work by growing and proliferating cells in bioreactors. Scaffolding helps to mature and differentiate cells, signal gene and protein expressions, and turn cells into complex tissue structures, which become cultivated meat. It works with 3D extracellular matrices for cell growth and proliferation.
The company says its first chicken myoblasts — muscle cells — came from a University partner. The cells were cultivated by Heidi Coia, PhD., the Director of Product Development and Innovation at Matrix F.T. The harvested cells were combined with a proprietary mixture of plant-based proteins to create the hybrid chicken nugget.
“It had a great flavor, texture, and we were delighted to give a small example of how our customizable products can contribute to each of our customers’ unique cell-based foods that they are going to take to market,” Coia said.
Plant-based scaffolds and microcarriers
Matrix F.T. opened its new wet lab last April, aiming to expand its work in growing cultivated protein made with edible, plant-based nanofiber scaffolds and microcarriers.
The company said the new facility is instrumental in shortening the gap between engineering custom plant-based, nanofiber scaffolds and quickly delivering a final product for cultivated meat companies’ go-to-market timelines.
Upside Foods’ EPIC California factory, Courtesy
“Before opening the wet lab, Matrix F.T. relied heavily on customer feedback to learn if the scaffolds we custom-engineered for their applications were working,” Teryn Wolfe, Matrix F.T.’s VP of Corporate Development, said in a statement. “Now that we can provide partners with a more robust suite of R&D offerings, we’re able to have greater control and deliver results at the speed needed to help our customers scale. This is another important step in our ability to fuel innovation across the board, and we’re proud to continue to lead in the cultivated protein space, right here from Ohio.”
The new nugget launch is the latest in the quickly crowding cultivated chicken category. Late last year, California-based Upside Foods was the first U.S. company to receive the FDA’s GRAS status for its cultivated chicken. The company says it can produce 400,000 pounds of cultivated meat per year at its factory.
Spanish vegan meat brand Heura has released a sustainable, plant-based fish range with the oceans’ health in mind.
Leading Europe’s plant-based meat category, Barcelona-based Heura is now diving into the plant-based fish category with the launch of vegan F’sh Fillet and F’ish Fingers. “This is just the start,” the company says, noting it will expand the fish alternative range.
Heura F’sh
Heura says the new products are both low in saturated fat and rich in plant-based protein. The products also boast 40 milligrams of Omega-3 fatty acids – comparable to conventional fish. Omega fats are critical for healthy brain function, skin, and joint health.
The products were in development for more than a year, Heura says. It claims to be the first company to conduct a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) for plant-based fish based on the ISO 14040 standard. According to the LCA, the climate impact of Heura’s vegan fish products are 70 percent lower than conventional fish.
Heura is entering the vegan fish category | Courtesy
“Science and data have shown us the importance of keeping marine ecosystems intact, and the best way to do so is to reduce human activity to the minimum,” Marc Coloma, Heura’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “As a mission-driven food-tech startup steeped in rich Mediterranean heritage, we recognized the need to introduce fish successors, so people across Europe can continue to enjoy the foods we love, while minimising the negative impact on the planet and animals.”
Heura points to the growing demand across Europe for plant-based alternatives to animal products. It says nearly half of European consumers are reducing their meat consumption as part of climate commitments.
“This reduction is a great step forward for the future of the earth and its inhabitants, since animal products account for 82 percent of the carbon emissions of European diets,” the company says.
But Heura says despite the growing awareness, much of the shift is happening with beef, pork, and chicken alternatives — a move it says “leaves global fish stocks to continue to plummet each year.”
The company points to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization data that show 70 percent of fish populations are already fully exploited or completely deleted.
‘Net positive food system’
“The launch of our 100 percent plant-based fish is our latest step towards Heura’s ambition of creating a net positive food system by accelerating the transition to plant-based protein and offering sought-after foods with a significantly lower CO2 impact that enables a more just food system,” Coloma said.
Heura says its vegan fish has a 70% smaller footprint than conventional | Courtesy
The two new products come on the heels of announcing expansion into the U.K., with placement at 200 Waitrose supermarkets, just ahead of Veganuary.
“Over the past year, Heura has grown its availability in the U.K. sixfold, and joining the shelves of Waitrose will further address the growing desire from British consumers to reduce their intake of animal meat products,” Coloma said.
“Throughout 2023, Heura will be focused on expanding its reach across Europe, to offer even more people meat successors – 100 percent plant-based foods that are superior from a nutrient-density and sustainability standpoint.”
