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Category: Alt Protein

  • Meatable Only Needs One Cell to Grow the ‘Sausage of the Future’

    sausage
    3 Mins Read

    Dutch food tech company Meatable says it is using a groundbreaking technology to produce cultivated pork for the first time.

    With a target go-to-market date before 2025, Meatable has revealed its newest cultivated meat product: pork sausages.

    “This is a truly exciting moment for the entire Meatable team,” Krijn de Nood, co-founder and CEO of Meatable, said in a statement. “To be able to see and cook our sausages for the first time was an incredible experience especially as my co-founder Daan and I were able to finally have our first taste.”

    According to de Nood, the launch was particularly exhilarating for the team. The company launched in 2018 with a belief that cultivated meat is the future of food, de Nood said. “We can’t wait to enable more people to taste Meatable meat on the next step of our journey to create the new natural meat.” 

    FBS alternatives

    Meatable joins a growing number of cultivated protein producers opting out of using fetal bovine serum as the growth medium. The controversial ingredient brings up animal welfare concerns. It’s also cost prohibitive. Meatable says all it needs to produce its meat is “one single cell sample, taken harmlessly from an animal,” in order to replicate its protein potential.

    Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

    “In the last few months, huge steps have been taken by the team to create the cultivated sausages which have the same structure, texture, glossiness and pronounced pork flavour that customers know and love,” the company said. “The product even produces the signature sizzle in the pan, just like traditional sausages—this is because it isn’t like meat, it is real meat.”

    The cultivated pork can be grown in just a few weeks’ time—an achievement Meatable says demonstrates the technology’s sustainability. Meatable points to research that found cultivated meat could reduce the meat industry’s environmental impact by as much as 92 percent. Animal agriculture accounts for more than 14 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

    Market opportunity

    While a lack of regulatory approval prevents a market launch, Meatable is eyeing Germany, which is about 27 percent of the sausage market. The company says it hopes that its sausage will be the first step to making cultivated meat more accessible to the wider public. And its recent funding rounds may help it do that. It raised $47 million in its Series A financing round last year.

     

    Meatable co-founders Daan Luining and Krijn de Nood

    “Over the past four years, we’ve been constantly innovating and developing our technology to get it to this stage today where we can hear the sausages sizzle in a pan, see and, for Krijn and I, even taste this incredible product that we’ve created,” Daan Luining, co-founder and CTO of Meatable, said.

    “I hope more people can taste it soon following the Dutch government’s motion to enable controlled tastings. This will ensure that people can experience that this isn’t just like meat, it is meat—100 percent delicious meat, identical on every level, but without any of the drawbacks,” Luining said. “This is one step on our journey to creating the new natural meat and I’m looking forward to seeing how the product develops before we can bring it to consumers in the next few years.” 

    The post Meatable Only Needs One Cell to Grow the ‘Sausage of the Future’ appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Cellmeat’s Cultured Shrimp Shows Strong Go-To-Market Potential Following Restaurant Debut

    shrimp
    3 Mins Read

    Ahead of its Series B fundraising round and following a restaurant press event, South Korea’s Cellmeat says its cell-based Dokdo Shrimp is market ready pending regulatory approval.

    It’s been a busy year since Cellmeat closed its $4.5 million pre-Series A funding round to accelerate production and reduce costs for its cell-based shrimp. In May, it bagged another $8 million, bringing its total funding to more than $14 million.

    The biotech startup, which launched in 2019, has accelerated the development of its lab-grown shrimp, doubling to 10 kilograms per day. It has also expanded its offering to include other cultivated seafood options like lobster and crab meat.

    Taste-testing

    It recently presented its work at the Seoul-based restaurant Sigolo, where Chef Kyong-Ho Lee prepared a range of dishes featuring the shrimp.

    The menu featured appetizers, salads, tacos, cold pasta, and mini burgers that all received rave reviews, the company said.

    Cellmeat’s Cultivated Dokdo Shrimp

    The company is gearing up to increase production with the launch of a new facility Cellmeat says could be operational early next year.

    “We’ve been planning to build the Seoul center of 3,600 sq ft and have a mass production capacity of about 220,500LB per year in the first half of 2023 to promote commercialization of prototypes and products,” CEO Gil-Jun Park said in a statement.

    “Although it is difficult to make a simple comparison with other companies that are leading the cultivated meat industry, Cellmeat has evaluated that it is taking the lead in technology through its very own technology that has improved production efficiency. If the Cellmeat Seoul Center with the technology developed through the efforts of the past, is built in the first half of next year, it will cause a global sensation in terms of production efficiency.”

    Animal-free FBS

    The company is doing all of this without the use of the controversial medium, fetal bovine serum. Cellmeat says it developed a proprietary animal-free technology that will also reduce costs, dropping shrimp meat’s price to less than $20 per kilogram.

    Photo by Cellmeat

    “In order to produce cost-efficient cultured meat, we need to ensure that our cells can be cultured at a low price. Additionally, further development of our technology is necessary in order to reproduce the physical texture and nature of meat,” Park explained last year.

    Go-to-market

    The sampling event’s success comes on the heels of another tasting event in the seafood arena. Aqua Cultured Foods recently sampled its mycoprotein-based fish for industry executives to rave reviews.

    Jen DiFrancesco, Director of Culinary Innovation at food service giant, Sodexo, said the whole muscle cut, sushi-grade alternative seafood samples “were absolutely incredible.”

    Cellmeat is aiming to bring its Dokdo shrimp to market in Singapore, which is currently the only country that has approved cultured meat for sale and consumption.

    The post Cellmeat’s Cultured Shrimp Shows Strong Go-To-Market Potential Following Restaurant Debut appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Umami Meats and MeaTech Partner to Bring 3D-Printed Cultivated Seafood to Singapore

    3 Mins Read

    Cell-based 3D-printed seafood could soon be on your plate courtesy of a new partnership between Umami Meats and MeaTech.

    Singapore’s Umami Meats has been working to develop cultured seafood since its launch in 2020. Its most recent pre-seed funding round of $2.4 million will help it to scale its technology and prototypes. Through the partnership with Israel’s food tech company MeaTech, the companies say they’ve opened the door to the Asian seafood market.

    3D cultured protein

    “We are delighted to establish this collaboration with MeaTech to expand our product range with their 3D printing capabilities,” Mihir Pershad, Umami Meats’ Chief Executive Officer and Founder, said in a statement.

    “This partnership will enable us to build upon our technology platform for cultivating fish muscle and fat to produce a variety of structured products that meet the desires of discerning consumers,” Pershad said.

    “We believe cultivated seafood holds tremendous potential to provide a local, sustainable source of healthy protein and to address many of the challenges facing our food system and our oceans.”

    MeaTech steak
    MeaTech steak | Courtesy

    Singapore is already ripe for entry as the only country that has approved the production and sale of cultured meat. California’s Eat Just brought its cultivated chicken meat to the market nearly two years ago.

    Through the new collaboration, MeaTech’s 3D bioprinting will be used to produce the complex protein structure of various seafood items. MeaTech has been strategic in its collaborations, working with its tech to develop a wide range of proteins from species including bovine, avian, and porcine.

    “We are very pleased about this new agreement which reflects our commercialization strategy of industry collaboration using our unique 3D printing capabilities,” Arik Kaufman, MeaTech’s Chief Executive Officer and Founder said. “We are excited about entering into the seafood sector and believe it will lead us to new market pathways throughout Asia and worldwide.” 

    The seafood market

    The global seafood market is valued at more than $110 billion and growing at a CAGR of 3.6 percent. But the industry faces a number of threats including climate change, overfishing, ocean pollution, and increasing consumer demand.

    Courtesy Mike Bergmann via Unsplash

    An increasing number of companies are innovating in the alternative seafood space, from cultivated whole-cut seafood to plant-based options. Recently, Aqua Cultured Foods debuted its whole-cut fish made through microbial fermentation.

    “The feedback and discussions with companies we’re meeting have made us extremely optimistic about go-to-market and co-branding opportunities,” Aqua CGO Brittany Chibe said after a recent taste test of the product. “Whether it’s rising costs, supply chain concerns, or sustainability goals, we are seeing major interest from potential partners that want to develop products with our seafood or offer it on menus.”  

    The post Umami Meats and MeaTech Partner to Bring 3D-Printed Cultivated Seafood to Singapore appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • String Bio and Woodside Energy Partner on Sustainable Ingredients Made From Methane Emissions

    cows
    2 Mins Read

    The next big sustainable protein could come from the methane emissions of the animals it’s aiming to replace as String Bio and Woodside Energy announce a protein collaboration using methane emissions.

    Indian-based String Bio, a biotech innovator, has partnered with Australia’s Woodside Energy Technologies to further develop a methane-based technology platform that turns trapped methane emissions into protein.

    Tackling methane emissions

    Methane is a leading contributor to climate change; the greenhouse gas is a byproduct of energy production, agriculture, and waste and traps 27 times more heat than carbon dioxide.

    A steady stream of recent reports has highlighted the issues with methane and the urgent need for solutions. Reducing methane can play a significant role in meeting climate targets, but a recent report found not enough funding is going toward the solution, despite its impact being greater than other green tech solutions.

    cow
    Courtesy Flash Dantz via Pexels

    “Our fundamental ethos is to enable supply and establish demand for our diverse product portfolio. The partnership with Woodside will be a defining milestone to enable carbon-friendly products in the global marketplace,” Vinod Kumar, Co-Founder and Managing Director of String Bio, said in a statement.

    “Our investment in String Bio builds on our ability to potentially abate greenhouse gases through the conversion of carbon into useful products,” Woodside Energy CEO Meg O’Neill said. “We believe String Bio’s technology could eventually be used to recycle methane at Woodside facilities. It could also be deployed at third-party sites with available biomethane such as landfill facilities and farms.”

    String Bio Series B

    The partnership with Woodside overlaps with the first close of a $20 million Series B funding round that also includes Ankur Capital, Dare Ventures, Redstart, and Zenfold Ventures among others. The new funding will help increase the market growth and strengthen its decarbonization imact, String Bio says.

    Photo by No One Cares at Unsplash.

    String Bio’s technology incorporates biology, fermentation, chemistry, and process engineering to convert methane into products including protein ingredients, crop inputs, and biodegradable polymers while also helping to achieve global decarbonization targets.

    “The vision for String has been to leverage cutting edge advances in biotechnology to enable better living at significantly reduced environmental footprint.,” said Dr. Ezhil Subbian, Co-Founder & CEO, String Bio. “With the Woodside collaboration and Series B raise, we are taking a giant step forward to bring such solutions to market – solutions that are better for people and the planet.”


    The post String Bio and Woodside Energy Partner on Sustainable Ingredients Made From Methane Emissions appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • 25% of Brits Started Eating Less Meat During Covid and Haven’t Stopped, Survey Finds

    HIgh tea
    3 Mins Read

    New research shows nearly 25 percent of Brits are eating less meat—a trend that started during the beginning days of the covid lockdown and shows little sign of slowing down.

    Findings reported by The Vegan Society show a consistent trend in reducing meat consumption. The UK-based organization has been tracking consumer data on shopping and eating since March 2020 to better understand the changes as a result of the pandemic and overall shifts in dietary preferences.

    The findings

    According to the Vegan Society’s latest findings, there’s been a steady shift away from animal products since the start of the pandemic. Seventeen percent of Brits surveyed say they’ve actively reduced their meat consumption, and eight percent have decreased their egg and dairy consumption over the last two years. Three percent have made reductions in all three categories. 

    The McDonald’s McPlant UK

    The researchers also looked at fish consumption for the first time, with six percent of British consumers surveyed saying they cut back on their seafood intake since the pandemic began. 

    Many cited price as a key barrier to buying animal products as Brexit, covid, and the cost of living have all changed finances for a growing number of Brits. But the three main factors driving the shift include health concerns, which accounted for the biggest reason, at 36 percent; 28 percent cited the environment, and 20 percent cited animal rights issues for leaving animal products off of their plates.

    Louisianna Waring, Senior Insight and Policy Officer at The Vegan Society, says the events of the last two years have “highlighted to shoppers that there are more ethical and compassionate ways we can live—and these days supermarkets are only too happy to provide them.”

    Changing consumer preferences

    The findings build on other data sets obtained during the pandemic that found 53 percent of consumers have tried meat alternatives while in lockdown, and 78 percent said they would buy them again in the future. More than one-third of consumers said they tried beans and legumes during lockdown, and 69 percent said they’re planning to continue purchasing them. Twenty percent of Brits also tried tofu for the first time during lockdown, and 61 percent say they’ll continue shopping for it. 

    Alpro vegan yogurt

    Consumers weren’t just opting to replace meat, eggs, and dairy, though; 25 percent said they tried vegan chocolate for the first time, and more than half said they’ll try it again. 

    The findings come as global demand for plant-based alternatives to meat, eggs, and dairy demonstrates a growing shift away from animal products. A recent survey by dairy giant Arla found that 49 percent of Gen Z were “ashamed” to order dairy in public even if they still regularly consume it at home. The survey pointed to social media’s influence as well as concerns of being categorized as not doing their part to reduce global warming by opting for dairy-free milk.

    The post 25% of Brits Started Eating Less Meat During Covid and Haven’t Stopped, Survey Finds appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • How Cultivated Meat Startup SCiFi Foods Used CRISPR to Achieve Price Parity With Beef

    SCiFi Foods co-founders
    4 Mins Read

    Bay-Area food-tech startup SCiFi Foods has emerged from stealth mode with a game-changing announcement for the cultivated meat sector. The company says it has achieved price parity with beef using a proprietary tech combination involving its own high-throughput cell line engineering and CRISPR technology.

    “We’ve known from day one that by opting to work on cultivated beef, we were choosing a much bigger challenge in terms of the science and technology required,” SCiFi Foods CEO and co-founder Joshua March said in a statement. “However, beef is the ultimate prize—with both the biggest market demand and the biggest climate impact. This breakthrough illustrates the power of our bioengineering strategy, and is a huge testament to our team and the platform they’ve built.” 

    Price parity

    According to SCiFi, its first R&D announcement is also a world’s first achievement—the company, which has raised more than $29 million to date, is the first to produce edible cultivated beef cell lines that grow in a single-cell suspension. “This not only validates SCiFi Foods’ cell line engineering strategy and platform, but also allows the company to reduce the cost of growing its beef cells at scale by at least one thousand times—the biggest zero to one in cultivated meat,” the company said.

    burger
    Photo by amirali mirhashemian on Unsplash

    The milestone cements cultivated meat as a viable alternative to conventional meat production and its environmental and ethical issues. SCiFi says the tech has allowed it to reduce the cost of cultivated meat by more than 1,000 times current production costs—this development achieves price parity for cultivated beef grown at scale. The result is a “blended burger” that’s part plant-based and part cultivated meat, for less than $10 per burger.

    The achievement comes less than a decade after the first cultivated beef burger was introduced in The Netherlands. That burger, developed by Mark Post and Peter Verstrate, cost $330,000 to produce.

    SCiFi says most companies working to produce cultivated meat are attaching cells to a surface or using microcarriers. This poses some barriers, the company says, including limits on cell density, is more expensive, and has not been demonstrated at large scale. The new single-cell breakthrough allows the use of standard large-scale bioreactors, which is more economical to produce, the company says.

    The single-cell tech has been used in producing cultivated chicken and fish cell lines, but this is the first time a company has successfully produced beef.

    CRISPR

    Part of the development comes by way of the controversial CRISPR technology. That tech, developed by American biochemist Jennifer Anne Doudna, a Fellow of the Royal Society, was adapted from a genome editing system that bacteria use for immunity. By capturing and inserting small pieces of DNA from the attacking virus into their own DNA, bacteria create what’s called CRISPR arrays.

    The technology has been eyed as a potential embryonic treatment for a number of hereditary diseases including hemophilia, cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s, among others.

    But for all of its potential, the tech has also brought controversy as studies have found that altering the DNA of embryos or eggs and sperm could cause mutations that create other health threats. The risks don’t just impact the embryo at hand, either; genetic changes would alter the health and health risks of future generations, too, research has found.

    Photo by Talha Hassan on Unsplash.

    The tech is unlikely to pose risks to humans who consume CRISPR-edited cultivated beef, however. Just in the same way that eating meat from an animal with brown eyes doesn’t change the consumer’s eye color, the tech would be unlikely to alter human DNA.

    SCiFi isn’t the first to explore CRISPR in developing cultivated meat. Fellow California-based company Upside Foods patented a CRISPR tech in 2017 which it said could modify cells into perpetual replicative states.

    SCiFi says the new achievement will see cultivated beef prices drop even further; it says with a large-scale production plant coming, it can reduce the cost to just $1 per burger.

    “Cultivated meat has the potential to disrupt the trillion-dollar meat market and help build a more sustainable future, but cost has always been its biggest challenge. With this milestone, we’ve proven that potential is realistic with our ability to engineer beef cells that grow at low cost and large volumes,” said SCiFi Foods CTO and co-founder, Kasia Gora, PhD.

    “A decade ago, when the first lab-grown burger debuted in the press, it seemed like a pipedream,” she said. “So we are proud to be taking a major leap towards making cultivated meat a reality for everybody.” 

    The post How Cultivated Meat Startup SCiFi Foods Used CRISPR to Achieve Price Parity With Beef appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • California Public Schools to Receive $700 Million to Add More Plant-Based Food

    3 Mins Read

    California public schools will soon have more plant-based options for students thanks to $700 million earmarked in the recent $300 billion Budget Act of 2022 signed by Governor Newsom ahead of the state’s new fiscal year.

    California’s new budget sees funding for a number of state-funded programs, including what Governor Newsom called “core values at a pivotal moment.”

    In a statement, the Governor said the budget will help safeguard a women’s right to choose, “expanding health care access to all and supporting the most vulnerable among us.”

    Feeding California students

    The $308 billion budget includes a significant chunk for the state’s public schools; $600 million goes to kitchen infrastructure, upgrading, and training, and $100 million is going toward securing plant-based ingredients.

    Last year, California became the first state to offer a free breakfast program as well as lunch. Ahead of the return to classes last fall, it also made all school lunches free, regardless of family income, becoming the first state to offer such a program. There are more than six million public school students across the state. Several U.S. cities have offered this for some time, but a state-wide effort has historically been too challenging.

    Courtesy Max Fischer via Pexels

    The free meals were added due to a budget surplus that arose as a result of the pandemic and cafeterias being closed for extended periods. The decision was applauded by lawmakers, parents, and anti-hunger organizations. For millions of children across the state, their free school lunches are often their only hot meal of the day. 

    The new funding to add plant-based meals comes by way of efforts from Assemblymember Nazarian (D-Van Nuys), as well as vocal parent groups and school districts that wanted to see healthier options on campuses. Impossible Foods, a California company, recently announced two new cafeteria-ready products in support of the funding; pre-cooked vegan burgers and whole grain-coated nuggets will be available to foodservice providers.

    “I am very excited to see plant-based school meals included in this year’s budget. Having this optional program for schools, in addition to their existing meat and dairy menus, will allow for an inclusive selection for our students,” Assemblymember Nazarian said in a statement. “Many school districts across our state have a sizable student population that requires or wants plant-based or restricted diet options and cannot afford the sometimes-higher prices. This year’s budget is a sizable step towards empowering schools to respond to their students’ needs.”

    Impossible Nuggets
    Courtesy Impossible Foods

    Judie Mancuso, founder and president of Social Compassion in Legislation, a co-sponsor of AB 558 praised Assemblymember Nazarian for the four-year effort. “We are grateful to see both the legislature and the Governor recognize the cultural shift towards plant-based choices by supporting our children to eat healthier, more climate-friendly, and humane diets.”

    Vegan meat funding

    The state’s Budget Act also recently allocated $5 million to the research and development of cell-based and plant-based meat. That funding is spread across three University of California campuses: Los Angeles, Berekely, and Davis.

    The funding for the schools and the research comes as California is in its third consecutive drought year, with record-breaking heat and water shortages plaguing the state. Plant-based meat in particular was recently cited as the most sustainable investment option for reducing climate impact, even more so than switching to electric vehicles. 

    The post California Public Schools to Receive $700 Million to Add More Plant-Based Food appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Celebrity-Backed NotCo Brings Its AI-Developed Vegan Chicken to Burger King

    The NotCo chicken sandwich
    3 Mins Read

    Chile’s NotCo expands its presence in its backyard with new vegan chicken options in Burger King Chile.

    It’s been a busy year since NotCo, the Chilean food-tech startup known for its AI technology dubbed Giusseppe, raised $235 million in a Series D funding round that included backing from tennis star Roger Federer, F1 Driver Lewis Hamilton, and Oscar-winning musician and filmmaker, Questlove.

    NotCo expands

    Last year’s funding took NotCo into unicorn territory, earning a $1.5 billion valuation—a first for a Chilean company. That valuation came just a year after the startup was valued at $250 million. NotCo was launched in 2015 by Matias Muchnick whose vision has been to move the needle for plant-based food in its Latin American base as well as all other corners of the globe.

    Courtesy

    Despite pandemic setbacks for much of the sector, it’s been a busy year for the brand; NotCo expanded its U.S. presence with a Shake Shack milkshake collaboration featuring NotCo’s dairy-free milk earlier this spring. It also opened up its Canadian presence with its NotBurgers. 

    The company kicked off the year with plans to expand into Asia, where it says it’s planning to bring seafood to market. But perhaps most notably is the partnership it announced in February with Kraft Heinz. The companies created a new joint venture to develop plant-based products.

    “The joint venture with TheNotCompany is a critical step in the transformation of our product portfolio and a tremendous addition to our brand design-to-value capabilities.,” Miguel Patricio, Kraft Heinz CEO said in a statement. “It helps deliver on our vision to offer more clean, green, and delicious products for consumers. We believe the technology that NotCo brings is revolutionising the creation of delicious plant-based foods with simpler ingredients.”

    NotCo x Burger King

    Now, NotCo has announced its vegan chicken, which debuted last year, is on the menu in two new Burger King sandwiches and nuggets across locations in Chile. It has worked with Burger King before on menu items in Chile and Paraguay.

    Burger King says the growing demand for vegan options has made the partnership an easy decision. 

    “[They] ask for a variety of vegetable options without compromising on taste,” Jaime Ponce, Burger King Chile’s category manager said in a statement. “We are sure they will love [the NotCo menu items].”

    Vegetarain Burger King menu items in Madrid.

    The launch of the chicken coincides with Burger King making its entire menu meat-free at two of its Chilean locations for a limited time. The fast-food chain has done this before, most recently in Europe at two locations in Switzerland. That followed a vegan turn at its London flagship location. It’s a nod to the growing demand for vegan food even in traditionally meat-heavy sectors such as fast food that companies like NotCo are perpetuating. 

    Like Burger King’s most notable North American partner, Impossible Foods, NotCo is building name recognition with consumers, which it hopes will lead to increased demand for vegan options.

    “We want to reach every corner of the world,” Maximiliano Silva, NotCo’s country manager in Chile, said in a statement. “We are in a complex environmental moment and we believe that, through these alliances, we can make a difference to make an impact on the planet.”

    The post Celebrity-Backed NotCo Brings Its AI-Developed Vegan Chicken to Burger King appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • You’re Already Eating Foods With Ingredients Made Using Precision Fermentation, So Why The Fuss About Animal-Free Dairy?

    precision fermentation technology
    6 Mins Read

    Precision fermentation has been around for decades, and most of us eat foods that contain ingredients made using the technology on a daily basis. Animal-free dairy makers are now using it to bring you the cheese and milk you love without the environmental cost.

    As the alternative protein industry matures, it is increasingly under attack from food industry lobbies and interest groups. Of late, precision fermentation technology, used to create animal-free dairy foods, has been the target of the Non-GMO Project, a U.S. based non profit organization focused on alerting consumers to the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in food products. In a press release published during National Dairy Month in the U.S., the organization described animal-free dairy made from precision fermentation as unregulated and dangerous.  We thought it would be prudent to address the allegations as a matter of separating fact from fiction.

    Let’s start with the most important facts: precision fermentation (PF) is a technology that has been around for 30 years, is entirely safe and is used in dozens (if not hundreds) of products you interact with every day. That cousin of yours that’s Type 1 diabetic? Her insulin is made using PF. The cheese you buy at the grocery store? The enzymes are made using PF. The vitamin supplement you give your teenager for their skin? PF again. That naturally flavored grapefruit soda you love? That’s right, it’s made using PF.

    Here’s the thing. Until Perfect Day and its peers crash landed onto our food scene, most of us had never heard of precision fermentation. Now, this technology that we interact with regularly (though perhaps unknowingly), has been put under the microscope by everyone from chefs to media personalities to lobby groups. When something feels or sounds new, it’s entirely natural to have questions. Particularly when it’s related to the food we eat.

    When it comes to animal-free dairy, precision fermentation refers to a process used to produce bio-identical milk proteins like casein or whey, without the use of animals. It is done by encoding milk protein DNA sequences into microorganisms, like yeast or fungi, and then fermenting them with nutrients and sugar in fermentation tanks, much like those used to brew beer. During the fermentation process, these unique microbes produce proteins, identical to those found in cow’s dairy milk. These proteins are filtered into a pure milk protein isolate that can be used to create our favorite dairy products such as cheese, yogurt and ice cream, without the use of animals. 

    The whole point of using precision fermentation is to produce the dairy products we love (think milk, cheese, yogurt) with a fraction of the carbon emissions, land requirements and water usage that the conventional dairy industry requires. This means the hundreds of millions of people who consume dairy products daily can do so without causing global warming. 

    FACT: Conventional dairy has a global warming problem

    Let’s be clear, we are at a critical point in the climate change fight. Unless we significantly reduce the outsized climate impact from conventional agriculture, and that includes dairy farming, we will not be able to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. With half of all habitable land already being used for agriculture and 77% of that devoted to raising animals for food, anyone who is serious about creating a sustainable food industry knows that we cannot go on with the status quo. We certainly cannot nourish a growing global population with an agricultural system that already consumes too much land and water resources and drives biodiversity loss, while also emitting a third of global greenhouse gases. If global animal agriculture continues to expand, it will prevent the decarbonization of our agricultural system and perpetuate the increase of methane emissions, a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more powerful at warming the planet on a 20-year scale than carbon dioxide. 

    When it comes to conventional dairy production, it’s hard to argue with its environmental cost.  Producing just one litre of milk releases 3.15kg of CO2, while one kilo of cheese releases a whopping 23.88kgs of CO2- about the same as burning 10kg of coal!

    On the water front, things are not much better. To get one litre of milk requires 628 litres of water. A kilo of cheese demands an incredible 5,606 liters of water, the highest among all foods.

    Beyond water and emissions, producing conventional dairy foods involves heavy use of antibiotics, a huge amount of arable land and GMO corn/soy animal feed, not to mention that the fields where these are grown are sprayed with pesticides and glyphosate. 

    FACT: You are already consuming precision fermentation foods and products

    Precision fermentation is safely used to make insulin, most vitamins, flavors and countless enzymes found in nearly all commercially produced foods. We’ve all been eating foods produced with the aid of precision fermentation for decades. This is not new. Here’s an overview of common foods and supplements made using PF: 

    Enzymes: PF is used to make all sorts of enzymes used in food production, from amlysases to keep bread soft and prevent staleness, pectinases to make fruit juices clear instead of cloudy,  transglutaminases to make deli meat products such as salami hold together better.

    Vitamins: Almost all of the common vitamins we use to fortify foods (in powder form) or to supplement our own diets (in pill form) such as B vitamins (B2 and B12 in particular) and vitamins A, C, D, E and K, are made via precision fermentation technology. 

    Natural Flavors: Many flavorings and aromas regularly used in food are made via PF such as vanilla flavoring. When you see the term ‘natural flavors’ on an ingredient list? That’s PF too. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (the FDA)’s own definition of “natural flavor/flavoring” includes ingredients made using precision fermentation. 

    Medicine: Specifically, insulin for Type 1 Diabetes patients to inject themselves with. Until the 1980s, we used to have to inject diabetes patients with insulin obtained from pigs and cows. 

    Cheese (this one is ironic, given the conventional dairy industry’s anti-PF stance): Rennet is a key ingredient in most cheeses. It is composed of the enzyme chymosin, which helps to separate the milk solids (the parts used in cheesemaking) from the liquids. In other words, rennet enables the formation of firm curds and is crucial in helping cheesemakers achieve their desired cheese texture. 80% of rennet used in global cheese produced comes from precision fermentation using microorganisms as host factories (the rest comes from the stomachs of ruminant animals). So chances are, if you have eaten dairy cheese, you have eaten PF-made rennet.

    FACT: Animal-free dairy is regulated by the US FDA  

    Animal-free dairy is a regulated industry. The U.S. FDA oversees and regulates any substance that is intentionally added to food as an additive through the GRAS Notification Program. This is also how enzymes, vitamins and flavors are regulated. To date, both Perfect Day and Remilk have followed this process prior to launching products in the U.S. market. 

    Animal-free dairy proteins do not fall under the USDA National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, because the final product (animal-free milk protein) does not contain any detectable genetic material. 

    While genetic engineering techniques are used in creation of the microorganisms that produce the dairy proteins, they are filtered out at the end of fermentation. The resulting product is a high purity milk protein isolate, which is bio-identical to milk protein from cows.

    FACT: Animal-free dairy has a lower carbon and water footprint than conventional dairy 

    The planetary toll of the conventional industry when we are in the midst of a worsening climate crisis that is threatening our global food security is exactly why we need to rethink how we produce food and support nascent industries like animal-free dairy made from precision fermentation. This will allow consumers to continue enjoying the milk and cheese they crave and love at a lower cost to the planet. 

    In the RethinkX report on agriculture, the authors write that “modern alternatives will be up to 100 times more land efficient, 10-25 times more feedstock efficient, 20 times more time efficient, and 10 times more water efficient. They will also produce an order of magnitude less waste.”

    According to a Life Cycle Assessment commissioned by Perfect Day, their technology allows for “a reduction in environmental impact of up to 99% less water use, up to 97% fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and up to 60% less renewable energy use compared to traditional (dairy) production methods.”

    The future of our planet and the ability to feed next generations depends greatly on our ability to bring these new solutions to life. Precision fermentation is part of a broader ecosystem of sustainable food solutions, which include regenerative organic farming, plant-based foods and animal-free dairy. Without them we are at risk of losing the battle against climate change and in the years ahead, we will face unrelenting challenges to affordably feed 10 billion people.

    Lead image designed by Green Queen Media.

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  • Plant-Based Meat Is the Best Investment to Slow Climate Change, Report Finds

    5 Mins Read

    While experts continue to argue over whether or not plant-based meat is healthy, the science appears to be indisputable when it comes to its benefits in fighting climate change.

    According to a new report from the Boston Consulting Group, a plant-based diet is the best investment for reducing the impact of climate change. Beef, for example, produces six to 30 times more emissions than the same amount of tofu, the report notes.

    The findings

    But the gains from a plant-based diet, particularly plant-based meat, aren’t just in a smaller environmental footprint than animal products. The report, entitled Food for Thought: The Untapped Climate Opportunity In Alternative Proteins, found that plant-forward diets yield bigger results than other sustainable technologies aimed at addressing climate change—some of which are receiving more funding than plant-based foods despite lower yields.

    When compared to green cement, plant-based alternatives reduced greenhouse gas emissions by three times. Compared to green buildings, it’s seven times, and when it comes to emissions-free cars, like the ever-present Tesla—the number jumps to 11 times the reduction in emissions.

    “There’s been a lot of investments into electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels, which is all great and helpful to reduce emissions, but we have not seen comparable investment yet [in alternative proteins], even though it’s rising rapidly,” Malte Clausen, a partner at BCG told the Guardian. “If you really care about impact as an investor, this is an area that you definitely need to understand.”

    Photo by Mark Stebnicki at Pexels

    The findings come after recent calls from the scientific community to urgently and drastically reduce methane gas emissions; animal agriculture is a leading cause of methane emissions. 

    “Widespread adoption of alternative proteins can play a critical role tackling climate change,” Clausen said. “We call it the untapped climate opportunity – you’re getting more impact from your investment in alternative proteins than in any other sector of the economy.”

    Switching to a predominantly plant-based diet is easier than its ever been with supermarkets, cafeterias, and restaurants adopting plant-based options. The diet is also far more popular and more widely accepted than it was just a decade ago; long-time critics of the diet like Gordon Ramsay have become some of its most vocal supporters.

    Market opportunity

    The report says that despite its accessibility, alternatives to meat, eggs, and dairy make up just two percent of the total protein market. That number is expected to rise to 11 percent by 2035. That shift alone will reduce the emissions produced by nearly the equivalent of the entire aviation sector, which produces about 2.5 percent of total global emissions. By comparison, agriculture is responsible for more than 15 percent of total emissions, and animal agriculture is responsible for at least 60 percent of that. 

    But according to BCG, the growth could be faster and bigger than its projected 11 percent. Consumer habits are shifting fast; a recent report found nearly half of Gen Z consumers were “ashamed” to order dairy products in public, for example. 

    GOOD Meat cultivated chicken. Photo by Eat Just.

    The alternatives market is also accelerating with the development of new technologies like cell-based meat and precision fermentation that can replicate animal products in taste, texture, and nutrition profile, with a much smaller carbon footprint. The cultivated meat sector, which has only received regulatory approval in Singapore to date, went from a valuation of $1 billion in 2019 to more than $5 billion last year. With U.S. regulatory approval expected within the next year, the cultivated meat market is expected to take off once consumers warm to the tech.

    Cell-based tech promises a win-win scenario for the die-hard meat- and dairy-eaters who want to reduce their carbon footprint without sacrificing their favorite foods. These cultivated products are not plant-based knock-offs like the Impossible Burger or Beyond Burger but contain actual animal cells grown in bioreactors instead of animals so they offer the taste and texture of animal foods, without the environmental footprint or ethical concerns.

    ‘Peak meat’

    According to another BCG report, Europe is heading toward a 2025 “peak meat” apex point, where consumption will shift to alternatives in larger numbers, be they plant-based or engineered. Experts in the sector, including Impossible Meat founder Pat Brown, have made predictions that the “end” of meat will come before mid-century. Brown predicts animal products will be obsolete in little more than a decade.

    His prediction mirrors a 2019 report from consultancy AT Kearney that said most of the world’s meat products will not come from animals by 2040. 

    Both Impossible and Beyond have made big strides in converting meat-eaters to plants with placement in fast food chains including the top two burger chains, Burger King and McDonald’s.

    Courtesy

    But despite the benefits of reducing the agricultural dependence on animals, BCG says alternative proteins have received only “a fraction” of the investments into other sectors such as renewable energy and electric vehicles. 

    “Buildings have received 4.4 times more mitigation capital than food production, even though building emissions are 57 percent lower than those tied to food production,” reads the report.

    The researchers underscore that opting for plant-based alternatives is easier and less expensive than virtually any other switch consumers can make to reduce their carbon footprint.

    “You are cutting out the ‘middleman’, whether it’s a cow, a pig or a chicken,” Clausen said. “It’s just mathematics: if instead of feeding all of these crops to animals, and then eating the animals, you just use the crops directly for human consumption, you need less crops overall and therefore alleviate the constraints on the system.”

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  • Japan’s DIC Corporation Bets Big on Algae to Replace GMO Heme in Vegan Meat

    burger
    3 Mins Read

    Japan’s DIC Corporation, one of the world’s leading fine chemicals companies, has completed an undisclosed investment into U.S.-based biotech startup Back of the Yards Algae Sciences, which has developed a vegan heme alternative to genetically modified soy using spirulina.

    The Chicago-based Back of the Yards Algae Sciences (BYAS) was launched in 2018 by Leonard Lerer, an MD MBA with almost 30 years of life sciences R&D, finance, and management experience. The company is working to develop innovative extracts and sustainable proteins. It’s an area of interest for DIC, which says it’s working to shift toward more sustainable and circular algae-derived products including food colorants, additives, and biostimulants that can help improve farming yields.

    Sustainable development

    DIC works across a number of sectors including packaging materials as well as materials for smartphones, automobiles, and televisions. The company has been prioritizing sustainability in recent years, looking also at products that it says “respond to social change and which help address social imperatives.”

    BYAS offers DIC access to its proprietary technology for the extraction of active ingredients from biobased materials, including algae and mycelia—the root structure of mushrooms.

    Courtest Burger King

    The company has developed a heme analog from the blue-green algae spirulina. according to BYAS, it’s receiving industry interest for its ability to “enhance the alternative meat taste and aroma, without the use of genetically modified organisms.”

    That development could play a big role in future vegan meat options. Bay Area vegan meat producer Impossible Foods has come under fire for its use of genetically modified soy for its heme element. Heme is what gives the company’s vegan meat that meaty and bleeding texture and appearance. While a hit in the U.S., with placement in Burger King among other chains, heme has slowed the company’s expansion plans outside of the U.S., while its chief competitor, Beyond Meat, which does not use heme, has sped into European and Asian markets in recent years.

    Spirulina research

    DIC has been a leader in spirulina research since the 1970s. The multinational corporation developed a natural and edible pigment from the algae, a food color product called Lina Blue. It’s been used in food products as well as livestock feed.

    algae
    Photo by Vita Marija Murenaite on Unsplash

    BYAS says its platform is also ‘zero-waste,’ and that it “effectively utilizes all ingredients obtained from biobased materials.” This, the company says, contributes to improved consumer health as well as the circular economy, which it says is “perfectly aligned” with DIC’s vision.

    The investment will see DIC and BYAS share their algae tech to develop new products, improve efficiency, reduce waste, and increase sustainability efforts. There’s also a go-to-market plan with DIC Group member Sun Chemical Corporation.

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  • This 3D-Printed Vegan Salmon Is Just Like Fish Only Without the Mercury

    Revo Foods salmon
    3 Mins Read

    Vegan salmon may be healthier than conventional salmon—at least when it comes to contaminants including mercury and PCBs, according to a recent test funded by vegan salmon startup Revo Foods.

    “Many people believe that vegan products are unhealthier than animal products, but is that actually true?” asks Revo Foods. The Austrian vegan seafood producer, which developed the world’s first 3D printed plant-based salmon, says it had an independent lab compare its plant-based smoked salmon to three different conventional smoked salmon brands.

    The results

    According to Revo Foods, while the conventional salmon samples were all high in mercury and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), those contaminants were “not or hardly detected in plant-based Revo salmon.” This, the company says, shows a significant health benefit and reason to consider making the switch to plant-based seafood.

    Mercury and other contaminants are among the leading reasons consumers avoid seafood. It’s a particular cause for concern for pregnant and breastfeeding women. The World Health Organization classifies mercury as one of the top ten chemicals or groups of chemicals of major public health concern because of its link to damage to the nervous, digestive, and immune systems. Its also been shown to have risks to lungs, kidneys, skin, and eyes.

    Courtesy Revo Foods

    Revo says the lab results on the three conventional salmon brands showed an average mercury concentration of 37 micrograms per kilogram. The concentration for Revo Salmon was below the detectable limit, less than 10 micrograms per kilogram or 0.01 parts per million. “This shows a clear benefit of plant-based salmon for preventing the intake of heavy metals,” Revo says.

    The presence of dioxins and PCBs is another reason consumers are reducing their seafood consumption. High and consistent exposure to PCBs has been linked to an increased risk of type-2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, nervous, reproductive, and immune risks, as well as certain types of cancer.

    According to Revo’s lab results, the vegan salmon contains 106 picograms per kilogram (a picogram is one-trillionth of a gram), while conventional salmon was close to 493 pg/kg. Major health organizations recommend keeping PCB levels to below 140 pg per week. That means a single 8-ounce serving of fish, about 250 grams, may contain more than a week’s worth of the chemicals.

    Salmon 2.0

    The findings come after Revo Foods, which launched at the beginning of the pandemic, debuted what it calls an “ultrarealistic” plant-based ‘salmon 2.0’ fillet. It shared the vegan fish at a public tasting at the end of May in Vienna.

    Courtesy Revo Foods

    “It’s all about structure and creating the perfect bite,” Robin Simsa, CEO of Revo Foods, said in a statement.

    The tasting followed the launch of Revo Foods’ smoked salmon, which is currently sold in 16 countries across Europe including supermarkets in Austria and Germany.

    The company is the recent recipient of €2.2 million in equity-free grant funding from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency to further develop its vegan seafood. Revo says its whole-cut vegan salmon will be in stores by the beginning of next year.

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  • Ready to Replace Your Latte’s Oat Milk With Chickpeas? This Company Says They Froth Better.

    barista
    3 Mins Read

    Could your next dairy-free latte be made with chickpea milk instead of oat? Food tech startup ChickP says you may want to consider replacing your dairy-free barista staple with its state-of-the-art milk.

    Chickpea protein is the secret to ChickP’s plant-based creamer that it says works to provide a superior froth without any bitter, grainy, or chalky textures or flavors, and without the addition of additives or questionable ingredients.

    Chickpea milk

    “Plant-based barista drinks set new challenges,” Liat Lachish Levy, CEO of ChickP, said in a statement. “Consumers want a holistic, better-for-you, yet full flavor experience. Our technologists took full advantage of our new state-of-the-art application lab to overcome organoleptic and technical challenges in creating creamy, dairy-free ‘milk’ for the perfect cappuccino.”

    With the company’s new chickpea milk, Lachish Levy says the company has accurately recreated the flavor, texture, and nutritional value of dairy milk.

    Chickpea water, also called aquafaba, has found a market as a replacer for egg whites. It’s been used in fluffy meringues and baked goods. ChickP uses the beans for its egg replacer and eggless mayonnaise.

    Photo by Markus Winkler via Unsplash

    “We currently are developing over twenty plant-based applications with leading food and beverage companies with our pure ChickP protein,” reports Lachish Levy. “Our customers turned to us to solve major challenges of plant-based products and we were able to provide comprehensive solutions in terms of flavor, complete nutrition profile, and functionality. Together with our customers and partners, we are unlocking the potential of our ChickP protein to offer the best solutions across multiple applications. Our customers confirm that ChickP isolate offers the best dairy-like solution on the market today.”

    The new creamer comes with a neutral flavor that requires fewer additives including sugar, while also offering “excellent foaming capabilities,” making it ideal for barista applications, the company says. The chickpea milk is also higher in protein than most at three percent per serving compared to the typical one percent. It also reduces the risk of allergens that nuts, soy, and even oats—which can be contaminated with gluten–can’t offer.

    “Consumers are looking for plant-based milk, but they also demand great taste and texture,” notes Maor Dahan, application manager of ChickP. “Our chickpea S930 and G910 isolate are the most refined form of protein with the advantage of matching color, flavor, and functional properties to food and beverage applications. This protein has great solubility, exhibiting excellent water dispersion properties across a wide range of pH. It has a low viscosity and an optimized flavor.”

    ChickP

    The new barista milk is the latest offering from the company founded in 2016 by Ram Reifen, MD, a pediatric gastroenterologist, and professor of human nutrition. It developed a proprietary technology for producing chickpea protein.

    The company completed an $8 million Series A raise earlier this year led by Genisys Capital Private Ltd. Singapore-based strategic partner Growthwell Foods.

    “Our ChickP protein ticks all the boxes,” says Lachish Levy. “It’s packed with highly nutritious complete protein containing all nine essential amino acids. But more than that, it has a rich texture, and provides smooth, stable full foaming, with a white color, perfect for showcasing the most artful barista’s skills.”

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  • Asia’s Cultivated Fish Company Avant Closes a $10.8 Million Series A

    Avant cultivated fish
    3 Mins Read

    Greater China’s first cultivated seafood startup Avant has closed its Series A funding round of nearly $11 million.

    Hong-Kong-based Avant launched in 2018 and closed a $3.1 million seed fund at the end of 2020. It was recognized as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum last year. The company boasts a patent-pending proprietary technology. The new round was led by S2G Ventures and includes participation from Blue Ocean of SWEN Capital Partners, Regal Hotels, and Thia Ventures, as well as existing investors including Lever VC, CPT Capital, ParticleX, Artesian, Good Startup, and Alwyn Capital.

    Courtesy, Avant

    “We are very grateful for the huge support of new investors and the ongoing commitment from existing investors,” Carrie Chan, CEO and Co-founder at Avant, said in a statement. “We look forward to scaling up production for commercialization and sending our products to customers by late 2023.”

    “We are excited to support Avant in its mission to sustainably address the global demand for seafood with cutting-edge innovations,” said Larsen Mettler, Managing Director at S2G Ventures Oceans and Seafood. “Avant has a highly dedicated team and international group of co-investors who are ready to tackle overfishing and responsibly feed markets around the world.”

    Disrupting the seafood industry

    Avant says it’s working to replace seafood products to help protect the oceans while offering “delicious, nutritious, sustainable, traceable fish and seafood.”

    “We are delighted to continue to back Avant, a leading cultivated fish company with a great track record and a strong base in Asia, the world’s biggest seafood market and the most important one for global impact,” said Nick Cooney, Founder and Managing Partner of Lever VC.

    China is one of the largest seafood-consuming nations—consuming more than two million tons per year.

    Courtesy, Avant

    “Fishing practices are emptying the oceans at a rate of 1-2 trillion fish per year, with nearly 90 percent of the world’s marine fish stocks now fully exploited, overexploited or depleted,” Avant says. “Simultaneously, the consumption of fish is rising at a rapid rate. World food fish consumption in 2030 is projected to rise by 18 percent from 2018.”

    The seafood market

    The current global fish and seafood market is valued at more than $580 billion, with a CAGR of 5.3 percent expected through 2027.

    Avant says it has developed a multi-pronged approach to address the costs to scale, which includes its patent-pending technology. It says it’s able to reduce costs by 90 percent. It’s also doing it with an animal-free growth medium. The company is now working to open a pilot plant in Singapore next year with bioreactors that can produce up to 2,000 liters.

    Cultivated fish filets and fish maw are expected to be Avant’s first products to market once it receives regulatory approval. The company is also working on a marine peptide for use in skincare.

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  • How Swiss Manufacturer Bühler Is Pushing Sustainable Protein to the Food System’s Front Lines

    Buhler vegan burger
    4 Mins Read

    Swiss multinational plant equipment manufacturer Bühler is going all-in on the sustainable food system, particularly the alternative protein sector.

    At its recent 2022 Networking Days event in Uzwil, Switzerland, Bühler announced several key initiatives that focus on the changing protein landscape. The timing is crucial as approval for cultivated meat is likely to happen in key markets within the next 12 to 18 months after the successful Singapore approval of Good Meat’s cultivated chicken in 2020.

    Demand for plant-based protein continues its climb in developed markets such as the U.S. and Europe, and in new markets including Asia and Latin America.

    “We’re not against meat. We’re pro-choice and pro-solving problems,” said Ian Roberts, Bühler CTO.

    The Cultured Hub in Kemptthal

    To that end, the company is launching The Cultured Hub in Kemptthal near Zurich, which it says is nearly complete. It’s a joint venture between flavor giant Givaudan, Swiss supermarket giant Migros, and Bühler. The facility will support the acceleration of large-scale fermentation and cultivated food production.

    “We want to accelerate fermentation and cultured meat by offering startups the opportunity to test their products earlier, and not have to invest in a huge facility to do so,” Roberts said.

    Future home of The Cultured Hub in Kemptthal, courtesy

    “The challenges posed by climate change, increasingly depleted resources, and a growing global population expected to exceed 10 billion people by 2050 require a reimagination of our food system,” the company says on its website. “Sustainable food cultivation is key in meeting these challenges. Increased global customer demand for sustainably and ethically produced healthy, and tasty food products further substantiates the need for change.”

    Embracing biotech

    It will also explore partnerships that bring biotechnology, precision fermentation, and cellular agriculture to a number of key areas, namely animal feed, in a move it says will support a more sustainable value chain worldwide. It recently launched a joint venture with Austrian pharmaceutical and biotechnology company ZETA for that project.

    “Harnessing bioprocessing for the food and feed industry is not new, but it needs to be applied at scale,” Roberts said of the launch. “Technologies such as precision fermentation and cellular agriculture offer the potential to drastically reduce the land and CO2e footprints of food and feed production. This is a potential pathway to produce food and feed for a growing world population whilst respecting the limits of the planet.”

    Accelerating plant-based

    But for Bühler, it’s not just the controversial, complicated food tech of cultivated meat that’s on the table. In a partnership with Germany’s Flottweg SE, Bühler is working to accelerate plant-based products as demand rises, with an emphasis on protein isolates. Flottweg specializes in mechanical separation technology, a process Bühler says supports its production processes. This will accelerate the development of sustainable proteins.

    It’s a move that Andreas Risch, Head of Business Unit Special Grains & Pulses at Bühler, says will increase offerings to its customers in the whole protein processing space, “in particular toward protein isolation but also for all the applications where a solid-liquid separation step might be required.”

    Buhler plant-based
    Bühler plant-based patty, courtesy

    Where all of these technologies intersect is the booming demand for alternatives to the current protein systems. Consumers are seeking healthier options, which include a shift away from red and processed meats that have been classified by the World Health Organization as likely and probable carcinogens. Consumers are shifting away from animal protein because of the impact on the planet, too. As evidence of human-caused climate change is becoming increasingly more evident, more consumers, particularly the climate-sensitive Millennials and Gen-Z, are opting for smaller-footprint foods.

    For Bühler, that means a shift to its entire value chain. The market leader in dry processing technology says it wants to improve its sustainability efforts and reduce its carbon footprint. It recently partnered with the German engineering company Endeco to help achieve that goal. The partnership includes a Protein Lab aimed at developing value chain solutions.

    Aligned with Endeco, Bühler says it will be able to not only meet the growing demand for alternative protein sources and develop processing solutions with a lower carbon footprint, but it will also be able to offer its customers end-to-end solutions including wet and dry processing.

    “Endeco provides the final missing piece for Bühler between the mill and pulse processing,” says Johannes Wick, CEO Business Grains & Food at Bühler.

    “Together with Bühler we will not only help meet growing demand for more sustainable sources of protein, but also improve the environmental footprint of the processing technology itself,” says Karl-Heinz Bergmann, owner and CEO of Endeco.

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  • California’s Budget Act Allocates $5 Million for Alternative Protein Research

    3 Mins Read

    California’s recently passed Budget Act of 2022, signed into law by Governor Newsom last week, includes $5 million for the development of cultivated and plant-based meat. It’s the first time the state has put funding toward R&D for sustainable alternatives to conventional protein.

    The $5 million in funding is allocated to The University of California’s Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Davis campuses. The provision specifies it’s a “one-time” basis, specifically to support “research and development of plant-based and cultivated meats.”

    The funding comes as California is currently in its worst drought in history. Animal agriculture uses about 20 percent of freshwater globally. Cultivated and plant-based meat offer large-scale alternatives that require significantly less water and require fewer resources in general.

    University of California protein research

    The UC campuses have all been active centers for research into new protein sources in recent years.

    Berkeley launched an Alt Meat Lab in 2017 to support the Bay Area’s cultivated and plant-based meat boom.

    Wildtype’s cultivated salmon | Courtesy

    Davis, which is already home to the Agricultural Sustainability Institute, will use funds to support alternative protein efforts that started in 2020. Helmed by Professor David Block, the consortium received a $3.55 million National Science Foundation grant aimed at developing cell lines for cultivated meat.

    The Los Angeles campus began researching cultivated meat in 2018, and has received funds from both The Good Food Institute and New Harvest. Last year, it received a $250,000 grant from the California NanoSystems Institute for cultivated meat research.

    Alternative protein in California

    California is home to a number of cultivated meat producers. In the Bay Area, Good Meat, a spin-off of the plant-based Eat Just brand, was the first cultivated meat producer in the world to receive regulatory approval for its meat. That approval came by way of Singapore in 2020, where its meat is currently sold.

    BlueNalu, Finless Foods, and WildType are all producing cultivated fish in the state.

    Silicon Valley startup Upside Foods, which is positioning itself to be the largest producer of cultivated meat in the state once there’s U.S. regulatory approval, applauded the funding.

    “This historic investment in research and development across the University of California system will ensure that California remains a leader in food and innovation,” the company said in a statement.

    Impossible Foods burger, courtesy

    The company said it recently hosted members of the legislature at its Emeryville, Califonia, Engineering, Production, and Innovation Center, which it says will be capable of producing 400,000 pounds of cultivated meat per year.

    “We walked through the most advanced cultivated meat production facility on the planet and discussed the importance of this funding proposal,” the company said. “We appreciate the leadership and dedication of Assemblymember Ash Kalra and the vision of Governor Newsom to build a sustainable future.”

    The Budget Act funding also goes to support plant-based research. The state is home to the nation’s two biggest names in plant-based meat: the Bay Area’s Impossible Foods and Southern California’s Beyond Meat.

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  • Are Flexitarians Ready for Fungi-Based Seafood? Here’s What a Taste Test Found.

    This Women-Led Startup Is Growing the 'Holy Grail' of Vegan Seafood From Microbes
    3 Mins Read

    With the first whole-cut microbial fermentation seafood coming to market, Aqua Cultured Foods is gearing up for a category disruption. And based on recent consumer feedback, success could rival that of Impossible burgers or Just Egg.

    Following a series of private tastings for industry members, food tech startup Aqua Cultured Foods says the response to its microbial fermented whole-muscle cut tuna, whitefish, and calamari signal strong go-to-market opportunities.

    ‘I couldn’t stop eating it’

    Aqua Cultured Foods, which uses mycoprotein to develop its vegan seafood options, brought its seafood offerings to foodservice distributors, chefs, and organizations in the retail and restaurant space. It showcased its seafood to potential partners across Europe, Asia, and North America.

    Fermented seafood. Photo by Aqua Cultured Foods.

    “The plant-based whole muscle cut, sushi-grade alternative seafood samples I tried today were absolutely incredible. INCREDIBLE!!,” Jen DiFrancesco, Director of Culinary Innovation at Sodexo said of her tasting experience. “I was completely blown away, I couldn’t stop eating it. We’re still talking about it!” 

    “The feedback and discussions with companies we’re meeting have made us extremely optimistic about go-to-market and co-branding opportunities,” said Aqua CGO Brittany Chibe. “Whether it’s rising costs, supply chain concerns, or sustainability goals, we are seeing major interest from potential partners that want to develop products with our seafood or offer it on menus.”  

    Market potential

    Aqua Cultured says it’s now ready to launch public tasting events following the success of the private tastings as it gears up to launch its products later this year. It’s working on shrimp, scallops, and filets in addition to the recently sampled items.

    The company says it’s capable of producing 50,000 pounds of seafood per month at a 15,000-square-foot factory. In addition to the U.S., factories are being planned in key markets across Asia and Europe.

    Microbial fermentation, while not plant-based because it’s made from fungi, offers many of the benefits of plant-based and conventional seafood including protein, omega-fatty-acids, and fiber, which is only found in plants and fungi.

    Courtesy Aqua Cultured

    Last October, Aqua Cultured Foods closed the biggest pre-seed funding round for whole muscle sushi-grade vegan fillets. The female-led startup raised $2.1 million in an oversubscribed round—one of the largest in the entire fermented protein sector.

    “Interest at this stage has frankly exceeded our capacity to bring in partners, leading to an oversubscribed round, but it’s left us in a good position for future investment and very optimistic about our approach to delivering more sustainable protein,” Aqua CEO Anne Palermo said last year.

    “Our next step is to work on commercializing our products from lab-scale to bring to the foodservice and retail channels,” Palermo said, “including the fresh refrigerated set for grocery, so that our products can reach both restaurant tables and the seafood counter.”

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  • Paleo Secures Patents for 6 Heme-Based Precision Fermentation Proteins Including Woolly Mammoth

    A Woolly Mammoth Burger
    4 Mins Read

    With what it’s calling a breakthrough for plant-based meat, food tech startup Paleo is opening up the opportunity for a range of sustainable proteins including an extinct woolly mammoth “paleo protein” via its novel precision fermentation heme technology.

    Beef, chicken, pork, lamb, and tuna join the paleo-era mammoth protein in the new patented line-up that Paleo says is the world’s first. The announcement follows the company’s $2.5 million seed raise last December.

    “When we set out to create the ultimate animal-free meat or fish experience, we quickly zeroed in on heme,” Hermes Sanctorum, CEO and co-founder of Paleo, said in a statement. “Without exaggeration, we can say that we cracked the code of heme, allowing us to produce GMO-free heme that’s bio-identical to the most popular meats and tuna—as well as mammoth.”  

    Paleo founders Hermes Sanctorum and Andy de Jong, courtesy

    Paleo is not the first company to want to resurrect the woolly mammoth in order to help save the planet. Bioscience and genetics company Colossal made headlines last September after announcing it wanted to use CRISPR technology to bring back the animals last seen on the planet about 10,000 years ago. The company says resurrecting mammoths (which would be a hybrid with an Asian elephant) could play a vital role in protecting ecosystems that trap carbon. Since the mammoths’ disappearance, arctic permafrost has been melting as forests have been allowed to grow. Mammoths historically help tundra grasslands thrive by stomping and chomping down forests.

    Paleo’s not advocating for turning Colossal’s animals into burgers—its option is entirely plant-based—but it is aligned with the mission. Paleo wants to solve the climate crisis by creating an alternative protein source that reduces the impact on the environment compared to conventional animal protein. In this case, it’s replacing beef and other proteins that contribute to human-caused climate change with more sustainable options. Animal agriculture is responsible for about 15 percent of heat-trapping emissions.

    Heme

    Heme is the novel tech first brought to market by vegan meat brand Impossible Foods for use in its popular burgers. The meaty taste and texture of Impossible Foods’ burgers come from heme. It gives the burgers their “bleeding” texture that turns brown once cooked. It’s also responsible for improving the taste of the vegan meat and offers nutritional value, namely heme-iron that’s more easily absorbed than iron from vegetables.

    But it sources its heme from soy root via genetic modification, a controversial gene-editing practice that has been a contributing factor to Impossible’s slow entry into international markets where there are stricter regulations on the technology.

    Impossible Foods burger, courtesy

    Paleo says it’s achieved its heme without the need for GMO tech. It is relying on precision fermentation, the same tech seeing widespread success for Perfect Day’s whey. The Bay Area food-tech company has launched its own brand of dairy-identical products with its fermented whey as well as wholesaling the ingredient to other manufacturers such as Brave Robot.

    A better-tasting burger

    According to Paleo, the difference is “immediately clear” in a side-by-side taste test between a conventional plant-based burger and a burger using its heme. “The burger with bio-identical beef heme smells like a burger, changes colour when cooked like a burger and tastes like a beef burger—the other one just doesn’t,” the company said.

    “If we want people to adopt meat and fish alternatives, they will have to taste good. We offer more choice and better taste.”   

    Courtesy Sander Dalhuisen via Unsplash

    Paleo says current plant-based meat offerings are stuck in an “uncanny valley” where they taste “almost” like their conventional counterparts. With its new patented precision fermentation tech, Paleo says it offers a compelling answer to the problem.

    “If we want to meet the 2025 and 2030 forecasts for meat and fish substitutes, we need game-changing technology like Paleo’s,” Sanctorum said. “Current technologies just can’t deliver on the projections of the market for 2030 or even 2050. With Paleo, a true flexitarian lifestyle does become possible.” 

    The company says it is ramping up production of its heme and products will be making their market introduction next year in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. It’s currently preparing for its Series A funding to support production and development.

    “Paleo heme production is only the beginning,” says Andy de Jong, COO and co-founder of Paleo. “Using our technology, we can also create other ingredients that are essential to the meat or fish experience and mouth feel, like fats. We’re very excited about the possibilities that our technology offers.” 

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  • Pizza Hut Expands Its Vegan Offerings With 3 New Pies

    vegan pizza
    3 Mins Read

    Pizza Hut continues its expansion into dairy-free and vegan options with the addition of three new options at locations across Germany.

    The new vegan ‘Chik ‘n’ Cheez’, ‘Smokey BBQ’, and ‘Tuscany Spicy’ are now available. The launch is a first for Pizza Hut Germany, a move it said it made due to increasing customer demand.

    Vegan pizza options in Germany

    The vegan chicken includes a “cheese-flavored sauce”, red onions, pepper mix, mushrooms, and the vegan chicken meat’ the barbecue option also includes vegan chicken, barbecue sauce, corn, onions, and peppers; and the Tuscany Spicy includes corn, jalapenos, bruschetta, and balsamic vinegar. All of the pizzas are topped with Violife’s dairy-free cheese. The chain also launched a vegan penne pasta with vegan cheese sauce and Violife’s vegan cheese.

    “It is time! Pizza Hut goes vegan,” the chain said in an Instagram post earlier this month. “You wished for it [and] we made it happen. We have created not just one, not two, but three vegan pizzas for you.”

    In January, Pizza Hut launched a vegan chicken and Violife pizza in the U.K. for Veganuary. That pie, the Vegan Flamin’ Buffalo, was topped with Frank’s Red Hot Sauce.

    “We are thrilled to announce our latest collab with the iconic Frank’s RedHot® Sauce, and can’t wait for our guests to try it!,” Kathryn Austin, Chief People and Marketing Officer at Pizza Hut Restaurants, said in a statement at the time. 

    “Expanding our already extensive vegan range has been on our radar for some time, and we’re so excited to be able to offer our Vegan guests even more choice when they eat with us.”

    Pizza Hut’s vegan options

    The three new pizzas build on Pizza Hut’s expansion into vegan offerings. Part of the Yum! Brand family, which also includes Taco Bell, Pizza Hut has partnered with Beyond Meat in a number of markets.

    Pizza Hut locations in Belgium now offer Beyond Meat as a permanent menu item, also with Violife cheese.

    In January, Pizza Hut Canada made Beyond Meat’s Italian Sausage Crumbles a permanent menu item. That followed a similar launch in the U.K. last year.

    Pizza Hut’s Vegan Flamin’ Buffalo with Frank’s Red Hot Sauce | Courtesy

    Pizza Hut tested two Beyond Meat Pan Pizzas in the U.S. in 2020, then added vegan pepperoni from Beyond Meat to select locations last year for a limited time. It marked the first time a major pizza chain launched vegan meat in the U.S. market, but all of those options still came with conventional cheese options.

    Despite increasing vegan options in Europe, Asia, and Australia, fully vegan options in the U.S. still haven’t materialized for any of the big three pizza chains; neither Pizza Hut, Domino’s, nor Papa John’s have launched dairy-free cheese in the U.S. It’s not for lack of options, either. Violife, Daiya, and Follow Your Heart are all widely available in the U.S.

    But the vegan cheese drought may soon change as a growing number of regional U.S. pizza chains including Blaze Pizza, Fresh Brothers, and Zpizza all currently offer vegan cheese.

    . 

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  • Dairy-Free Milk Needs Subsidized Says EU School Petition

    school lunch
    3 Mins Read

    A new petition launched by vegan dairy producers and nonprofits is urging the European Union to add dairy-free milk options to its subsidized school lunch options.

    “If Europe is serious about offering students a healthy and sustainable diet, it should offer calcium-fortified plant-based milk drinks in the EU School Scheme,” read the petition. It has already secured close to 40,000 signatures after launching earlier this month. That’s more than halfway to its goal of 60,000.

    The petition cites several reasons for the demand: dairy allergies and lactose intolerance, sustainability, and animal welfare.

    EU school subsidies

    The signatures come ahead of a review of the EU’s subsidy programs. The EU has subsidized a number of healthy foods for children over the last five years including fruits and vegetables. It’s also subsidized cow’s milk, as does the U.S. government for American schools. According to the petitioners, the EU subsidizes more than 160 million liters of cow’s milk every year. But the lack of dairy-free options has been called “dietary racism.” Up to 75 percent of Black people and up to 90 percent of Asian populations cannot tolerate dairy.

    Dairy is also linked to climate change, a growing global concern. Animal agriculture produces about 15 percent of total global emissions.

    “Every year, about 160 million liters of subsidized cow’s milk is served in schools all over Europe within the EU school scheme, amounting to a massive chunk of C02e emissions and building a preference for dairy products while children’s eating habits are being established,” Oatly, one of the brands behind the petition, said in an Instagram post earlier this month. That “massive chunk” is about 220,000 tons of CO2 each year, the oat milk producer says.

    “At the same time, the EU cares about people’s lifestyles and health and wants us to increase the consumption of plant-based foods as one of the ways to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Not including plant-based drinks in the scheme is irrational and counterproductive,” Oatly said.

    Animal welfare

    The petition also cites animal welfare concerns, “animal welfare is an increasing concern in Europe, including among its young people. For this reason, some students opt for plant-based milk because it’s cruelty-free. On many dairy farms, cows live in cramped stalls, unable to walk, turn around, groom, look to the side, or interact with other herd members in a natural way. There is a growing awareness among children of the animal-welfare implications of drinking milk. Having access to plant-based alternatives allows students to drink milk that does not negatively affect the welfare of animals.”

    A recent survey found nearly half of younger people were embarrassed or ashamed to order dairy in public.

    Europe and the UK have been leading the global shift to plant-based food with Michelin-starred restaurants, fast-food chains, and supermarkets all leaning into sustainable and ethical options.

    To support the petition, Oatly launched a commercial across the EU showing kids sneaking its dairy-free oat milk into school. “Should kids have to take it into their own hands?” the ad asks. “Include plant-based milk in the school milk scheme!”

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  • Jellatech Reaches Major Milestone By Confirming Cell-Based Collagen Success

    4 Mins Read

    Headquartered in North Carolina, biotech startup Jellatech has announced the successful production of cell-based collagen. The company, founded two years ago, claims to have created full-length, triple-helical collagen that functions identically to conventional sources. The development has been made using the company’s proprietary cell lines.

    Used across multiple industries, including cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and food production, collagen reportedly contributes to an $8.4 billion dollar sector. Jellatech set out to create a clean and sustainably superior version of the protein, which doesn’t rely on animals for sourcing.

    Jellatech accomplishes its collagen goals

    “This is a major milestone for us and I am beyond proud and excited that we are already here. Being able to see our clean cell-based collagen with the naked eye – it brings happy tears,” Stephanie Michelsen, CEO of Jellatech said in a statement.

    With consumers increasingly scrutinising the sustainability credentials of the brands they support, cruelty-free alternatives to necessary ingredients are becoming more vital. Traditionally, collagen is found in animal skin, bones and connective tissues, requiring the slaughter of said creature. Horses, cows, pigs, rabbits and fish are common sources of collagen collection. Add in supply chain disruptions caused by Covid-19, travel restrictions and other unforeseen outbreaks, including African swine flu, and a stable provision becomes hard to guarantee.

    Jellatech has positioned itself to offer an alternative to conventional animal-sourced collagen. In April last year, the startup secured $2 million in a pre-seed funding round, to support ongoing collagen and gelatine R&D. The investment allowed Jellatech to send out samples of its collagen development, with a view to commercialising within 18 months. That ambition is closer than ever to being realised, with the new announcement that it has achieved bioidentical results with cell-based collagen.

    “We’re thrilled to see that our cell-derived collagen appears bio-identical to collagen derived from animals. Because of this, we have a wide range of exciting applications from biomedicine to cosmetics to food and beverage,” Rob Schutte, head of science at Jellatech said in a statement.

    Taking the cell-based path

    Jellatech is not the only startup looking to take animals out of the collagen production system. The company states that it decided against plant-based or fermentation-derived investigations due to the limitations both have. Jellatech claims that both are unable to fully mimic the range of functionality that animal-based collagen contains, therefore its cell-based innovation is a step ahead.

    “Collagen formation is a complex process that requires specialized machinery found only in mammalian cells,” Christopher Gilchrist, senior scientist at Jellatech said in a statement. “We’re working to harness the innate ability of these cells to produce collagen that is bio-identical to native collagen and do it in a sustainable and animal-free way.”

    The race for cruelty-free collagen 

    In February, biodesign startup Geltor announced it has successfully completed its first commercial run of fermented animal-free collagen. Dubbed PrimaColl, the vegan product was manufactured in partnership with Arxada to test scaling capabilities. The company reported no loss of precision, with all produced PrimaColl being hailed as a bioidentical alternative to animal-sourced collagen. Despite announcing a capacity increase from 10,000 litres in 2019 to millions in 2021, The company states that it has a long way to go to replace the conventional protein, which currently sees kilotonnes of demand every year.

    In March, Israeli cultivated meat innovator Aleph Farms revealed it is adding cell-based collagen to its portfolio of developments. The move forms part of the company’s commitment to replacing all bovine proteins currently used commercially, in a bid to offer a sustainable alternative to animal farming. An in-house incubation accelerator, dubbed Aleph Frontiers, looked into the potential for collagen as part of an 18-month stealth investigation, with the results being favourable. 2024 has been floated as a potential launch date for finished collagen products. 

    All photos by Jellatech.

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  • Israeli Food Giant Tnuva Continues Its Alternative Protein Journey With New R&D Center

    Tnuva Alternative Dairy
    3 Mins Read

    Israel further cements itself as a global alt-protein leader as its largest food manufacturer and dairy giant, Tnuva, is opening a dairy-free R&D center following its plans to launch into cell-based meat.

    As Israel continues its ascent as a leading food-tech hub, driven in recent years by cultivated meat giants including Aleph Farms and Super Meat, the mainstream sector is diving in as well with Tnuva’s latest announcement. The dairy giant says it’s establishing the first R&D center in Israel focused on non-dairy products.

    R&D Center

    “Our center is dedicated to the end product. And I think that’s what makes it more unique. Because all food tech companies are usually dedicated to the ingredient. And we are taking that special ingredient and combining it into the end product,” Pnina Sverdlov, manager of Tnuva’s R&D and projects division, said in a recent interview. “The food tech creates the ingredients but our job is to make sure they come out as a nice end product for the consumer.”

    Tnuva is also vying for a slice of the country’s booming cultivated meat sector; in January it announced a partnership with biotech firm Pluristem Therapeutics to bring lab-grown meat to market by next year. Tnuva’s VC arm NEXT invested $7.5 million into the project in February.

    Courtesy SuperMeat

    The news was followed by the creation of a cultivated meat consortium in Israel, announced in April. Tnuva is part of the project, dubbed The Israel Innovation Authority, which is granting $18 million over three years to 14 companies and 10 academic labs in the cultivated meat space.

    “This is an unprecedented governmental commitment on a global scale, in a cellular agriculture consortium and more particularly cultivated meat which will enable Israel to maintain its leadership in one of the most significant areas in Foodtech,” Shai Cohen, chief innovation officer at Tnuva Group and chairperson of the consortium said in a statement at the time.

    Tnuva’s aim at dairy innovation also includes an investment in cultured milk startup, Remilk. The company raised $120 million in its Series B earlier this year.

    A ‘new approach’ to food

    With its new R&D center, Tnuva says it’s working with food tech startups on a “new approach” to food to meet the rising demand for sustainable options.

    Courtesy Remilk

    “In the last year, we began to understand that we need to extend our capabilities to be more flexible with new ingredients,” says Sverdlov. She says that as a 100-year-old manufacturer, Tnuva has a deep understanding of the consumer, the market, and how to handle new product roll-outs both from the manufacturing side and consumer side.

    “With dozens of product launches a year, we have the most advanced infrastructures, capabilities, and knowledge in all categories to move Tnuva and its partners forward to the technological forefront in the alternative protein field,” Sverdlov said. “Our expertise are in developing large scale production processes and reaching relatively fast a final product, unique production facilities and our profound understanding of marketing.”

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  • Current Foods Nets $18 Million For Vegan Smoked Salmon Retail Push

    4 Mins Read

    San Francisco’s Current Foods, formerly Kuleana, has closed an $18 million seed funding round as global appetite for plant-based seafood continues to grow. Investors included GreatPoint Ventures, Union Grove Venture Partners, Astanor Ventures and Electric Feel Ventures, amongst others. Funding has been earmarked to support the retail launch of Current Foods’ smoked salmon analogues. Alongside, finding distribution within Japan and continued R&D into realistic whole-cut fish alternatives. Will be bolstered.

    Current Foods likens itself to Beyond Meat in that it tries to capture the most realistic texture. The startup seeks to recreate the taste and texture of tuna and salmon, using plant combinations that often prove surprising. Bamboo, algae, and potatoes have been used together to create seafood that competes on a nutritional level with conventional seafood, but with no toxins or cholesterol. 

    Current Foods widening its net

    The alternative seafood market is growing exponentially. As meat analogues become less novelty, startups are turning their attention to replacing fish and seafood, in a bid to save the oceans and tempt different consumers to the plant-based side. 

    “[We] feel we have invested in the Beyond Meat of seafood,” Ray Lane, managing partner at GreatPoint Ventures said in a statement. “With the earth’s growing population eating the foods we love, we are paying the ultimate price: global warming, eroding health, and dwindling protein sources.”

    Current’s smoked salmon, alongside its sushi-grade tuna analogue, was made available directly to consumers in February this year. The move followed products largely only being available to foodservice partners previously, though the whole-cut tuna was sold at Los Angeles-based health food shop Erewhon. At the time, Adrienne Han, vice president of consumer marketing for Current Foods, stated that the company was on a mission to make its products as accessible as possible. Direct to consumer and, eventually, retail channels were listed as priorities.

    Market conditions helping alternative seafood companies

    Fresh seafood has been hit by the soaring rate of inflation. Rising diesel costs and unavailability of containers mean that trawlers are increasingly being kept in port, leading to a shortage of products hitting the market. Those that are presented are demonstrating far higher prices than normal. This presents an opportunity for alternative seafood manufacturers, who can satisfy domestic appetites for seafood, without having to hike their costs.

    “Seafood is by far the largest segment of price increase because it has such a wild supply chain…but we can afford to grow our business with healthy margins,” Jacek Prus, founder and CEO of Current Foods told Forbes. 

    Consumers are playing their part too. A surge in plant-based seafood interest has been widely attributed to savvy eaters looking for healthy alternatives to fish meat, which has been identified as a source of heavy metals, microplastics and toxins.

    Photo by Revo Foods.

    Snaring salmon aficionados 

    Plant-based salmon is proving to be a highly competitive market, especially in the ultrarealistic niche. Multiple players are seeking to bring products to market that replicate not just the taste, but also the structure and nutrition of conventional salmon fillets.

    Austria’s Revo Foods unveiled its most realistic analogue to date earlier this month. The startup claims that in a public tasting, diners questioned if the fillet was actually vegan, as they were so convinced it was real fish. The product unveiling came alongside Revo scooping €2.2 million from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency, to continue its work with 3D-printed seafood.

    Over in Israel, Plantish is looking to speed up its route to market. The alternative seafood startup debuted its hyperrealistic salmon fillet on social media at the start of the year and has since gone on to bag $12.45 million to scale production. The raise represented the largest seed round ever completed by an alternative seafood interest and followed a $2 million pre-seed round. Plantish hopes to be launching commercially within two years, starting with foodservice channels. 

    All photos by Current Foods, unless stated.

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  • Burger King Unveils Two New Impossible-Powered Burgers In The US

    3 Mins Read

    Burger King U.S. is launching two new Impossible Burger menu items beginning today: the Impossible King and Southwest Bacon Impossible Whopper.

    The Impossible King is a flame-grilled Impossible patty topped with American cheese, sliced white onions, pickles, ketchup, and mustard on a toasted sesame seed bun. It’s essentially the existing Single Quarter Pound King with the Impossible patty. The Southwest Bacon Impossible Whopper includes avocado spread, seasoned tortilla strips, bacon, and a creamy spicy sauce.

    As a way to tempt meat-eaters to consume less animal protein, the two new Impossible launches are a positive step forward, though the inclusion of cheese and bacon could be observed as a step back.

    Specifically, it could be shortsighted to not source plant-based bacon, especially as Burger King France has just entered into a domestic partnership with La Vie, to use its vegan bacon in its vegan Steakhouse sandwich. The collaboration came after La View marketed directly to the fast-food giant, taking out a full-page advert in Le Parisien and courting it with compositions of its products in existing burgers.

    Leicester Square earlier this year.

    Plant-based at Burger King

    Despite the apparent flexitarian angle of the new U.S. launches, Burger King has previously aligned itself with the plant-based community, including its pledge to make at least 50 percent of its menu meat-free by 2031. 

    In a significant show of vegan solidarity, London’s largest Burger King restaurant was transformed into a fully plant-based outlet for a full month, back in March. The whole 25-item menu at Leicester Square was vegan-friendly, including bacon, provided by French startup la Vie, and cheese. This was not the first location to be trialled as a meat-free destination and followed in the footsteps of similar initiatives in Madrid and Cologne. 

    Madrid’s dalliance with ’Vurger King’, in October last year, was supported by meat analogues from Unilever-owned The Vegetarian Butcher, mirroring an earlier event in Germany. Combined, the three meat-free pop-ups confirmed to Burger King that there is demand for veganised or at least plant-based versions of their popular menu items. So much so that Basel and Geneva now play host to meat-free Burger King restaurants. 

    The burger chains that aren’t compromising

    It was just announced that former Burger King chef Michael Salem is working with actor Kevin Hart on his new 100 percent vegan Hart House burger chain. The chef was poached from Burger King, after developing the Impossible Whopper. Salem’s reason for making the switch is likely to be a sting in the tail for his former employer. “I’ve seen too many animals die,” he told Los Angeles Mag. “I’ve been too guilty about the food I’ve been serving the community, making people really unhealthy for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s necessary. I think this is really the future of fast food, so that’s why I took the gig.”

    In May, it was confirmed that Stand-Up Burgers, an off-shoot of Veggie Grill, is opening a fourth location. The Culver City restaurant is the first Los Angeles spot for the brand, which specialises in veganised versions of classic American fast food. Burgers, hotdogs and homely sides including tater tots are menu staples. Like Burger King U.S., Stand-Up Burgers works with Impossible Foods for its patties, housing them in brioches buns and creating seven signature styles. 

    All images by Burger King, unless stated.

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  • South Africa Declares War On ‘Meaty’ Plant-Based Food Labelling

    4 Mins Read

    The South African Department of Agriculture, Land reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) has imposed stringent labelling rules on plant-based foods. With immediate effect, all references to ‘meaty’ terms must be removed from product packaging, or manufacturers face being banned from sale. The move stems from what is being considered an extreme interpretation of existing regulations surrounding the labelling of processed meat, with the Food Safety Agency instructed to seize all products not adhering to the rules and represents a victory for the country’s pro animal meat lobbies.

    On June 22 the DALRRD sent out a letter to “all processors, importers and retailers of meat analogues”. It stated in clear terms that no products are allowed to use “product names prescribed and reserved for processed meat products”. The move has been met with disappointment and confusion, as it appears to defy South Africa’s imminent plans to launch climate change legislation.

    Photo by Heura.

    The paradox of South African sustainability

    The South African government has admitted that industrialisation and agriculture are creating an irreversible legacy of climate damage. In the National Climate Change Response White Paper, the government writes that “land-based human activities, such as forest clearing and unsustainable agricultural practices, are not only increasing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions from these sources, but are also reducing the earth’s natural ability to absorb GHGs. [t]he evidence that current global warming is due to human activities associated with industrialisation and modern agriculture is overwhelming”.

    Despite this acknowledgement, the same government is now looking to shackle a growing market sector that offers opportunities for individuals to lessen their carbon footprint. ProVeg South Africa commented that the white paper failed to address that farming and meat consumption are leading causes of emissions and that evidence suggests switching to plant-based alternatives could reduce them by up to 50 percent.

    “This is a huge step backwards in the Government’s fight against climate change,” Donovan Will, country director at ProVeg South Africa said in a statement. “Regulation such as this is exactly what we don’t need when the world’s scientists are telling us we urgently need to reduce our meat consumption to help brake dangerous global warming.”

    The latest IPCC report confirms that a global majority shifting to a more plant-based diet is essential if we want to stand any chance of staying within the Paris Agreement global warming limit. 

    Burger King South Africa Vegan Meat
    Photo by Burger King SA.

    The terms no longer allowed in South Africa

    Under the new legislation, multiple terms have been banned. These include vegan/veggie biltong, vegan nuggets, vegan BBQ ribs, plant-based meatballs and plant-based chicken-style trips, amongst others. All are named in the letter from the DALRRD. It is unknown if outlets such as Burger King will be forced to rename their Plant-Based Whopper.

    In an extension of the act, a non-meat product has been forced to bear the brunt of the DALRRD’s ire. Following a claimed meeting between the department and the Food Safety Agency, a further letter was distributed to Woolworths. One of the largest grocery chains in South Africa, Woolworths was informed that it was no longer allowed to sell Just Egg as an egg product owing to the fact that it doe snot come from “domestic fowl”. The letter highlighted Just Egg’s intention “to substitute or imitate eggs as defined in regulation R.345 dated 20 March 2020, and the vegan product thus competes directly with eggs as defined in the said regulations.” It also stated that the packaging was “misleading” in that it refers to “plant eggs”.

    ProVeg has commented that such acts are claiming a monopoly on “meat” and “egg” as terms for food labelling, which is unjust given plant-based items’ ability to faithfully replicate the eating experience. 

    As Bird Flu Ravages South Korea's Egg Industry, Just's Vegan Egg Arrives
    Photo by Eat JUST.

    “The regulation disrespects consumers. There is no evidence to show that people are confused by meaty names for plant-based foods. In fact, evidence from Australia, Europe and the US prove they are not confused,” Will said in a statement. “We really urge the government to overturn this regulation. At a time when countries are seeking ways to tackle climate change, we must do all we can to encourage a vibrant and innovative plant-based sector.”

    Similar labelling concerns have not yet been levelled at the plant-based dairy sector in South Africa, though are anticipated to follow. If they present themselves, this will have serious ramifications for those who can’t drink cow’s milk and rely on easy access to alternatives. Up to 95 percent of BIPOC individuals suffer some form of lactose intolerance, which poses a serious problem for South African consumers.

    Lead photo by Jacques Nel at Unsplash.

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  • British Meat-Eaters ‘Pleasantly Surprised’ By Vegan Alternatives To Animal-Based Dishes

    4 Mins Read

    British brand The No Meat Company has conducted a survey of 2,000 U.K. adults to gauge attitudes around plant-based meat. The key takeaway was that 46 percent of the participants had previously harboured disinterest in ‘different’ foods, but were pleasantly surprised when they tried them; 48 percent of those asked stated that they didn’t consider a meal complete unless it contained meat, while 38 percent cited doubts about ever eating plant-based alternatives.

    Individuals who had been pleasantly surprised by plant-based meat products cited sausages, mince and beef-alternative burgers as the best options. Participants already more open to animal-free foods noted that they enjoy plant-based ice cream, chocolate, nuggets and sausage rolls. 

    Putting meat devotion to the test

    Researchers from The No Meat Company asked three hardcore meat fans to sample a range of vegan alternatives from its own portfolio. Sausages, sausage rolls and chicken wraps were offered, to get a sense of how they perform in the sense of taste and texture. The results were positive, with the company revealing that one was shocked they weren’t eating conventional pork sausages and another claiming they wouldn’t miss meat for a meal if they could substitute with the products tried. 

    “There are sometimes preconceptions around plant-based foods, but our study shows that even the biggest meat fans can be pleasantly surprised by the taste and texture of meat alternatives,” Neville Tam, brand lead at The No Meat Company said in a statement. “With so many great options now available on the market, it’s easier than ever before to include plant-based alternatives in your everyday food shop. Meat-free meal choices can be kinder to the planet, and in many cases better for you too.”

    Pushing through existing assumptions of plant-based meat

    More pertinent findings from the study include the fact that 36 percent of meat-eaters claim they know they won’t like a meal unless it contains animal products and seven out of 10 predict they would be able to spot a meat-free alternative to pork sausages. 38 percent of participants revealed they think all foods, both savoury and sweet, are hard to replicate without animal products.

    There was a surprising overwhelming perception of the potential positives of meat-free food items; 63 percent of people interviewed stated that they know plant-based foods play an important role in protecting the environment, though health remained the primary motivation to eat less meat, with 31 percent of people choosing it as a reason. 

    In terms of flexitarianism, three in ten Brits polled claimed to already be reducing their meat intake, with another 19 percent thinking about making the move, while 33 percent admitted they don’t see themselves eating more vegetarian foods in the future, as they enjoy meat too much. 

    What the study proves

    Overall, the research findings indicate that plant-based companies still have a lot of work to do, if they want to convince ardent meat fans to reduce their intake. However, there is optimism that all it can take is one pleasantly surprising meal to kickstart a new healthier habit.

    “The research highlights there is still a way to go in changing people’s perception of meat-free food, but when people do make simple swaps to their everyday meals, they are often pleasantly surprised,” Tam said in a statement. “Switching out meat for plant-based even once or twice a week can make a huge difference, with small steps towards a lifestyle that is better for the planet and for your health. Plant-based eating should be accessible for all so we’d encourage everyone to give it a try – you might just surprise yourself with how much you enjoy it!”

    Changing attitudes elsewhere

    In 2020, it was revealed that people in Germany who identify as full meat-eaters had become a minority. 45 percent still self-attributed the label of meat-eater, while 31 percent claimed to be actively embracing flexitarianism. In March this year, a report was released that doubled down on Germany’s shifting food preferences. It revealed that 51 percent of people polled claimed to have reduced their meat intake within the last year, with 32 percent looking to also cut their dairy.

    All photos by The No Meat Company.

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  • Japan Makes Move To Assess The Safety Of Cultivated Meat

    4 Mins Read

    The Japanese government has announced that it is pulling together a team of experts to analyse the safety of cultivated meat. The move is seen as a precursor to implementing a regulatory framework for future commercial product approvals. 

    The team will be curated by the Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry. Its endeavours will be focused around establishing if there are any risks to human health from consuming cultivated meat products. The entire cultivation process will be analysed ahead of the anticipated industrialisation of cell-based meat production.

    Photo by Afif Kusuma at Unsplash.

    Japan setting future foods in motion

    Japan currently has a food sanitation law in place. It prescribes specific conditions for the production, processing, and sale of conventional meat items. Due to cultivated meat still being unapproved for sale, these guidelines do not apply to the cultivated sector, which now needs its own framework.

    The team of experts, when in position, will be charged with understanding the entire cultivation process, collecting data about each stage of the process to write a report as to the potential risks involved. Toxic substance contamination and potential consequences to human health are considered priority focal points. Once the report has been submitted, the Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry will conduct a panel to decide on necessary safety precautions. 

    Frameworks from other countries, where cultivated meat is making meaningful progress, will be taken into consideration. This will necessarily include Singapore, which remains the only country to approve cultivated meat products for commercial sale. The U.S. and Israel are expected to be used as reference points alongside, as both have burgeoning cultivated sectors and multiple players within the niche vying for regulatory approval.

    Photo by IntegriCulture.

    Japan’s cultivated innovators

    In April, IntegriCulture announced that it had successfully cultivated chicken and duck liver cells. The breakthrough allowed the company to move from research to prototyping stage, using its proprietary CulNet system. The startup revealed that it had made progress without the use of animal serums and for 1/60 of conventional costs. Having scooped $16 million in funding to date, the company is now looking to produce cultivated foie gras as its first commercial product.

    Nissin Food Holdings and the University of Tokyo are working together to make cultivated beef. The two have apparently succeeded in creating Japan’s first edible cell-based meat earlier this year. The research team is now engaged in trying to produce a two-centimetre-thick, 100-gram piece of beef by 2025. If the project is successful, mass production will be attempted.

    In 2021, it was announced that Israeli cultivated pioneer Aleph Farms signed a working agreement with Mitsubishi’s food industry arm. The ultimate aim of the partnership is to bring cultivated meat to Japan, with Aleph’s manufacturing platform being seconded out. Mitsubishi is bringing in biotech experts and working with relevant officials to secure distribution channels. 

    Another key partnership is a collaboration between Israel’s SuperMeat and Japanese food giant Ajinomoto. The two have agreed to work together to expedite the development of cultivated products. Ajinomoto brings scaling capabilities, extensive R&D expertise and streamlining prowess to the partnership. SuperMeat offers its proprietary technology. The two hope to reach commercialisation within two years. 

    Photo by IntegriCulture./

    Getting consumers on board

    Japan has the shortest history of eating meat out of all Asian countries. Traditionally, consumers favour domestically produced meat and look for marbling as an indicator of quality. An underlying preoccupation with meat safety remains and as such, could provide a stumbling block to cultivated meat acceptance. However, as a nation, a lot of faith is placed in relevant governing bodies. If the ministry can formulate a stringent framework for the safe production of cell-based meats, consumers might be willing to try locally manufactured products.

    Lead photo by Kaori Kubota at Unsplash.

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  • ProVeg Granted Permission To Establish A Representative Office In China

    4 Mins Read

    ProVeg has become the first non-governmental organisation engaged in the promotion of alternative proteins to be given approval for a permanent presence in China. The NGO will now open an office in Shanghai, to work with country officials to promote plant-based activities and support international collaboration within the meat-free sector. 

    ProVeg was granted approval for its office by the Shanghai Council for Promotion of International Trade (CPIT) and the Administrative Office of Overseas NGOs of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau. The permission is yet another sign that China is warming up to the alternative protein sector, following an optimistic speech from President Xi and a future foods-inclusive five-year agricultural plan for the country.

    Photo by Christian Lue at Unsplash.

    China as a key market for change

    The new office is heralded as an opportunity for ProVeg to improve its outreach in China, where it has been working already. To date, the NGO has launched five campaigns in the country. Chief amongst them was the Plant-Based Food Innovation contest, which aims to hasten future food developments by supporting upcoming university talent. 

    “We are delighted to be able to open an office in Shanghai and to work more closely in China promoting the benefits of plant-based diets as well as highlighting the environmental benefits and commercial opportunity offered by both plant-based products and cultured meat alternatives,” Sebastian Joy, founder and CEO of ProVeg said in a statement.

    Last year, the NGO hosted a New Cuisine conference. The event was designed to educate and support foodservice professionals who are open to incorporating more plant-based foods and sustainable ingredients into their businesses.

    President Xi photo courtesy of Canva.

    ProVeg making more inroads into China

    This year will see ProVeg working with the European Union to conduct market research. The two are looking to gauge attitudes toward plant-based foods as a starting point for identifying market drivers and the commercial potential of specific niches of smart protein. The research is still subject to CPIT approval. The new Shanghai office will provide a convenient base of operations for the initiative.

    “The opening of the new office allows us to promote the new green food economy and establish exchange around plant-based foods and cultured meat between China and international cross-sectors,” Shirley Lu, managing director Asia for proVeg said in a statement. “Chinese consumers are sophisticated and demanding in food flavours and textures. I expect they will be the key driver for breakthrough innovation here and beyond.”

    Photo by Zhenmeat.

    China as an alternative protein powerhouse

    Historically, China has been a meat-centric country and efforts to encourage a reduction in consumption have been largely unfruitful. Meat has been connected to notions of health and wealth for so long that breaking the connotation is difficult, but attitudes have started to change following Covid-19 and an outbreak of African swine fever. The result of the two has been a demonstrable shift towards foods deemed healthier and less prone to supply chain woes.

    China’s five-year agricultural plan made specific reference to cultivated meat and future foods as sectors to be actively participated in. This includes plant-based meats, which are already gaining traction in the country. 

    In January this year, Starfield Food Science & Technology made history by scooping the largest ever investment for a vegan protein startup. The company netted $100 million in a Series B funding round launched to support company-wide expansion. Alongside funding significantly increased production capabilities, a generous budget was set aside for awareness campaigns surrounding the brand and plant-based meats as a whole.

    Alongside Starfield, Hero Protein and Zhenmeat are both on a mission to increase China’s access to realistic meat analogues. The latter, once dubbed China’s version of Impossible Foods, is currently engaged in developing plant-based crayfish and pork tenderloin.

    Lead photo by Starfield.

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  • Precision Fermentation Infant Formula Startup Helaina Expands Leadership With Latest Funding

    4 Mins Read

    New York fermentation-based breast milk startup Helaina has announced the appointment of three new leadership hires. Expansion of the team follows a successful $20 million Series A raise back in November. A CTO, head of infant formula, and head of talent have all been confirmed, with Helaina stating that their arrival heralds a new growth phase for the company.

    Anthony Clark joins as the chief technology officer, formerly of MycoTechnology, while Marie-Clause Tremblay takes up position as head of infant formula, coming from Perrigo Company. Ashley Larkin is taking the head of talent role, bringing experience from H&M, Whole Foods Market, and Rent the Runway. The three are thought to bring the missing puzzle pieces that will allow Helaina to earnestly embark on commercialisation.

    Photo by Kevin Liang at Unsplash.

    A dream team for a future food solution

    Helaina uses precision fermentation to recreate proteins previously only found in human breast milk. This will allow infant formulas to be more akin to conventional breast milk, without allergen issues. It is not a cell-based development but is still subject to regulatory hurdles. The expanded leadership team is hoped to make light work of accounting for these and find a path to faster commercialisation.

    “These three significant hires mark a milestone for Helaina,” Laura Katz, founder and CEO of Helaina said in a statement. “This group of all-star leaders bring industry expertise to Helaina as we accelerate our growth and work toward bringing our advanced infant formula to market, which will provide infants with crucial bioactive properties that traditional formula lacks. In the middle of a national infant formula shortage, it’s now more important than ever to deliver more options for parents to feed their babies, and I’m confident this team will make that a reality.” 

    As chief technology officer, Anthony Clark is a particularly significant hire. An inventor of more than 30 global patent applications and a recognised leader in biotech and fermentation processes, he has trodden the regulatory path before and knows what it entails.

    “I understand the regulatory challenges Helaina will face,” Clark said in a statement. “And, I’m excited to help guide the team to more effectively and more nimbly negotiate those challenges, ultimately bringing Helaina’s enhanced infant formula to market quicker.” 

    Similarly, Marie-Claude Tremblay brings immeasurable experience in the development of infant formula products, including overseeing pilot production facilities and coordinating product development with teams of scientists. As head of infant formula, she will build Helaina from the ground up, readying it for launch. 

    Ashley Larkin brings 15 years of talent acquisition experience, driving recruitment, training and development programmes. She will oversee strategic hires as Helaina gets closer to commercial release.

    Photo by Jaye Haych at Unsplash.

    Precision fermentation as a solution to formula shortages

    While others in the alternative breast milk space are seeking to leverage cell-based technology, Helaina has stayed true to its precision fermentation roots. The process is the same as that used by Perfect Day to create whey protein for alternative dairy products; but instead of a bovine protein, Helaina recreates those found in human breast milk. The proteins have been clinically proven to boost infant immunity and will offer parents an alternative to standard formula products.

    With Perfect Day already commercially available, the regulatory framework for precision fermentation is further along than for the cultivated sector. Once Helaina is ready to court approval, the process could be quick and the path to market expedited. The new hires were made as a result of the startup’s $20 million Series A raise, with a view to making commercialisation a priority. To date, no official launch targets have been cited. 

    Photo by Sprout Organics.

    The alternative infant formula market diversifies

    Infant nutrition progress is being claimed by a number of startups globally. Earlier this month, in a coup for the cultivated breast milk sector, Israel’s Wilk confirmed it had successfully produced human lactoferrin proteins. The breakthrough represents a major step forward due to the protein being responsible for the development and growth of children. The startup states that regular formulas are not able to claim the same level of authenticity as a product containing lactoferrin proteins. Once approved for commercial release, Wilk will offer its proteins to formula partners to create hybrid products more akin to conventional breast milk.

    In the plant-based sector, Australia’s Sprout Organics just announced it is working with Amazon as a distribution platform, following a surge in demand for allergen-free formula options. The startup has revealed that formula shortages during the Covid-19 outbreak led to an uptick in plant-based sales and they have stayed stable enough to expand visibility and availability.

    Lead photo by Helaina.

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  • The 7 Best Vegan Shark Tank Pitches

    5 Mins Read

    These seven Shark Tank appearances proved significant for plant-based entrepreneurs and made for exciting viewing.

    ABC’s Shark Tank has become synonymous with cutthroat deals and investors circling for prime opportunities. As consumer demand for vegan foods increases, the panel of experienced entrepreneurs, particularly Mark Cuban, alongside a range of celebrity guest investors, have shown greater interest in the booming plant-based sector.

    After going vegetarian in 2019, Cuban has led offers for numerous plant-based startups on the show. He has even championed some to appear in the past (see below).

    Best vegan Shark Tank Pitches

    Not all founders have walked away from Shark Tank with a deal in place, but most have conceded that the exposure from a Shark Tank appearance did their companies no harm. Chief amongst them is Deborah Torres, founder of Atlas Monroe, who turned down Mark Cuban’s offer of $1 million to buy her company outright. But deal or no deal, all of these pitches are worth a re-watch.

    Image by Everything Legendary.

    1. Everything Legendary

    Pitch: Vegan beef burgers “made in a kitchen, not a lab”. 

    Deal scooped: $300,000 from Mark Cuban for a 22 percent equity share.

    Significant successes: Widespread distribution into Publix, Sprouts, Ralphs, Safeway and Target and a recently announced partnership with Live Nation to supply vegan food at summer concerts.

    Maryland-based Everything Legendary is a Black-owned startup that set out to change the impact of fast food, particularly on BIPOC communities. Using pea and hemp protein, products are usually lower in calories and higher in protein than competitors’ alternatives. Earlier this year the brand confirmed it has closed a $6 million Series A funding round for total company expansion, including the development of multiple new product lines. 

    2. Project Pollo

    Pitch: Plant-based chicken sold on a ‘pay what you can afford’ basis and in locations that used to be conventional fast-food restaurants. Founder Lucas Bradbury has been vocal about putting Chick-fil-A out of business.

    Deal scooped: None, despite Kevin O’Leary calling the product the “best fake chicken” he had ever eaten.

    Significant successes: More than a dozen restaurants opened in Bradbury’s home state of Texas and multiples are planned for completion out of state, later in 2022. Bradbury received an email from mark Cuban suggesting that he go on the show. Despite completing the rigorous application process, he left without a deal due to the company’s speed of growth. He wasn’t deterred and stated that he acts in ways that are best for Project Pollo only. Investors have been secured since the show aired.

    3. Snacklins

    Pitch: Vegan pork rind snacks that are healthier than their conventional counterpart at 90 calories a serving.

    Deal scooped: $250,000 from Mark Cuban for a five percent equity share and five percent of advisory shares.

    Significant successes: Expansion of its Rockville factory, due to a surge in demand following the television appearance and distribution into more than 2,500 stores across the U.S.

    It has been reported that when he first appeared on Shark Tank, Snacklins’ founder Samy Kobrosly’s company was seeing around $5,000 in online sales per week. Following the episode airing, this shot up, with the Washington startup now surpassing $5.3 million in total sales. Additional distribution is expected to come this year, with new flavour lines being added to the roster as well.

    4. Wild Earth

    Pitch: Vegan dog food for improved pet health.

    Deal scooped: $550,000 from Mark Cuban, for 10 percent equity share.

    Significant successes: Targeted expansion to include vegan supplements for dogs that target joints, digestion and skin.

    Ryan Bethencourt presented his Californian plant-based dog food product to the sharks. His focus on clean protein quickly gained Cuban’s interest and a slew of future investors as well. In 2021, one year after the Shark Tank appearance, Wild Earth netted $23 million in a Series A Plus funding round, with Cuban investing again. Some of the funding will be diverted to Bethencourt’s new interest: cultivated meat for dog and cat food products. 

    5. Cinnaholic

    Pitch: Freshly baked vegan cinnamon rolls, finished with a range of toppings.

    Deal scooped: $200,000 from Robert Harjavec for a 40 percent equity share.

    Significant successes: Opening 69 franchise locations throughout the U.S. and Canada.

    Cinnaholic combines Cinnabon with every ice cream parlour that’s ever existed and a few artisanal doughnut shops too. It creates large, gooey cinnamon rolls that can be topped with a variety of sweet treats, including brownie pieces, fruit, peanut butter and cookie dough, all vegan of course. The Californian startup has moved into catering, cakes and DIY cinnamon roll bars, to keep things interesting.

    6. Pan’s Mushroom Jerky

    Pitch: Umami-forward jerky made using mushrooms.

    Deal scooped: $300,000 from Mark Cuban for an 18 percent equity share. 

    Significant successes: Creating a bidding war between Cuban and fellow sharks Lori Greiner and Blake Mycoskie, who wanted to partner up and offer a joint deal. Nationwide distribution has also been secured since the show aired, with Kroger, Fresh Thyme, Whole Foods and Foxtrot market coming on board.

    Oregon-based Pan’s was inspired by founder Michael Pan’s experience of a mushroom snack in Borneo, which he claims tasted exactly like conventional jerky. Recognising the opportunity to bring a beloved snack to vegan audiences, he develop a line of shitake mushroom-based jerky using clean, protein-rich ingredients. Pan has spoken fondly of his appearance on Shark Tank, calling it a validating and humbling experience.

    7. Mrs. Goldfarb’s Unreal Deli

    Pitch: Vegan deli meats based on classic New York offerings.

    Deal scooped: $250,000 from Mark Cuban for a 20 percent equity share.

    Significant successes: A switch from wholesale-only to retail sales that allowed for a pivot into new lines including turkey and steak slices, alongside the classic vegan corned beef.

    Founder Jenny Goldfarb has commented that she applied for Shark Tank because one ‘Shark’ dollar is worth five consumer dollars, due to the widespread media exposure that follows. Goldfarb founded her company to veganise the classic new York deli sandwiches that she grew up with. Corned beef was her first product launched, with exclusive distribution to food service partners. 

    Lead photo by ABC.

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