With the Smokehouse Creek fire scorching the Texas Panhandle, reportedly killing a woman in Hutchinson County and dozens of cows desperately trying to escape the blaze, PETA is making moves to erect a sky-high appeal in the area pointing the finger at the culprit—a climate catastrophe fueled by animal agriculture—and calling on people to fight back by going vegan.
Pollution, deforestation, and greenhouse gas emissions from meat, egg, and dairy production are among the worst drivers of the climate catastrophe. A recent study published in the journal Earth System Science Data found that greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high, threatening to push the world into “unprecedented” levels of global heating.
“The planet is burning because people are still eating animals, who need massive amounts of land, energy, and water and emit enormous quantities of greenhouse gases,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “Animal agriculture is an existential threat to the Earth, and PETA urges everyone to go vegan before it’s too late.”
Research shows that every person who goes vegan lowers their food-related carbon footprint by up to 73%—making it conceivably the biggest way to reduce one’s negative impact on the planet—and spares the lives of nearly 200 animals a year. PETA offers a free vegan starter kit on its website for those ready to make the switch.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
PETA is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the death of a cow—who was killed in a fire authorities believe was deliberate—at the Rock Island Livestock Auction Barn on Saturday. Of the approximately 23 other cows who were confined to the barn, one escaped and the rest were moved by firefighters and employees to pens farther from the blaze.
“A helpless, terrified cow burned to death inside a barn, unable to escape the flames surrounding him,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges anyone with information to come forward immediately before his killer harms anyone else, and we encourage anyone disturbed by the thought of his agonizing death to go vegan.”
Tipsters should contact the fire marshal’s office at 309-732-2803, call the Rock Island Police Department at 309-732-COPS (2677), or submit a tip through Crime Stoppers of the Quad Cities at 309-762-9500 or P3tips.com.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
Following reports that the Tyson Foods slaughterhouse in Corydon is one of eight plants that the company is shutting down in an effort to cut costs, PETA sent a letter today to Kelly Hanna-Carroll, manager of the Corydon Capitol State Historic Site, requesting permission to place a sculpture of a maimed chicken next to the Capitol building or Corydon Capitol Square in remembrance of the millions of chickens who were tormented and killed at the slaughterhouse. PETA notes that the statue would remind everyone that animals—who feel pain and fear just as humans do—don’t have to be mutilated to make nuggets and other Tyson products if humans take personal responsibility for what they eat and choose to leave animals off their plates.
“Chickens are gentle birds who don’t deserve to be slammed into shackles and violently killed, especially when we have a wealth of vegan food choices,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges everyone to recognize this closure as an invitation to leave animals in peace and is ready to help anyone go vegan by providing free resources at PETA.org.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
PETA’s letter to Hanna-Carroll follows.
February 29, 2024
Kelly Hanna-Carroll
Site Manager
Corydon Capitol State Historic Site
Dear Ms. Hanna-Carroll:
I’m writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally, and PETA U.S. is the largest animal rights organization in the world—to ask permission to place our maimed chicken sculpture on the lawn next to the Corydon Capitol Building or the Corydon Capitol Square to commemorate the closure of the Corydon Tyson Foods slaughterhouse, where millions of chickens were sent to a terrifying death and then hacked to bits for a fleeting taste of flesh.
We want people to consider who animals are, what makes them tick, and how they experience the world. Chickens are smart, sensitive animals who feel pain and empathy, have distinct personalities, and can count and perform basic addition and subtraction at just a few days old. Mother hens communicate with their chicks while they’re still inside the shell so that they recognize her call when they hatch.
Designed by Harry Bliss, an award-winning author and a cartoonist for The New Yorker, PETA’s chicken statue is 66 inches tall, measures 60 inches from tail to beak, has a 48-inch wingspan, and weighs 250 pounds. Our statue would let people know that the best way to prevent the violent deaths of animals is to go vegan—because animals shouldn’t be condemned to a slaughterhouse in the first place.
The Tyson plant that slaughtered millions of chickens is now part of Corydon’s history, so a statue to memorialize them would be a fitting gesture. An image of the chicken sculpture can be found here. Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Matthew Glover, co-founder of the Vegan Food Group, speaks to Green Queen about the decision behind acquiring its portfolio companies, the ambition to become a “vegan Unilever”, the challenging period for the sector, and the need for a plant-based checkoff programme.
“I know… it’s a bit of an ambiguous title,” admits Matthew Glover, chief mission officer of the Vegan Food Group (VFG), the new company that evolved from plant-based chicken startup VFC Foods.
Glover co-founded VFC with Adam Lyons in 2020, replete with wacky marketing, undercover chicken farm investigations, and – if sales are a barometer – a finger-lickin’ good product. The brand grew exponentially last year, with sales value up by nearly 200%, but things turned in a different direction halfway through.
Fellow plant-based meat maker Meatless Farm was on the brink of collapse – and VFC swooped in to purchase its UK operations and revive its market presence. Months later, it acquired pie company Clive’s Purely Plants. And in January came the grand reveal. VFC was now VFG, a holding company that has rapidly become a leader in the vegan sector. Just yesterday, VFG announced the acquisition of 35-year-old German tofu manufacturer Tofutown, an indicator of its wider European ambitions.
Courtesy: VFC
“I’d like to say this was always the masterplan,” Glover tells me. “But the reality is that circumstances came into play. VFC was making good progress, but like many startups, the progress wasn’t as fast as we’d hoped or expected.” The competition was fierce, the demand was levelling off, and the team sensed that businesses in this space would need to be proactive if they were to survive.
“When we heard that Meatless Farm might be going out of business, we saw synergies with what we were doing, and felt the brand was too good to fail,” he recalls. The rescue of Meatless Farm is when the idea of VFG began to take shape. When the rebrand materialised last month, Glover stepped into the more active role of chief mission officer.
“When Adam and I set up VFC, my motivation was removing animals from the supply chain, and Adam wanted the world to taste better. We were both very focused on the ethical imperative,” he says, explaining his new position. “The way I see it is: I’m here to keep the original values of the business front of mind as we grow and bring on more brands.”
Why the Vegan Food Group acquired the brands in its portfolio
So VFG made its first two acquisitions before officially being formed, and now is a company that houses four businesses with over 80 SKUs in more than 21,000 distribution points across the UK and the EU. Reflecting on the Meatless Farm deal, Glover says VFC was an admirer of the brand and product range: “There’d been so much invested over the years in marketing and product development that it seemed such a shame for the movement to lose such a big name.”
He credits the progress made by the team, led by founder Morten Toft Bech (who exited the company after the sale), in terms of listings in major retailers and foodservice. Crucially, consumers liked the products. Moreover, the product range of chilled beef and pork analogues was complementary to VFC’s frozen vegan chicken. “By not cannibalising our VFC range we knew we could make our proposition stronger,” says Glover.
Meatless Farm was also local to VFC, with both businesses hailing from Yorkshire, and the latter’s head of innovation previously worked at the former. “When the business instructed an administrator, we decided to take a look. The staff had all been laid off, and we knew that customers were being let down as the company had run out of cash,” notes Glover.
Courtesy: Meatless Farm
“We knew it was going to be a huge challenge to get the supply chain back up and running, but suppliers and customers were generally very receptive in those early days and we gradually managed to get things moving again,” he adds. Meatless Farm returned to UK retail in September, three months after the takeover. “I had little involvement in the rebuild, and the VFC team led by [CEO] Dave Sparrow put in all the hard work.”
The acquisition of Clive’s Purely Plants was a different state of affairs, however, given that it wasn’t in a distressed situation. Glover’s investment firm Veg Capital had bought 90% of the business in 2021, with Clive’s managing director Esther Pearson staying on at the helm. “She’d helped steer the company from a local supplier of organic pies in health food stores, to gaining national listings with Waitrose and Ocado, whilst moving to a larger manufacturing site in Dartmouth, Devon,” says Glover.
“As Veg Capital is also the major investor in VFG, we began to see how having Clive’s as part of the group would make sense for both parties. VFG would have direct access to manufacturing, and a veg-led brand as part of the portfolio, whilst Clive’s would have access to the support of the wider VFG team and resources, and benefit from the additional sales and marketing,” he explains.
“The integration is still ongoing, but the signs are good that Clive’s will play a leading role as part of VFG’s future development.” (Pearson remains a shareholder in Clive’s.)
The cross-Europe move for Tofutown
In the works for a while, Tofutown takeover was a major move, giving VFC access to its two manufacturing sites sprawling a combined 55,000 sq m, and a gateway into further European expansion. “There’s a number of reasons why we saw Tofutown as an attractive addition to the Vegan Food Group,” says Glover. “The fact that Germany is the biggest market for plant-based food in Europe was top of the list, providing so many opportunities to expand.”
He adds: “The business also has an existing senior management team in place with an enthusiasm to grow and learn as part of a wider group structure. We’re very excited about how we can merge the start-up culture of VFC and Meatless Farm, with the established nature of a food company where manufacturing and delivering high-quality food is second nature.”
While VFG is unable to disclose the acquisition sums, Glover did highlight the value of employees of the acquired brands. “It is indeed our priority to retain the workforce whenever possible. We believe that the success of our acquisitions is significantly enhanced by the contributions of these individuals, and we are keen on integrating them into our team, fostering a culture of growth, innovation, and mutual respect,” he states.
Courtesy: Vegan Food Group
With a diverse portfolio of brands, could we see a blend of the different offerings in new product launches? “We’ll be looking at a variety of ways to enhance the brands, and co-branding opportunities could be a possibility. We’re particularly excited about expanding the Meatless Farm and VFC brands into Germany, and then using our base there to expand into other EU countries,” confirms Glover. (Tofutown products will soon be available in the UK as part of the deal too.)
“As Tofutown is known for natural, organic, clean-label product ranges, then we’ll be looking at ways to leverage this expertise and create new SKUs, which could be private label, branded as VFC, Meatless Farm, Clive’s, or we may even bring new brands to market,” he adds. “The beauty of having significant manufacturing capacity and expertise is we can listen to our customers and create the products that consumers are buying.”
Turning VFG into ‘a vegan Unilever’
VFG made a significant statement upon launch, setting its sights on becoming “a vegan Unilever”. “Our strategy is to establish VFG as a leader within the plant-based food sector, where customers, suppliers and industry leaders look to us for what’s coming next,” explains Glover.
“We’ll be offering a much wider range of options to customers, so they don’t need to deal with so many smaller suppliers,” he says. “Operationally, there are efficiencies and better buying power we can leverage, whilst providing our teams with a more diversified portfolio of brands to manage. There’s likely to be flexibility with some brands managed in-house (like VFC and Meatless Farm), with other brands being stand-alone subsidiaries.”
VFG aims to become profitable this year, with a goal of collecting €100M in revenue. Unilever, meanwhile, turned over nearly €60B last year, with its nutrition and ice cream divisions alone bringing in €21M. Becoming a vegan Unilever is a lofty ambition – does Glover fear it could almost become an albatross?
“Only if we fail, but we’ve no intention of failing,” he says. “We believe we have a very good strategy and a team that can develop our model into a large plant-based CPG company. We’ve got strong financial backing from mission-aligned investors who are keen to support us on this journey. The early signs are good, but I’ll reflect on your question in a couple of years and let you know!”
Courtesy: VFC
When laying out this goal initially, Glover had said: “Imagine a ‘vegan Unilever’, but with the majority of future profits being donated to effective animal charities and diet change initiatives – that’s what we’re creating at the Vegan Food Group.” This is where his role as chief mission officer comes in. “As we grow the team both organically and through M&A, we’re bringing on staff who don’t necessarily have the activism background or know about all the impacts of animal agriculture. I see my role as making sure we don’t lose sight of why we’re doing this as a company,” he explains.
VFG is majority-owned by Veg Capital, which is committed to donating 100% of its profits from its stake to effective animal charities. “We see our work as a virtuous circle, working on both the supply and demand side of the equation,” notes Glover.
“We expect to be profitable in 2024 if all goes to plan, with consistent profits feeding through over the coming years. As the group will be focused on fast-track growth (either organically or through acquisition), then we’ll likely be reinvesting profits back into the organisation for the next few years,” he adds. “The most likely time that we’ll be able to fulfil our charitable ambition is after an exit event, but there’s a lot of work to do before we get there.”
Glover will additionally assume the role of group chair at VFG, which will see him support Sparrow and the leadership team to navigate the M&A opportunities and advise on the organic growth of its existing brands.
A vegan checkoff programme to support plant-based meat
Alternative protein as a whole suffered from dwindling sales and waning consumer interest globally last year. In the UK, meat-free products were among the worst-performing grocery categories last year, with sales declining by £38.4m, and volumes down by 4.2%.
“We can’t hide away from the fact that plant-based meat categories have been in decline over the past year, or two,” says Glover, before pointing out that the British downturn isn’t as severe as it has been in the US. “There’s a multitude of factors at play, including the cost-of-living crisis, meat industry misinformation campaigns successfully turning consumers away, as well as products not meeting expectations. Retailers reducing shelf space hasn’t helped.”
Courtesy: VFC
There has been a disconnect with consumers too, many of whom perceive plant-based meat to be unhealthy because they’re ultra-processed foods (UPFs), despite experts suggesting that not all UPFs – which are a mark of processing, not nutrition – are bad for you. “The meat industry has been adept at sowing seeds of doubt about the processed nature of meat alternatives and the healthfulness of plant-based diets, contributing to consumer scepticism,” says Glover. And government support for these systems doesn’t help.
In the US and the UK, meat and dairy industries collect government-backed funds from livestock producers to help fund promotional campaigns that encourage the consumption of these foods. These schemes, called levies in the UK and checkoff programmes in the US, enable the animal agriculture industry to “develop large multi-million-pound category campaigns” transmitted nationwide. With plant-based companies facing tough times, promoting the category to the public “with all its benefits is one way to get businesses moving again”.
In line with that notion, Glover is working with Indy Kaur, founder of vegan consultancy firm Plant Futures, on the plant-based industry’s own checkoff programme. “We are looking to level up with this, consolidate funding and create a campaign which can fairly compete and give consumers a reason to choose to eat plants and not animals,” he outlines.
The project will take “best practices from the meat and dairy industry”. Glover – who is also the co-founder of Veganuary – cites the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s anti-Veganuary drive last month, as well as the US Milk Processor Education Program’s ultra-successful Got Milk? campaign as “proven models driving demand” for meat and dairy. “We’ll be doing the same, with plants,” he says.
For the majority of its funding, the vegan checkoff project aims to raise at least £3M from donors and investors, which would be supplemented with businesses’ marketing spend, though Glover acknowledges that these budgets are tight. “We are starting with a UK pilot, a test-and-learn methodology and potentially starting in the north where we know meat consumption is disproportionally higher than the south. Backed with a fast follow, [we’ll go] nationwide around Q3 with US rollout soon after,” he says.
Courtesy: VFC
“We’re going big because we have to. We’re aiming for all plant-based protein businesses in the UK and US to sign up, whether they can financially contribute or not. We are speaking to a lot of businesses and expect to have spoken to most in the plant-based protein space by the end of Q1/start of Q2,” adds Glover.
He notes that this will also help “take the burden off the shoulders of young businesses who need support” in the current climate. “There’s no holding Indy back, and she’s working with the smartest minds and a global network of advisors – it’s impressive,” he says. “We all know the future market potential for plant-based remains huge and this checkoff is designed to unlock this. We’re in it together, and that’s exactly how we are designing [the] checkoff from day one.”
Giving consumers what they want
Going back to VFG, which has teased more acquisitions in the near future, I ask Glover about the profile of the businesses it wants to take over. “There’s no target number of brands to acquire. Instead, we’ll look at every opportunity on merit and decide whether the brand or manufacturing site adds value, whilst not cannibalising our current range,” he explains. “We’ll focus primarily on frozen and chilled meal occasions where we already have expertise and relationships with buyers and suppliers.
“Ideally, we’re looking at companies which are already established, have gained decent distribution and have a run rate in excess of €3M,” he says, adding: “And the products have got to be good.”
That last point is crucial. A 1,000-person survey last year found that 66% of Brits are unhappy with the taste of plant-based meat, and 62% find them too expensive. For 51%, taste and texture are the main reasons for reducing their alt-meat consumption, but on the flip side, 39% are eating these products because of their flavour and texture. Attitudes around health were also mixed.
Does Glover know what people really want? “Oh gosh, I wish I had the definitive answer, as it’d make it far easier to scale VFG if we knew exactly how to appeal to the broadest range of consumers,” he responds. “Unfortunately, we’re navigating a nuanced interplay of factors.
Courtesy: VFC
“Taste and texture often stand at the forefront; people choose plant-based options that don’t compromise on the sensory experience traditionally associated with animal products. However, achieving this without the additional price tag remains a challenge for the sector,” he explains. This is significant, as the price gap will always deter the budget-conscious.
“Health considerations are also a driving force, with many turning to vegan options for a diet seen as cleaner and more beneficial. But there’s been a meat industry-sponsored backlash in the media, which has discouraged some consumers,” he says, referring to the aforementioned misinformation campaigns.
“Beyond these immediate concerns, broader issues play into consumer decisions. Environmental sustainability and ethical considerations are increasingly influencing purchasing behaviours,” suggests Glover. “Convenience, too, cannot be overlooked, with the demand for easy, quick-preparation vegan options rising.”
Additionally, there are some cultural and informational challenges as well. Over half of Brits want more information about plant-based meat, with occasional and former frequent eaters most likely to want more details. “Our societies have been centred around meat consumption for thousands of years, supported by over a century of targeted advertising by the meat industry. This deep-rooted history creates a significant barrier to changing dietary habits overnight,” he says.
Courtesy: VFC
This is why winning back consumer trust and shifting dietary dynamics are complex tasks that “will undoubtedly take time”. It would mean improving products’ functionality and prices, as well as involve transparent communication to combat misinformation. “As we move forward, understanding and addressing these multifaceted consumer needs and concerns will be crucial for the growth and acceptance of vegan food in the broader market,” says Glover.
He believes it will still be a tough year for plant-based companies. “I can’t see growth being back to the double-digit figures we had previously, and a lot of companies are running on empty financially,” he explains. However, the VFG co-founder says the economic climate generally seems to be improving”, and signals that the “declines are reducing”, with advocacy campaigns like the checkoff programme aimed at reengaging consumers. “I think we’ll be cheering the news that the categories will be back in growth during this year.”
Los Angeles County has passed a motion to make all departmental food purchases plant-based by default, citing the environmental and human health benefits of vegan diets.
US politicians Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis have spearheaded a successful effort to make it mandatory for all purchase orders from Los Angeles County departments to be plant-based.
Passed yesterday, the new law requires that all new contracts between foodservice providers and county departments – including Parks and Recreation, Health Services and Public Works – follow default plant-based policies. The move is aimed at mitigating the climate and public health impacts linked with the county’s food purchases.
“In order to reduce emissions from our food system, changes must be made from producers to consumers,” reads the legislation. “Transforming the county’s food procurement policies presents a unique opportunity to advance health outcomes, address climate change, and meet economic goals.”
Leah Garcés, CEO and president of Mercy For Animals (which worked closely with Horvath’s office to develop the policy), called it a “huge win”. “As more Americans choose plant-based food for reasons such as health, environmental protection, and animal welfare, public purchasing must reflect this shift,” she noted.
Championing health and climate benefits in line with sustainability plans
Courtesy: Rudisill/iStockPhoto
The motion highlights how plant-based food has a much lighter impact on the environment. Research has shown that veganism can lower emissions, water pollution and land use by 75% compared to meat-rich diets. In fact, meat accounts for 60% of the food system’s total emissions, a number twice as high as that of plant-based foods. Plus, even just swapping half of our meat and dairy intake with vegan alternatives can cut emissions by 31%, halt deforestation and reduce undernourishment by 3.6%.
The Los Angeles County supervisors also outline the health benefits of vegan diets, which have been shown to reduce the risk of obesity, which plagues over a third of Americans. Eating plants has been linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease too, which is the leading cause of death in the US, while processed red meat is associated with a higher likelihood of developing these conditions. Additionally, plant-based diets and lower meat consumption have been proven to reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes.
It’s benefits like these that made it vital for Los Angeles County – the most populous in the US – to promote plant-based consumption. The move is in line with the county’s sustainability plan, which underlines the need to support the “consumption of plant-based foods (such as beans and grains) over more land- and resource-intensive animal products (such as meat)”.
Action 134 of the plan reads: “Promote plant-based menu options through nutrition and food procurement policies in food service settings such as county facilities, hospitals, higher learning institutions, school districts, jails, and other food settings.”
A 2018 report from the Department of Public Health revealed that there were 111 foodservice contracts with 15 Los Angeles County departments that involved offering, selling or distributing food and beverages – this indicates the significant impact the new law stands to make. And it comes with public support: a recent survey found that 79% of respondents supported legislation encouraging plant-based food purchases with taxpayer dollars, and specifically for Los Angeles County, 82.2% felt it should pass such a legislation.
Los Angeles County’s plant-based push comes amid backlash elsewhere
Courtesy: AI-Generated Image via Canva
The law directs the Department of Public Health to review its nutritional standards and incorporate evidence-based recommendations on purchasing, selling and serving more plant-based foods, to help integrate these in foodservice proposals and contracts.
It asks multiple departments to suggest ways to increase interest and participation in plant-based eating in the county, which includes providing incentives. Los Angeles County departments will additionally take steps to measure the carbon footprint of their food purchases, with recommendations to reduce the consumption of animal-derived foods and cut food waste, alongside potential targets to ramp up plant-based food purchasing in the county.
The motion noted how other US cities have implemented policies to promote plant-based food. Los Angeles’ own City Council became the largest in the US to adopt the Plant Based Treaty in October 2022. And a year earlier, the Berkeley City Council voted to divert half of its spending from animal-based to plant-based foods by 2024, with the goal of converting that into 100% and a pledge towards promoting vegan diets to tackle climate change.
The University of California, Los Angeles Health increased its plant-based food procurement for students and patients too. It signed on to the Cool Food Pledge as well, which commits to reducing food-related GHG emissions by 25% by 2030, in alignment with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
New York City has also been at the forefront of this shift, pushing plant-based meals into schools, hospitals and even jails. Public schools have Plant-Powered Fridays, jails have vegan meals for lunch or dinner at least one day a week, and as 11 of its public hospitals offer plant-based dishes as a primary option for inpatients – the latter has reduced both costs and food-related emissions by 36% since being implemented in January 2023, while patient satisfaction for the menu has jumped to more than 90%.
In Maryland, the city of Baltimore officially proclaimed January as the month of Veganuary earlier this year, while Austin, Texas declared January 2024 as Plant-Based for the Planet Month. However, the policies of the state of Texas are contradictory, with governor Greg Abbott signing a bill requiring clear labelling of plant-based and cultivated meat, seafood and egg products.
It’s part of a wider movement to discredit alternative protein, especially cultivated meat, in an election year. Nebraska’s Real MEAT Act, for example, would mandate the word “imitation” on alternative protein if passed, and Arizona’s HB 2244 would make it illegal to “intentionally misbrand or misrepresent” an alternative meat product as meat. Likewise, Wisconsin has proposed two bills against alternative protein, one of which put restrictions on the labelling of plant-based milk.
It makes Los Angeles County’s legislation all the more important. “Mercy For Animals greatly appreciates supervisors Horvath and Solis for sponsoring this policy change and the county’s commitment to providing healthy plant-based options to residents who benefit from county food programmes,” said Garcés. “We look forward to working with LA County in implementing this policy.”
California’s Eat Just has reached a significant milestone, with its plant-based Just Egg completing sales equivalent to 500 million chicken eggs. The development comes weeks after the startup, which owns 99% of the vegan egg market, relaunched its popular mayonnaise lineup.
On the back of a tough year, Eat Just has started 2024 with some positive announcements. First, it brought back its cult-favourite vegan mayo, and now, it has announced that its Just egg line of products has sold the equivalent of half a billion chicken eggs since its debut in 2019.
The lineup has captured 99% of the entire vegan egg market in the US, and it is one of the fastest-growing egg brands – plant-based or otherwise – nationwide.
“We started with a hope that one of the many tens of thousands of plants in nature would be able to scramble like an egg. And a team made up of scientists, engineers and chefs from across the world turned that hope into one of the most innovative and impactful products in the market,” said Eat Just CEO Josh Tetrick.
Just Egg drives company’s growth with major footprint and sustainability credentials
Courtesy: Eat Just
When it was first launched, the mung-bean-based Just Egg came in liquid form. But in 2020, the offering was expanded into a frozen folded format that serves as an alternative toaster eggs. These products are now available in 48,000 retailers, including Whole Foods, Target and Sprouts Farmers Market, as well as over 3,300 eateries and coffee shops in the US and Canada, such as Planta, Barnes & Noble, Caffè Nero, Peet’s Coffee and Philz Coffee.
Last year, the company overhauled the packaging for its pourable egg, switching from a plastic bottle to a paper carton, which it claims is 100% recyclable and would no doubt advance its climate credentials. Using its life-cycle assessment tool CONDOR, Eat Just says its vegan egg uses 98% less water and 83% less land than a chicken egg, while emitting 93% fewer emissions.
Put another way, with the number of eggs it has sold, the company says it has prevented 87 million kgs of CO2e from entering the atmosphere, saved 18.3 billion gallons of water, and averted 26,900 acres of land from being farmed for soy and corn to feed chickens.
Just Egg has been the major growth driver for Eat Just (which is also the parent of cultivated meat company Good Meat), with Tetrick telling Green Queen in November that the vegan eggs make up 99.9% of its current revenue. He noted that Just Egg saw a 173-percentage-point increase in income (before non-operational expenses are taken into account) – aka EBITDA – in the first half of 2023 compared to all of 2022, while witnessing an 80-point growth in gross margin.
“Our business plan is on track to achieve break even in 2024, with half of our current SKUs selling at a positive margin today,” said Tetrick, who was named in the TIME100 Climate list last year.
Profitability highlights 2024 plans for Eat Just
Courtesy: Eat Just
The news comes a month after Eat Just, which has raised over $850M to date, reintroduced its Just Mayo to retail shelves following a four-year hiatus. It was the brand’s latest step towards reaching profitability after a challenging 2023, when it emerged the company had been under financial stress and facing a cash crunch. Good Meat has been involved in a number of lawsuits, and last month filed counterclaims against one of its suppliers.
“Challenges, doubts, and unforeseen hurdles have not stopped Eat Just from continuing to drive innovation in plant-based foods to give consumers better choices and more ways to change the food system for the better every time they sit down to a meal,” a company spokesperson told Green Queen after the Mayo launch.
They reiterated that financial sustainability and breaking even remained the main focus. “It’s the most important objective of the company and the team is focused on increasing the probability of achieving it,” the representative said, adding that the company’s goal for 2024 was “to sell healthier, sustainable products to millions of consumers in a way that enables the company to sustain itself in the long term”.
While Just Egg is a market leader in its space – which includes companies like Follow Your Heart, Simply Eggless and Bob’s Red Mill – the vegan egg sector itself just makes up 0.5% of the total US egg market, as of 2022. In terms of units, while plant-based eggs grew by sevenfold between 2019-22 to reach 10 million sales, animal-based egg sales were around 2.3 billion.
Moreover, the number of American households buying plant-based eggs was just 2% in 2022 – but the sector has outpaced dollar sales growth for animal-derived eggs, growing by 348% versus 67% for the latter from 2019-22, albeit with a much smaller base. It highlights the progress – and potential – of plant-based eggs, and the scale of the industry these companies are trying to disrupt.
Tetrick, whose company is planning to launch more products this year, put it best: “We’re 500 million steps closer to a more sustainable food system, but we’ve got a long way to go.”
Plant-based giant Beyond Meat witnessed an 18% decrease in annual net revenue in 2023. Despite posting losses in Q4 too, its sales were better than expected, sending the company’s shares soaring and signalling a turnaround in fortunes for 2024.
Fresh from a product revamp with new recipes for its beef and burger analogues, Beyond Meat’s stock jumped by 78% yesterday after it posted higher-than-expected numbers in the last quarter of 2023. Quarterly revenue dropped by only 2% – compared to a 26% decline from Q2 to Q3 – to $73.7M, better than the $66.7M predicted by analysts. For the full year, the Californian company’s revenue fell by 18% to $343M.
“In 2023, Beyond Meat undertook extensive initiatives to reset the business toward sustainable operations and, ultimately, profitable growth. Much of this reset is now coming into view,” said CEO Ethan Brown. He added that the company’s plans for this year include reducing operating expenses, changing pricing structures, and right-sizing its production footprint, and rolling out the Beyond IV line of products.
“We believe these sweeping changes, together with measures we plan to pursue this year to bolster our balance sheet, will strengthen our near-term operations as we pursue our vision of being the global protein company of the future,” Brown said.
Beyond Meat discontinues jerky and forecasts improved margins
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
Beyond Meat’s Q4 net losses doubled from the previous quarter, reaching $155M. These were heavily impacted by the one-off charges of $85M from its global operations review last year, which was launched last November to reassess elements of the business that don’t line up with profitability plans (this also involved a potential restructuring of its China operations). The company finished the year with $10.6M in capital expenditure, 85% less than 2022.
It further managed to bring down its operating expenses by 19% to $259M, following a year where it laid off 19% of its global non-production workforce (about 65 employees), consolidated its operations from 13 co-manufacturing locations in North America to just one, and discontinued its slow-selling beef jerky line (which it launched in 2022 through a partnership with PepsiCo).
“These refinements allow focus and resources to be put against our latest product platform renovation, Beyond IV, and other SKUs,” Brown said in an earnings call to analysts and investors, outlining why the company decided to discontinue the jerky, despite its position as the top-selling vegan jerky. He added that the reformulated beef products and its other analogues have a higher growth potential in the US, and that the changes reflect the business’s increased focus on Europe.
Moreover, the alt-meat giant’s yearly losses shrunk by 2.5% at $338M, and the significant restructuring and cost-cutting activities last year mean it is able to forecast improved margins for 2024 (these were in the negative in 2023).
Beyond Meat has an outstanding debt of $1.1B – owing to convertible notes (a type of investment that begins as a loan and turns into equity) that are due to be paid back in 2027. “We’re doing everything that we need to do to fix the fundamentals of the business so that we are a lower cash consumption business with a longer-term goal, obviously, of getting to sustained free cash flow positive,” said CFO Lubi Kutua.
US sales falter but McDonald’s deal boosts European performance
Courtesy: McDonald’s
Beyond Meat witnessed a 32% fall in year-over-year sales in its home market in 2023. Despite pricing its products lower in grocery stores, retail revenue dropped by 27%, while foodservice figures were also down by 26%. It reflects the larger decline in US retail sales of plant-based meat, which dipped by 11% to just over $1B in the year ending January 28, 2024.
Brown ascribed this to the polarisation and politicisation of plant-based meat in the US, noting that the biggest consumption barrier for Americans is the health attributes of these products. While half of US consumers found meat alternatives healthy in 2020, that number fell to 38% in 2022. And this loss in faith has since continued, with a Mintel survey from last year showing that nutrition is the second-biggest reason (35%) for Americans’ reticence to try plant-based meat. “It’s not just the animal protein players and their lobbyists, it’s actually members of the pharmaceutical industry, which I find to be kind of disturbing, actually,” said Brown.
Beyond Meat has made health the focal point of its marketing efforts, with its latest marketing drive honing in on the Beyond Steak, which was certified as ‘heart-healthy’ by the American Heart Association (AHA). It has continued to do that with its new Beyond Burger and Beef, which has undergone a recipe change that now includes avocado oil, fava beans and red lentils, and has 60% less saturated fat, 20% less sodium, 20% more calcium, and 12% higher potassium content.
“The current climate of misinformation and efforts by incumbents – including, sadly, pharmaceutical interests – to poison the plant-based meat well push us to accelerate gains in the health profile of our product platforms,” noted Brown, adding: “We had to right the message. We can do that by yelling from the rooftops about the benefits of our existing products, or we can just try to make them even more healthy and unassailable.”
The company’s performance internationally, however, has improved by 18% from 2022-23, with both retail and foodservice sales up. This is thanks in large part to its European deal with McDonald’s, which uses the Beyond Beef patty for the vegan McPlant burger. Brown highlighted that the business had witnessed “continued traction at McDonald’s across countries such as Austria, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, UK, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, and Switzerland”.
Beyond Meat to increase prices in the US this year
When Beyond Beyond Meat announced its product reformulation last week, Green Queen reported that the new burger and mince would be more expensive, given the use of premium ingredients like avocado oil. Now, it has emerged that this will coincide with a larger overhaul of the company’s pricing structure, which will see some of its products in the US become more expensive. Brown insisted that this “does not reflect an abandonment of our long-sought price parity goal, which we in fact achieved in certain very specific offerings”.
“Pricing just wasn’t as effective a tool,” he revealed. “We probably ended up selling a lot of our products to the same consumer at a reduced price. So we learned that and moved away from it.” Outlining the reasons for the higher markups, he said restoring margins was important, while the pricing programmes the company previously implemented failed to convert early adopters into the mainstream.
“In certain areas, there will be more of a delta between animal protein and ourselves, but in others, there will not be. And so, this is not a kind of crude application of a price increase. We have some very important partnerships and relationships where getting on the product line, there won’t be much change,” explained Brown.
“In retrospect, the noise and swirl surrounding the category reached decibels that were perhaps sufficient to ground out pricing and other messages,” he noted, adding that the new cost structure would take on a tiered approach across its product lines. “I do think there’s a real opportunity to continue to offer outstanding innovation year after year that does have a more premium price on it, while you continue to offer some of the rest of your portfolio at lower pricing.”
This is something Beyond Meat’s chief communication officer, Shira Zackai, highlighted last week. “Based on the significant nutritional benefits and elevated taste profile of these new products, we feel confident in the value we will be providing to consumers relative to their cost,” he told Green Queen.
The price hikes will be implemented in the US this year, but in markets like Europe, Brown admitted that the company had to adjust retail prices, which were “just too high”. Kutua highlighted that a big reason for this is the higher level of private-label penetration in Europe compared to the US. He explained that the company narrowed the price gap with its competition two years ago in Europe, but it still carries a premium in certain categories, and over time, the goal would be to further bridge that gap – though it’s not an immediate concern.
One thing the company will look to do in 2024 is expand its presence in German retail, which would be a shrewd move considering it is Europe’s largest plant-based market. Beyond Meat forecasts its 2024 revenues to be level with last year’s, between $315-345M, with Q1 sales for this year also expected to remain in the $70-75M range.
“We’re cautious in our optimism,” said Brown. “We’ve obviously had some tough years, but by making these changes and creating the sustainable baseline for which we can grow, we’re going to create some room for ourselves to execute and get back on track for growth.”
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Oato’s oat milk launch in retail, Maple Leaf Foods’ consolidation, and a spate of alternative seafood developments.
New products and launches
A week after announcing its financial results for 2023 and promising product expansion, Oatly has launched a new line of oat milk creamers in four flavours for the US market: sweet and creamy, mocha, vanilla and caramel.
Courtesy: Oato
UK startup Oato has secured a listing for its fresh oat milks at Scottish supermarket Booths. The barista whole oat milk comes in 1l bottles shaped like cow’s milk.
London-based oat milk chocolate brand HiP (Happiness in Plants) has upgraded its vegan Easter eggs, which are now 50% bigger and contain chocolate buttons inside. They’re available in Salted Caramel and Cookies No Cream flavours.
In the US, plant-based milk maker Mooala has introduced single-serve versions of its banana milk in Sprouts stores nationwide. The range is available in chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavours, and priced at $1.49 per 8oz bottle.
Chicago-based dairy company Truly Grass Fed has launched a premium gluten-free oat milk line in original and extra creamy variants, which are available at select The Fresh Market locations, and at Lowes Foods and Natural Grocers soon.
Meanwhile, US food tech startup microTERRA has unveiled a duckweed-based ingredient aimed at sugar reduction. The innovation amplifies sweetness perception to help cut back on sugar in food and beverages without compromising on any functional attributes.
New York-based company InnovoPro has developed a plant-based barista product with chickpea protein, which can remove the need for buffers and emulsifiers in high-protein beverages and fruit shakes.
Courtesy: Ichiran
Japanese ramen chain Ichiran is introducing a vegan tonkotsu ramen kit in the US, which is the result of six years of R&D. Comprising a liquid broth concentrate, tamen oil, togarashi seasoning and Hakata-style noodles, it will be available from tomorrow.
Californian plant-based meat player Beleaf has inked a new distribution partnership with Dot Foods to expand the presence of its meat, shrimp and egg analogues nationwide in the US.
US fast-casual chain Pokeworks has expanded its partnership with vegan seafood producer Impact Food, which will see the eatery serve the latte’s vegan tuna in its Bay Area locations.
It’s a big week for seafood news. Dutch plant-based brand Vegan Zeastar will open a pop-up restaurant Zèta, a vegan eatery at Grote Markt in The Hague. Running from March 5-10, it will showcase dishes using its vegan crab, shrimp and sashimi.
Fellow Dutch vegan producer The Vegetarian Butcher is launching its first fish SKU, called Krosse Flosse. The breaded product is now available in Germany.
Courtesy: The Vegetarian Butcher
And Brazilian plant-based meat startup Future Farm is reformulating its entire product range to elevate the taste and texture attributes of its vegan chicken, beef and seafood analogues.
Finance and closures
British vegan sweets startup Tasty Mates has bagged a £60,000 Dragons’ Den investment for a 15% stake from Peter Jones, though negations are still ongoing over a lower share.
UK vegan burger chain The Vurger Co has shut its doors over a year after it was rescued from administration, citing post-pandemic challenges and insufficient government support.
Courtesy: The Vurger Co
Across the Atlantic, Brooklyn-based specialty mushroom company Smallhold, which specialised in vertical farming, has filed for bankruptcy, after it emerged that the business was in worse financial shape than previously disclosed.
Portland, Oregon’s fermentation-focused vegan deli and restaurant Fermenter is also closing. But it’s a positive sign, as the team is revamping the concept for a launch in April. The brand, meanwhile, will live on through products and classes.
Policy and corporate moves
Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf Foods is merging its meat and plant protein businesses – includafing Lightlife and Field Roast – into a single unit to simplify its operations and drive growth across all categories.
Dutch cultivated pork producer Meatable has appointed industry executives Lorne Abony and Patricia Malarkey to its board of directors as it awaits the regulatory greenlight in Singapore ahead of its planned launch later this year.
Courtesy: Meatable
France has officially banned the use of meat-related terms on the product labelling of plant-based alternatives, which includes 21 terms – although ‘burger’ is not on the prohibited list.
And in the UK, the Green Party mayor of Worcester, Louis Stephen, has taken meat off the menu for the council’s receptions to serve an exclusively plant-based menu to highlight food’s impact on climate change.
Following its rebrand from VFC Foods last month, the newly formed Vegan Food Group is set to acquire German tofu manufacturer Tofutown for an undisclosed sum. With four businesses under its portfolio, the company aims to bolster revenue beyond €100M and become profitable this year.
The Vegan Food Group (VFG) will soon complete its third plant-based M&A deal in less than 10 months, taking over 35-year-old German brand Tofutown. The deal will allow VFG to scale up total revenues to over €100M and set it on a path to profitability this year.
It’s part of the company’s mission to become “a vegan Unilever”, as co-founder and chief mission officer Matthew Glover noted during the rebrand from VFC Foods last month. The move to become a holding company – which now comprises VFC, Meatless Farm, Clive’s Purely Plants, and Tofutown – allows VFG to become “one of Europe’s largest plant-based manufacturers”, and the latest acquisition delivers on CEO Dave Sparrow’s promise that there would be more takeovers to come.
“VFG will now be a major player in plant-based food, with a significant manufacturing scale across three sites, employing over 300 staff, and with a strong network of strategic manufacturing and supply chain partners,” said Sparrow. “This acquisition allows VFG to fast-track our growth across the UK and the EU in chilled, frozen, and ambient products, in both branded and own-label retail, as well as foodservice.”
“There’s a number of reasons why we saw Tofutown as an attractive addition to the Vegan Food Group,” Glover told Green Queen. “The fact that Germany is the biggest market for plant-based food in Europe was top of the list, providing so many opportunities to expand.”
Why the Vegan Food Group decided to buy Tofutown
Courtesy: Vegan Food Group
“The business already has significant scale with circa €60m revenue, 300 staff and manufacturing capacity, producing a wide range of 100% natural, organic tofu, spreads, and meat alternatives,” Glover said of Tofutown. “[Founder] Bernd [Drosihn] and the team have invested heavily over 40 years developing a business with distribution into major retailers and foodservice across Germany, which we can continue to develop.”
Headquartered in Wiesbaum, Tofutown supplies major retailers including Aldi, Lidl, DM and Edeka. It has two manufacturing sites sprawling a combined 55,000 sq m, with the Lüneburg, Lower Saxony facility one of Europe’s largest plant-based factories, “with the capacity to produce a wide range of new plant-based lines”.
“Joining the Vegan Food Group is an exciting opportunity for Tofutown to successfully continue Bernd’s vision over the coming decades,” said Touftown CEO Markus Kerres. “With Germany and the UK being the two biggest markets for plant-based foods, we’re well-positioned to thrive over the next decade.”
The tofu maker joins VFG’s growing family of vegan brands, a portfolio the company says will continue to expand with more M&As on the way. “We’ll be looking at opportunities to expand our brands into Europe through the distribution already in place, whilst expanding the current Tofutown product ranges into the UK market,” said Glover.
“The business also has an existing senior management team in place with an enthusiasm to grow and learn as part of a wider group structure. We’re very excited about how we can merge the startup culture of VFC and Meatless Farm, with the established nature of a food company where manufacturing and delivering high-quality food is second nature.”
Consolidation deals ‘vital’ for rapid plant-based growth
Courtesy: Vegan Food Group
VFG was launched in 2020 as a vegan fried chicken brand by Glover and Adam Lyons, and after witnessing strong growth, has evolved from a challenger brand into a sector leader. Last year, the group rescued plant-based meat company Meatless Farm from the brink of bankruptcy, purchasing the latter in a £12M deal for its UK operations (VFC paid just a small portion of the sum, keeping the brand assets intact).
This was followed by the acquisition of Clive’s Purely Plants in October, which positioned VFC as “a formidable player” in the market, according to Sparrow. “What excites us the most is the diverse range of products we can offer consumers, from enticing meat alternatives to wholesome and delicious vegetable-based options, making us one of the most diversified players in the category,” he said at the time.
Moreover, 2023 saw VFG’s sales value grow exponentially by 199.3%, according to NielsenIQ data for the Grocer’s Top Products survey. However, it still represented a small chunk of the overall UK meat-free sector, which experienced major headwinds in a consumer landscape hit by the cost-of-living crisis. Vegan meat analogues were among the worst-performing grocery categories in the country, with sales declining by £38.4m, and volumes down by 4.2%.
With manufacturers like Plant & Bean and LoveSeitan ceasing operations – and VBites being bailed out of administration – and Nestlé and Heck pulling products from their plant-based meat ranges, it’s been a challenging year, and that’s before you take note of the lack of investment in the space.
“In the context of flat or declining category demand, consolidation, and M&As are vital for rapid growth in the plant-based sector. These strategies allow companies to scale, innovate, and navigate through resilience challenges more effectively,” explained Glover, who is also the co-founder of Veganuary. “Combining resources and expertise through M&As enables businesses to expand their market presence and improve supply chains efficiently, which is crucial when organic growth is hard to achieve.”
He added that in a tough fundraising environment, acquisitions allow brands to circumvent the risk of running out of operational cash, save valuable product lines, and emerge stronger from the current market slump. “Ultimately, consolidation and M&As are not just about growth; they’re about sustaining the innovation and competitiveness of the plant-based sector in a rapidly changing market,” he noted.
VFG’s purchase deal with Tofutown, which will see the former acquire all shares, is pending final authorisation, but is expected to close soon. It is the latest in a rapidly growing line of M&A deals in the vegan sector, including Australia’s v2foods’ buyout of ready meal brands Soulara and Macros, Indian company Nourish You’s purchase of alt-dairy startup One Good, and Next Level Burger’s acquisition of Veggie Grill (and its Más Veggies taco chain) in the US – all of which have come in the last couple of months.
Starbucks saboteur! People visiting the local Starbucks Reserve Roastery—and executives working in the company’s headquarters—will be served a venti shot of disgust at the chain’s disgraceful vegan milk upcharge, courtesy of geofencing technology and PETA. For up to a month—and even after they’ve left the area—Starbucks’ top brass and customers will see an inventive ad spot as they browse the web starring Succession actor James Cromwell. In the video, Cromwell appears as a greedy, fictional Starbucks executive who exploits eco-conscious customers by charging them up to 90 cents more for vegan milk—even though the chain reported $4.1 billion in profits last year alone.
Spliced with images of cruel milking machines, baby cows being torn away from their mothers, melting ice caps, and wildfires, the video features Cromwell in the chain’s signature green apron explaining that Starbucks is aware of dairy’s contribution to “a giant burning hellscape” and that customers choose vegan milks to slash greenhouse gas emissions. “And it’s good that you pay. I mean care,” he says. “Because we also have other things to care about. Like a $1.6 million cash sign-on bonus for our new CEO.”
“You just keep caring about saving the world, and we’ll keep caring about our savings account. Because Starbucks cares about money. Hey, it’s right there in our name,” he says with a smirk, handing over a latte with a dollar symbol outlined in foam.
In addition to driving the climate catastrophe, the dairy industry tears calves away from their mothers within a day of birth so the milk meant to nourish them can be stolen and sold to humans. PETA’s investigations into dairy facilities have found workers electroshocking a cow in the face, hitting cows with poles and a cane, and abusing them in other ways. Once their bodies wear out from repeated pregnancies, they’re sent to slaughter to be used for ground beef or dog food.
Cromwell previously supported PETA’s campaign against the coffee giant by supergluing himself to a Starbucks counter in Midtown Manhattan to pressure the company to end the upcharge for vegan milks (which other chains offer at no extra cost).
Ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, PETA has a shamrockin’ idea for Mayor Brandon Johnson and other city officials: Make the entire month of March green by going vegan and encouraging other Chicagoans to do the same. In exchange, PETA is offering to host a delicious vegan St. Patrick’s feast complete with meat-free corned “beef” and lentil shepherd’s pie.
Johnson is clearly concerned about the climate catastrophe—as evidenced by the city’s recent lawsuit against five major oil companies—and PETA points out that animal agriculture is responsible for nearly 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Going vegan would help make Chicago as green as its river, as well as sparing millions of animals a miserable life and a terrifying death. And since meat consumption is linked to cancer and heart disease—by far the two leading causes of death in the Windy City—vegan eating is the simplest way for residents to improve their health.
“Chicagoans don’t need the luck of the Irish to make this St. Patrick’s Day a happy and healthy one for themselves, other animals, and the planet. They just need to go vegan,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is ready with free vegan starter kits to help everyone make the switch.”
With even the cheapest plant-based meat products usually more expensive than conventional protein, cost remains a key consumption barrier for vegan alternatives – a new report shows how these can reach price parity.
Plant-based meat has had a challenging year, with the higher cost of living, attitudes around ultra-processed food, and misinformation about these products contributing to dwindling sales globally.
Many studies have identified the major factors that hold consumers back from eating these products. While taste and texture are regularly cited as the main barriers, alongside health/nutrition, price is key too. Despite a spate of launches over the last few years, and advancements made in the flavour and mouthfeel department, plant-based meats still cost on average than their conventional counterparts.
Courtesy: Hannah Ritchie
Alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute has revealed that in 2022, plant-based meat was 67% more expensive than animal meat. Likewise, research by data scientist Hannah Ritchie last year showed that even the cheapest plant-based meat alternatives are higher in price than animal-derived meat, suggesting that the former don’t just need to be at parity with the latter, but rather much cheaper.
So how do we get there? A new report by British chef and writer Anthony Warner for New Food Innovation delves into solutions to make meat alternatives cheaper than they currently are. The whitepaper outlines how textured vegetable protein (TVP) is usually much cheaper than meat, as the former is combined with a bunch of other ingredients to enhance the end product, things get a little trickier.
On average, hydrated TVP only makes up 20% of a plant-based burger’s ingredient cost. Fats and oils account for another 20%, emulsifiers and gelling agents 15%, and crumbs, seasonings, etc. 5%. But the real expense is in the flavourings to recreate the taste of beef and mask any native flavours in the plant protein, contributing to 40% of a vegan burger’s cost.
Courtesy: New Food Innovation
This is all before you consider the costs of processing – hydration, specialist equipment, time-consuming processes, specialist handling, efficient mixing and wastage are part of the manufacturing cycle, which can comprise up to thrice as many steps as conventional meat production.
Here’s how the plant-based meat industry can step over these hurdles and provide cheaper products to reach price parity with meat.
1) Tweak your flavour focus
A 1,000-person survey last year found that taste is the biggest deterrent for plant-based meat consumption for Brits (66%), followed closely by price (62%). Taste and texture are also the most common reasons for reducing consumption of meat analogues (40%) in the UK. Clearly, it’s a key factor to unlocking cheaper alt-meat. But as noted above, it’s the costliest too.
A typical burger formulation will have a savoury base element, a top-note meat flavour, a grill flavour, and a masking flavour. Masking is important as many plant proteins can have an unappetising taste, but using more specific masking agents can help reduce costs. Flavour companies can molecularly analyse the tasting notes in specific proteins to identify the best masking options – this targeted approach can bring savings compared to previous trial-and-error methods.
The flavour industry is dominated by a few companies, which means sometimes, food manufacturers end up overpaying. A push to improve plant-based flavourings has meant higher research and marketing costs, which are often passed on to the producers, but market consolidation and sourcing flavours from a single supplier can help these meat alternatives get closer to price parity.
Another solution could be to use non-natural flavouring agents, which are cheaper and can offer a wider gamut of taste notes, especially with grilling and smoking. This comes without any “obvious penalty on labelling”, given that they can be described as ‘flavouring’ instead of ‘natural flavouring’.
2) Leverage enzymes and in-built emulsification and gelling properties
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
Gels and emulsifiers like methylcellulose are omnipresent in plant-based meat and have key functional attributes, but these can make up between 10-15% of the total cost. While some companies are developing alternatives to methylcellulose, these are still expensive. The report recommends enzymatic solutions – especially those based on transglutaminase – which, while needing time and heat, require low levels of dosing and achieve “considerable cost savings”.
Emulsifiers are easier to remove, but they’re rarely used in high enough proportions to significantly impact the price of the final product. However, eliminating them will obviously cut some costs, and a greater understanding of existing ingredients’ functionality can help manufacturers make use of the natural emulsification, foaming and gelling properties of plant proteins.
3) Switch the processing and prolong the shelf life
Short shelf life for chilled plant-based meats prevents long production runs and adds to wastage. The industry can learn from the bakery sector when it comes to shelf-life extension, including the use of buffered vinegars, fermented acids and natural sorbate sources.
But it’s the micro issues that are most important to tackle. Using air-classified protein concentrates – which are cheaper and much more energy-efficient – over isolates is one solution, although they can be harder to work with and would need some refinement. Many high-quality TVPs are now being made entirely from plant protein concentrates, rendering cheaper and more climate-friendly ingredients.
4) Diversify the protein type
Courtesy: Heura
It’s easier to create plant-based analogues of lower-value, processed meats, but more premium cuts are harder and costlier to achieve – vegan bacon being a prime example. New extrusion processes can help overcome this obstacle, with a better understanding of their impact on finished products and the development of novel processes to improve meat-like structures enabling the creation of next-gen extruded plant proteins.
Many of these processes can help produce high-quality meat structures from plant concentrates, and their focus is less on burgers and sausages, and more on chicken, beef, lamb or pork chunks, strips and pieces to be used directly in dishes like pies, ready meals and stir-fries. These cuts of meat analogues only require small modifications to existing extrusion processes, meaning they’re similar to existing TVPs in terms of price and labelling. Plus, they don’t require any gelling, emulsification or tropical fats to deliver acceptable products.
5) Valorise the sidestream to cut food waste
When a protein is concentrated, something is always left over – for example, producing a protein-rich fraction from legume flour will leave a carbohydrate- and fibre-rich fraction, and utilising this is key to making cheaper meat alternatives. This already happens in the meat and dairy industry: think whey from cheese production and rendered animal fats.
Sidestream valorisation is essential for driving down costs and competing with animal agriculture. Some carb-rich streams can be used in food production as a source of starch to thicken soups or make extruded snacks, but they can also be used as feedstock for the fermentation sector to possibly increase protein yields.
“There are several projects currently in the research stage that will help increase the utilisation of plant-based side streams, and if the market is to grow as predicted, this work is going to have to increase in urgency,” the report notes.
6) Look local to find cheaper plant protein sources
Courtesy: Meeluinie
Current plant proteins are dominated by soy, pea and wheat, which often travel vast distances as part of a complex supply chain. While these still usually have environmental benefits over meat, this isn’t an ideal scenario. The research points to provenance and local sourcing as a major opportunity for plant-based meat.
For example, in the UK, fava beans are an important crop, but are mostly exported or used for animal feed. While these aren’t as easy to transform into TVP as soy or yellow pea, and come with flavour challenges, extrusion and masking tech has helped bridge this gap, with the first TVP made entirely from fava bean concentrate soon to be available to manufacturers in the country. (Beyond Meat’s reformulated beef is a case in point, adding fava beans in its new recipe.)
“There is much work to do. Some short-term solutions can produce significant results. Other approaches are likely to take more time, particularly those that require us to shift consumer understanding,” the report concludes. “But it is definitely possible that, if companies can maintain focus, a lot of plant-based products can be shifted towards price parity over the next couple of years. And if a few medium-term projects and research streams are implemented, we may even move beyond that point.”
Although many residents of Taos, New Mexico, are up in arms over the construction of a new slaughterhouse funded in part by taxpayer dollars, PETA fired off a letter to the city’s mayor, Pascualito Maestas, in support of the project—if the facility is built with a glass wall and broadcasts livestream video footage from the kill floor.
About 900,000 cows are killed every single day worldwide, and PETA investigations into slaughterhouses have exposed immense animal suffering, human health problems, disgraceful conditions for workers, and filth.
PETA is urging Taos Mayor Maestas to be transparent with his constituents and embrace a slaughterhouse with a glass wall.
Taxpayers in Taos have the right to see what they’re paying for. A slaughterhouse with a glass wall would not only provide a degree of accountability but also allow everyone to witness the terror and torment that animals endure during the killing process.
If slaughterhouse operations were made public, the scenes of terrified, screaming animals stunned with a captive-bolt gun, strung up, and slashed across the throat would persuade anyone to go vegan.
Meat production is widely recognized as environmentally destructive, hideously cruel to animals, and a human health hazard. Animal agriculture is rightly condemned for contributing mightily to greenhouse gas emissions, and slaughterhouses, which consistently rank among the most dangerous workplaces, aren’t safe for employees.
It’s easy to forget where meat comes from when it’s in neatly wrapped packages at the grocery store, but it didn’t get there peacefully. Animals tremble in terror as they smell the blood and hear the cries of those ahead of them in the kill line.
Every animal is an individual. Cows are curious and clever, sometimes going to extraordinary lengths to escape slaughter.
They understand cause-and-effect relationships and become excited when they figure out how to do something, such as operating a water pump with their horns. They’re gregarious, forming intense friendships and holding grudges against herd members who have treated them badly.
Want to Help Cows? Go Vegan Today
There’s no better time to make positive changes for animals, the planet, and yourself—and the easiest way to do that is by going vegan! Take part in PETA’s 3-Week Vegan Challenge to kick-start your journey. We’ll send you weekly e-mails full of delicious vegan recipes, shopping tips, a vegan meal plan, and tons of other resources:
Shoppers attending Wednesday’s grand opening of the new Whole Foods store in St. Petersburg will be confronted by an 8-foot crying “monkey” chained to a massive coconut as PETA pushes the grocery giant to stop selling coconut milk from Thailand, where the coconut industry is involved in a scandal over the forced labor of endangered pig-tailed macaque monkeys.
Where: In front of Whole Foods Market, 201 38th Ave. N. (at the intersection with 39th Avenue N.), St. Petersburg
When: Wednesday, February 28, 9 a.m.
Credit: PETA
Many monkeys used in Thailand’s coconut-picking industry are illegally snatched from their natural habitat as babies, fitted with rigid metal collars, whipped, and forced to climb trees to pick heavy coconuts. Their canine teeth are often pulled out in order to leave them defenseless. Because the industry and the Thai government lie about their systemic reliance on forced monkey labor, it’s impossible to guarantee that any coconut milk from Thailand is free of it. Multiple companies that produce coconut milk sold at Whole Foods were named by industry workers in a PETA Asia investigation as having used coconuts obtained by monkey labor. HelloFresh, Purple Carrot, and Performance Food Group have stopped sourcing coconut milk from Thailand following PETA’s exposé, as have international companies such as Aldi, ASDA, and Lidl.
“Whole Foods’ continued sale of products implicated in the abuse of an endangered species is particularly appalling for a company that claims to care about animal welfare,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Whole Foods to live up to its stated values and sell coconut milk only from countries where monkey labor isn’t used, such as India and the Philippines.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone
and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness.
Many residents are angry over the proposed construction of a slaughterhouse in Taos funded in part with taxpayer money, but PETA sent a letter today to Taos Mayor Pascualito Maestas expressing its support for the project—if the facility is built with a glass wall and livestreams video footage so the public can see what happens inside it, which should pose no problem if the operation is clean and humane. About 900,000 cows are killed every single day worldwide, and PETA investigations into slaughterhouses have revealed immense animal suffering, human health problems, disgraceful conditions for workers, and filth.
A cow in the meat industry. Credit: PETA
“If slaughterhouse operations were made public, the scenes of terrified, screaming animals stunned with a captive-bolt gun, strung up, and slashed across their throats would make anyone go vegan, and facility operators know that and fight to keep consumers in the dark,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is urging Mayor Maestas to be transparent with his constituents by considering a glass-walled ‘kill floor,’ because Taoseño taxpayers have a right to see what they’re paying for.”
I’m writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters worldwide, including nearly 35,000 across New Mexico—in support of the construction of a new slaughterhouse in Taos but with one special request.
This slaughterhouse will be built, in part, with taxpayer funding, so it’s reasonable that it should have a floor-to-ceiling glass wall so that the public would be able to see inside. This glass wall would not only provide a degree of accountability but also allow anyone who wants to see what goes on inside such a place to witness the terror and torment that animals endure there before they’re killed for food—and possibly then reexamine their food choices. We also request that school tours of the facility be allowed.
Times have changed, and meat is now recognized as environmentally destructive, hideously cruel to animals, and a human health hazard. Animal agriculture is rightly condemned for contributing mightily to greenhouse gas emissions, and slaughterhouses are not safe for employees—they consistently rank among the most dangerous workplaces. As for the suffering of animals, as Sir Paul McCartney famously said, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, no one would eat meat.”
It’s easy to forget where meat comes from when you see it in neatly wrapped packages in a grocery store, but animals don’t go peacefully for it. They tremble in terror, as they smell the blood and hear the cries of those ahead of them on the kill line. When it’s their turn, cows are shot in the head with a captive-bolt gun—which we have shown is not always accurately aimed—and hung up by one leg, often dislocating their hips. Then their throats are cut and they are gutted—sometimes while they’re still conscious. They fight for their lives because, just like you and me, they don’t want to die. U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors have found pigs on the way to slaughter frozen to the side of trucks in winter and animals deprived of water during long summer journeys.
The people of Taos have the right to see this process and to consider who animals are, what makes them tick, and how they feel. All animals are individuals. Cows are curious, clever animals who sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to escape slaughter. They understand cause-and-effect relationships and become excited when they figure out how to do something, such as operating a water pump with their horns. They are gregarious, forming intense friendships and holding grudges against herd members who have treated them badly. They are thoughtful individuals who feel just as much as you or I do.
Concerned residents of Taos who have protested against this new slaughterhouse in an effort to point out how cruel, dangerous, environmentally destructive, and unhealthy it is to kill and eat sentient beings are correct. Meanwhile, vegan foods continue to proliferate on grocery store shelves.
However, if the slaughterhouse is built, there should be transparency concerning what goes on inside it. There should be a viewing wall and the operation should be livestreamed for the world to see what the slaughter of animals is really all about.
Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing from you.
In remembrance of the pigs who died in agony after the truck carrying them caught fire on North Talbot Road in Tecumseh on February 6, PETA has placed a sky-high memorial near the accident site that proclaims, in part, “If Everyone Were Vegan, It Wouldn’t Have Happened.”
“Pigs died in pain and terror in this crash, and the traumatized survivors were likely rounded up and sent to slaughter,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Whether they die in a cramped transport truck or under the slaughterhouse knife, all pigs raised for food suffer immensely, and PETA urges everyone to show these animals some sympathy by going vegan.”
PETA points out that pigs are playful, intelligent, friendly animals who are soothed by music, love playing ball, sleep in “pig piles,” and even enjoy getting massages. In the meat industry, workers chop off piglets’ tails, clip their teeth with pliers, and castrate the males. Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year; reduces their own risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and obesity; and dramatically shrinks their carbon footprint. PETA’s free vegan starter kit can help those looking to make the switch.
PETA’s billboard is located at 853 Division Rd. in Windsor.
A British trade standards group is pushing for guidance that would ban the use of alternative descriptors like ‘mylk’, ‘cheeze’, or ‘yoghurt-style’ on plant-based dairy packaging.
The UK could soon issue new guidance prohibiting plant-based dairy companies from describing their products as alternatives, with terms like ‘not milk’ or ‘cheeze’ not allowed on product packaging.
Plant-based brands are already banned from using dairy-related terms like ‘milk’, ‘yoghurt’ and ‘cheese’ on labels thanks to a 1987 EU law that has been retained by the UK post-Brexit. But the new rules could mean these companies wouldn’t allowed to use alternative descriptors either, in a move that has been described by industry stakeholders as “draconian”.
It is part of a years-long effort from the Information Focus Group (FSIFG), a group of trading standards officers that alternative protein advocacy organisation ProVeg International has previously called “obscure”. The argument isn’t new: the FSIFG says these labels cause confusion among consumers, although consumer surveys have played this down.
With the new guidance thought to be imminent, the Plant-Based Food Alliance UK (PBFA) will make a last-ditch attempt this week to ask UK environment secretary Steve Barclay to intervene, with a letter explaining how this would push up prices in a market hit hard with the cost-of-living crisis, and requesting for the guidance to be dropped and regulations reviewed.
No ‘milk’, no ‘mylk’, and no ‘m*lk’
Courtesy: Alpro
There were murmurs about the new guidance as far back as January last year, when the FSIFG issued the proposed guidance to local Trading Standards officials in the UK. The group called for a ban on brand names on supermarket shelves and in coffee shops, including Flora Plant B*tter, Mighty Not Milk (previously M.LKology), Good Hemp – Oat + Hemp Milk, Qurkee M’LK, and Alpro This Is Not M*lk.
The new rules outlaw plays on words, like ‘m*lk’ or mylk’, terms like ‘not milk’ accompanying images evoking milk, phrases including ‘alternative to’, ‘yoghurt-style’, ‘Cheddar flavour’, etc., as well as ‘semi’ or ‘whole’ to describe the fat content in plant-based milk, as is done in conventional milk.
“Technological innovation is leading to the construction of products offered as alternatives to conventional foods of animal origin,” the FSIFG was quoted as saying by the Guardian. “It is important that products are clearly distinguished, understood and nutritional differences are not confused.”
However, ProVeg argued last year that the guidance was not subject to public consultation, and there was no communication with the plant-based sector either (though this has been disputed by some sources). But that would come as little surprise if you take Greenpeace’s suggestion that the dairy industry had been lobbying for these rules to be implemented.
“We’re trying to come up with a fair and balanced view on what the legislation says, and if certain parts of the market don’t like that it’s up to them to lobby the government to change the legislation,” David Pickering, FSIFG member and lead food standard officer at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, told Greenpeace’s Unearthed publication.
Despite objections from the vegan sector, the latest version of this guidance (dated January 2024) has not been watered down. It suggests that plant-based companies should not use homophones, asterisks, or other wordplay. While foods like custard creams and salad cream are fair game, ‘vegan mozzarella’ and ‘soya yoghurt’ are not. What should companies call these instead? “Vegan soft-white balls with a light cheese flavour” and “soya dessert fermented with live cultures” are the FSIFG’s suggestions, respectively.
‘Draconian’ rules for consumers who are not confused
“This move will make us one of the most draconian nations in regards to what we can and cannot call these sorts of products,” PBFA CEO Marisa Heath told Unearthed last year. “Consumers know what they are buying and they are not stupid, it should be left to them to make their choices in the supermarket.”
This has been echoed by oat milk leader Oatly, whose UK and Ireland manager Bryan Carroll has described the assumption that people won’t be able to tell the difference as “frankly insulting”, questioning whether the UK wanted to be a country with the “most draconian rules about how we describe our food and drink”.
A 2022 survey by ProVeg found that only 17% of Brits were confused about whether ‘plant-based’ foods contain dairy or eggs, which came two years after a study found that consumers aren’t more likely to think vegan products have animal origins if their names have conventional terms. In fact, the latter added, “omitting words that are traditionally associated with animal products from the names of plant-based products actually causes consumers to be significantly more confused about the taste and uses of these products”.
Likewise, a 2,000-person poll published last month found that only 20% of Brits have confused plant-based foods with animal products due to branding or labelling, although it noted that 38% of UK consumers believe vegan companies should not be allowed to use animal-related terms.
Heath believes the implementation of the new guidance would harm the food industry. “At the time when we should be encouraging consumers to make more sustainable choices… this is a bad move,” she told the Guardian. “Major retailers will have to rename their own-brand plant-based products. This will cause unnecessary time and financial costs in an industry that is already doing its best during the cost of living crisis. This could then have an impact on consumer prices too.”
“In 2023, we didn’t receive a single complaint of consumer confusion,” said Ian Hepburn, marketing director at Upfield UK and Ireland, which makes the Flora butter range and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. “We are baffled by these proposed restrictions which do nothing but add bureaucracy to an outdated EU law.”
If imposed, the proposed rules would be tougher than even the EU’s, which only bans conventional dairy terms like ‘milk’ and ‘cheese’, but not alternative uses or plays on these words. In the US, in fact, the FDA now allows plant-based milk brands to use the term ‘milk’ to describe their product (though there are disputes over voluntary nutritional labels). The new regulations would hinder the UK’s plant-based milk sector: market leader Alpro was already a key driver behind the milk category’s retail decline last year, with sales falling by £13.7M.
The guidance will be shared with trading standards officials nationwide if passed through at the FSIFG’s next meet, and restrictions could be in place by Easter. If companies face a complaint, they may face enforcement action, which would mean a change in brand name or packaging. However, a spokesperson for Defra told the Guardian: “This is a draft opinion from a group who are independent of government. There are no plans to change existing legislation in this area.”
The development comes around the same time that UK prime minister Rishi Sunak – who has been criticised for his climate inaction – attended a protest with a group that has posted climate change conspiracy theories and campaigns against net zero. Sunak has infamously called for a “more pragmatic, proportionate and realistic” to the UK’s net-zero plans for 2050, without outlining what that entails.
A troop of PETA “monkeys” dressed in prisoner garb will make a splash outside a local Whole Foods store on Sunday as they dump fake blood from spoof Thai coconut milk cans emblazoned with “Cruel Foods” labels to call out the grocery giant for its sale of coconut milk from Thailand—which it continues to stock even though it knows the country’s coconut industry is driven by the forced labor of endangered pig-tailed macaques.
“By continuing to sell Thai coconut milk, Whole Foods is signing off on the abuse of an endangered species, willfully propping up an industry that kidnaps monkeys, chains them, and treats them as nothing more than coconut-picking machines,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Whole Foods to prove it’s not morally bankrupt by selling coconut milk only from countries where monkey labor isn’t used, such as India and the Philippines.”
Many monkeys exploited in Thailand’s coconut industry are illegally snatched from their natural habitat as babies, fitted with metal collars, whipped, and forced to climb trees to pick heavy coconuts. Their canine teeth are often pulled out in order to leave them defenseless. Because the industry and the Thai government lie about their systemic reliance on forced monkey labor, it’s impossible to guarantee that any coconut milk from Thailand is free of it. Multiple companies that produce coconut milk sold at Whole Foods were named by industry workers in a PETA Asia investigation as having used coconuts obtained via monkey labor. HelloFresh, Purple Carrot, and Performance Food Group have stopped sourcing coconut milk from Thailand following PETA’s exposé, as have international companies such as Aldi, ASDA, and Lidl.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness.
It’s been flapping around in the news that some experimenters think changing chickens’ genes will fend off avian influenza (bird flu). How about having respect for these remarkable birds rather than tampering with their DNA in order to keep using them for food? Editing chicken genetics, which only might make the birds less susceptible to disease, is highly problematic in multiple ways.
Five Reasons Not to Edit Chicken Genetics
It violates individuals:Chickens are living, feeling beings who shouldn’t be bred, exploited, and killed for food or anything else. Too often, deceptive labels like “humane,” “organic,” or “free-range” are used to distract consumers from the egregious misery that the meat and egg industries inflict on these remarkable birds. PETA has campaigned for decades to increase kindness toward them.
Chickens are smart, social, and sensitive individuals, each with a distinct personality and capable of experiencing love, joy, sadness, and pain—yet they’re among the most abused animals on the planet. From the moment they hatch, billions of chickens raised for food each year are forced to endure enormous suffering, just for a fleeting taste of their flesh.
It worsens the climate catastrophe: Editing genes in newly bred chickens perpetuates breeding more animals. This escalates environmental destruction due to having to feed them as they grow, manage their waste, transport them to a slaughterhouse, kill them, and process and ship their corpses as food.
Raising billions of chickens on farms for food produces enormous amounts of excrement every year. Oregon State University agriculture professor Peter Cheeke says that today’s farming amounts to “a frontal assault on the environment,” which leads to widespread fecal pollution of land and water.
It squanders tax money: Spending tax dollars on changing chickens’ genes—as the National Institutes of Health does on other tests on animals—is a wasteful expansion of the vivisection industry. That money would be better used to benefit animals, human health, and the planet.
It wastes valuable time: Scientists should spend their time on meaningful and compassionate research—as laid out in PETA’s Research Modernization Deal. Damaging experiments like altering chickens’ genes would cause long-term harm, whereas human-relevant research that doesn’t involve other animals would bring about useful scientific advances.
It stirs up potential pandemics: Reconfiguring chickens’ genetic makeup—which requires experimenters to be in close proximity to birds in potentially dangerous ways—could lead to future pandemics. And since all viruses, including bird flu, mutate, it could find a way around genetic manipulation.
Birds used in the chicken industry and crowded into confinement have a high likelihood of contracting and carrying diseases, including avian flu, chronic respiratory illnesses, and bacterial infections. The answer isn’t to alter their genes—it’s to stop exploiting them for food.
We should respect chickens for who they are, rather than trying to change them. Besides, by breeding them for specific characteristics, humans have already done horrible damage.
Chickens love their families, value their lives, and are always looking out for others in their flock. They “talk” to their chicks while they’re still inside the shell and have unique calls to warn others of danger coming by land or air. They comprehend cause-and-effect relationships and understand that objects still exist even after they’ve been hidden from view. Inquisitive and intelligent, they have complex social structures as well as adept communication skills and can recall the faces and “pecking order” of over 100 other birds.
Focusing on how chickens could be changed to serve speciesism overrides compassion for and curiosity about them as individuals. Choosing kindness instead of using them for food would be better for everyone. Every animal—including every chicken—is someone.
Despite its hard-line stance on alternative protein in the last few months, Italy is reconsidering its ban on using meat-like terms on plant-based product labels, with Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida indicating that he doesn’t want to have any conflict with local manufacturers.
It’s been an eventful few months for Italy and its adventures with alternative protein. In November, it became the first country to ban cultivated meat, citing health reasons, a risk to the country’s tradition, and a need to safeguard the livestock industry.
However, this wasn’t the only ban introduced by Italy, with another legislation going slightly under the radar. As part of the cultivated meat legislation, the country also prohibited the use of meat-related terms like ‘steak’ and ‘salami’ on the product packaging of plant-based meat, which alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe says is consumed by half of Italy’s population.
Labelling is a hot topic of debate in countries across the world, but perhaps it carries even greater weight considering Italy’s position as the third-largest vegan market in the EU, with a 21% sales hike from 2020-22. Agriculture Minister Lollobrigida appears to be changing tact, with the government reconsidering the move after backlash from food industry groups.
Food industry group argues that consumers aren’t confused
Courtesy: VegFather
The decision comes after Unione Italiana Food, which describes itself as Italy’s leading association for direct representation of food product categories, hit back at the government’s labelling ban by appealing to the EU Commission and requesting the removal of the article about plant-based food.
Outlining its intention to introduce the legislation, Italy’s government submitted a Technical Regulations Information System (TRIS) notification to the EU, which meant the country needed approval from the bloc if it wanted to ban cultivated meat and plant-based meat labels, with other EU members getting the chance to weigh in on the decision as well.
In response to this notification, Unione Italiana Food had outlined its stance. As a group with over 550 companies and €51B in turnover, which offered a broad range of plant-based products, it noted that these have “nothing to do with food consisting of, isolated from or produced from cell cultures or tissues derived from vertebrate animals”.
Unione Italiana Food argues that the protection of consumer information and the correct regulatory framework was already in place and that at the national and EU level, food labels are regulated by EU parliament rules. The bloc passed a landmark ruling in 2020 that rejected calls to ban the use of meat-related terms on plant-based product packaging.
“It does not appear that consumers are confused by plant-based products’ denomination – on the contrary, they are generally consumers who read labels and who are very clear about the nature of what they are purchasing,” the association wrote. The European Consumer Organisation BEUC conducted a survey in 2020, which found that over 85% of Italians did not have any concerns with plant-based products using meat-like terms, as long as they were clearly labelled as vegetarian. “These names… do not give rise to risks of misunderstanding, also because they are always followed by the specification ‘vegetable’,” wrote Unione Italiana Food in its comment.
“It’s not possible to change the names of products that have been around for 30 years,” the group told local newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. “This way, 20 million Italians who consume them knowingly will be confused. Our labels allow consumers to easily find and choose the products they intend to bring to the table without the risk of confusion on the shelves. Instead, the prohibition will end up generating confusion and disorientation.”
GFI Europe’s public affairs consultant, Francesca Gallelli, had said at the time: “Eliminating the possibility of using familiar terms to facilitate product recognition undermines transparency, generating confusion for consumers where none currently exists, as demonstrated by surveys.”
Supply chain discussions are needed as plant-based sales grow
Courtesy: Atlante/Vivera
Italy soon withdrew this notification, as it knew that the proposal would be rejected by the EU. This was followed by the formal ban, which many stakeholders felt would not hold, as it likely violated EU law. “We are the first nation to ban [cultivated meat], with all due respect to the multinationals who hope to make monstrous profits by putting citizens’ jobs and health at risk,” Lollobrigida said after the ban.
While the noise was louder for cultivated meat, it’s plant-based meat products that were more affected, given that they’re the ones currently in the market. But now, it seems the Agriculture Minister is going back on his own words.
“The last thing I want is to create conflict with Italian companies, so we have decided to start a process with Unione Italiana Food to develop a shared plan for the use of meat terms on plant-based products,” he told local reporters. “Our objective is to combine the needs of the industry with the protection of the consumer, who must not be misled.”
While the deadline for the process was set to be February 16, Lollobrigida has said that it wasn’t an “imperative” date and that more discussions with supply chain players were required. He noted that the request “does not affect the entire law” of cultivated meat, but only the individual article about plant-based products, which is why he is happy to discuss it.
“If it were a problem from this point of view, we could make an evaluation,” he said. “Through a gradual process, for example, we could decide not to change the names of the flagship products of some companies and instead modify those that are less well-known.”
With plant-based sales in Italian retail and foodservice growing by 2.8% last year – in a global landscape where sales have regressed for these products – Unione Italiana Food will hope the conclusion is a positive one.
From pollution and destruction to disease, the societal costs of livestock meat production are an incredible burden.
In 2020, the average American ate almost 280 pounds of meat, a figure which is very likely higher today. Many European and Latin American countries, not to mention Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Hong Kong also eat a large amount of animal meat. In most industrialized nations, animal proteins are at the center of the average person’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner plate. But what of the costs to our collective health and environment? This past December, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a paper showing that our food systems, which we know to be based on animal proteins, externalizes $12.7 trillion in costs to society. That is an estimated 10% of global GDP.
Why does meat cost society so much?
There is no shortage of research linking excess meat consumption to chronic disease. Both the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) and The National Library of Medicine show that regularly eating processed meats (bacon, sausage, deli slices, hot dogs) can cause heart disease. The World Health Organization qualifies processed meats as carcinogenic. Further, meat consumption is associated with rising levels of diabetes and obesity, as per the National Library of Medicine. All this illness costs the average taxpayer dearly: from debilitating personal illness to skyrocketing healthcare costs, not to mention severe environmental damage and considerable economic loss.
For example, a 2018 Milken Institute report suggested that the $1.1 trillion in U.S. healthcare costs for chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity, as determined by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is closer to $3.7 trillion when lost economic productivity is included. “This is equivalent to nearly 20 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP),” according to the report authors.
The FAO paper, published during the UN climate conference COP28 where sustainable and healthy food systems advancements were part of the main programming for the first time, noted that 73% of the $12.7 trillion cost to society was due to dietary pattern-induced productivity losses. In laypeople’s terms, we pay for our addiction to meat and other processed foods in more ways than at the grocery store.
Another societal cost of our meat-dependent food systems, perhaps not reflected in the $12.7 trillion, is our growing antibiotic resistance. Livestock animals are raised in cramped conditions where disease is rampant, and as such, require enormous amounts of antibiotics (over 70% of all antibiotics produced globally are used by the livestock industry). By consuming meat, we ingest those pharmaceuticals and develop a resistance to them.
Then, there are the environmental costs of our current food system, which the FAO report says “have an expected value corresponding to about 20 percent of total quantified hidden costs [$2.6T] caused by agrifood systems. Of these, more than half pertained to nitrogen emissions (mostly from runoff to surface waters and ammonia emissions to air). These were followed by the contributions of greenhouse gas emissions to climate change (30 percent), land-use change costs (14 percent), and water use (4 percent).”
Big Meat’s media tricks and the taxpayer burden
Through sophisticated media campaigns that follow the PR playbook of other polluting industries such as fossil fuels and tobacco, the livestock industry has convinced the average consumer that meat is healthy, a non-negotiable part of their cultural identity, and that they can’t live without it. Made aware of the significant costs and tax burden of livestock meat production detailed above, would most people choose differently?
Alas, the duping of society by the Big Meat lobby is quite seductive. Take, for example, a Big Mac. What appears to be one of the cheapest meals/foods available to a US consumer, is actually quite costly upon further review, in large part because of external costs (see above) and substantial meat production subsidies. According to a paper by the American Institute for Economic Research titled ‘The True Cost of a Hamburger’, “the United States federal government spends $38 billion every year subsidizing the meat and dairy industries. Research from 2015 shows this subsidization reduces the price of Big Macs from $13 to $5 and the price of a pound of hamburger meat from $30 to the $5 we see today.” Guess who pays for those subsidies in the end? That’s right! It’s us, the taxpayers. Not only are we incentivized to eat foods that make us sick and damage our environment, we are made to pay for it through taxes. Not only is this infuriating, it’s fiscally irresponsible. Not to mention it’s all in the service of a very below-average hamburger.
Food system innovation is the silver lining
There is a silver lining: investing in food system innovation. Per the U.N.E.P., despite livestock farming accounting for up to 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, agrifood tech funding accounts for only 4% of global climate investments.
Public markets haven’t yet priced in the true negative costs of livestock meat production and the full positive potential of future food innovations. Now is the time to invest in what some might call a golden opportunity.
Where there is inefficiency, there is disruption through innovation. Markets thrive on this, and eventually, the great solutions rise to the top and there is mass adoption across society. Think of how the horse and buggy gave way to the automobile, the film developing industry gave way to digital imaging and the landline gave way to the cell phone. Today’s smart protein industry is alight with innovation that makes animal factories look like the dark-age torture relics they are.
Indeed, innovation for efficient protein diversification through plant-based foods, precision fermented proteins and cultivated meat is growing, and the benefits are many. With alternatives, society can meet the rising demand for protein from a growing, economically-mobile and urbanizing global population for a fraction of the health and environmental costs, as noted by the COP28 host nation the UAE’s Minister of the Environment Her Excellency Mariam Almheiri during the conference.
We can see the path to food systems change is already taking shape with pioneering startups hitting key milestones. Israel’s Aleph Farms, for example, has just received approval from the Israeli government for the public sale of cultivated beef. Their peers at Upside Foods and GOOD Meat received US regulatory approval for cultivated chicken in June of last year. In the past few weeks, several precision fermentation dairy companies have earned FDA self-affirmed GRAS status for their animal-free dairy proteins. Meanwhile, the plant-based industry continues to iterate and work to improve taste, ingredient quality and health credentials.
It’s never been a better time to invest in the future of food, and it’s never been more important. Soon, Governments across the world are waking up to this reality. In the meantime, you and your financial portfolio could potentially benefit from the market’s assymetry.
PETA’s bipartisan mascot Chris P. Carrot is on the campaign trail in South Carolina, where he’ll give attendees and presidential hopefuls some food for thought as he holds an “EAT ME!” sign and urges them to go vegan for three good reasons: to stop harming animals, to bolster human health, and to protect the environment. Chris P. Carrot will appear at Nikki Haley’s bus tour stops in Georgetown this afternoon and in Myrtle Beach later this evening.
Left: Chris P. Carrot at the Asa Hutchinson rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 13. Right: Chris P. Carrot at Nikki Haley’s rally in Adel, Iowa, on January 14. Credit: PETA
“Animal agriculture is a killer, spewing methane that’s destroying the planet, hardening humans’ arteries with cholesterol, and sending billions of animals to their deaths,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s Chris P. Carrot is urging candidates and voters to go vegan before it’s too late—and we have free downloadable vegan starter kits for all.”
According to the United Nations, about a third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food production and the largest percentage of these emissions come from the meat and dairy industries. PETA notes that growing water-intensive crops just to feed animals raised for food consumes more than half the water used in the U.S. and that up to 80% of deforestation in the Amazon is linked to meat production, either for grazing or for growing food for cows. Vegan foods—such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, peas, nuts, and lentils—require less energy, land, and water.
PETA’s bipartisan mascot Chris P. Carrot is on the campaign trail in South Carolina, where he’ll give attendees and presidential hopefuls some food for thought as he holds an “EAT ME!” sign and urges them to go vegan for three good reasons: to stop harming animals, to bolster human health, and to protect the environment. Chris P. Carrot’s first stop will be at Nikki Haley’s bus tour stop in Beaufort this evening, followed by other events throughout the week.
Left: Chris P. Carrot at the Asa Hutchinson rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday. Right: Chris P. Carrot at the Nikki Haley rally in Adel, Iowa, on Sunday. Credit: PETA
“Animal agriculture is a killer, spewing methane that’s destroying the planet, hardening humans’ arteries with cholesterol, and sending billions of animals to their deaths,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s Chris P. Carrot is urging candidates and voters to go vegan before it’s too late—and we have free downloadable vegan starter kits for all.”
According to the United Nations, about a third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food production and the largest percentage of these emissions come from the meat and dairy industries. PETA notes that growing water-intensive crops just to feed animals raised for food consumes more than half the water used in the U.S. and that up to 80% of deforestation in the Amazon is linked to meat production, either for grazing or for growing food for cows. Vegan foods—such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, peas, nuts, and lentils—require less energy, land, and water.
Chris P. Carrot will make appearances at Haley’s bus tour stops in Georgetown and Myrtle Beach tomorrow and in Rock Hill on Friday.
PETA is celebrating a historic victory for donkeys! Following a massive push from PETA entities and an explosive PETA Asia investigation into Kenya’s bloody donkey slaughter industry, the African Union has announced a 15-year continentwide ban on slaughtering donkeys for their skin. This decision will prevent countless donkeys from being violently killed so that their skins can be exported to China and boiled down to make gelatin for ejiao—a traditional Chinese “medicine.”
This monumental win follows a campaign against the ejiao trade by PETA entities and a coalition of animal protection groups in and outside Africa. PETA Asia’s eye-opening investigation at a donkey slaughterhouse in Kenya—which revealed that donkeys were left to suffer from untreated injuries and that some even died during the torturous, days-long journey to the slaughterhouse—ignited global outrage.
Many countries, including Botswana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda, either banned the export of donkey skin or closed down Chinese-owned slaughterhouses. But donkeys were still being sent on grueling days-long journeys to slaughterhouses in Kenya and Nigeria, countries where the trade was still legal.
Animal advocates kept up the pressure, and PETA entities and hundreds of thousands of our supporters contacted African officials. This moratorium on donkey slaughter is a massive blow to the Chinese ejiao industry, which relies heavily on imports of donkey skins from Africa and elsewhere.
In 2017, a first-of-its-kind PETA Asia investigation revealed that donkey farms in China confined the animals to cramped, feces-caked pens with concrete floors. At a donkey market, terrified animals were beaten with sticks while they were forced to stand in the hot sun. At the slaughterhouse, donkeys were bashed in the head with a sledgehammer before workers slit their throats.
In addition to inflicting unimaginable suffering on gentle donkeys, the ejiao trade was decimating Africa’s donkey population. Between 2016 and 2019, Kenyan slaughterhouses reportedly killed about half the donkeys in the country for this cruel trade. PETA is now urging all African Union member nations to strictly enforce the ban.
What You Can Do
Donkeys are patient, kind, intelligent animals. They can recognize the faces of animals they haven’t seen for years, and they feel pain and fear just as any other animal does. You can continue to help them by refusing to purchase products made with ejiao. Look out for ingredients such as “donkey oil,” “donkey-hide gelatin,” “donkey hide,” “donkey glue,” and “ass-hide glue.”
Call on Xie Feng—the Chinese ambassador to the U.S.—to use his influence to protect donkeys from suffering in the ejiao industry:
Californian plant-based giant Beyond Meat has unveiled its first product reformulation in three years, with the Beyond IV burger and beef now featuring avocado oil, fava beans and lentils. It’s a more nutritious product, but it’s also more expensive.
Beyond Meat is reformulating its mince and burger SKUs to match consumer demands for better-tasting and healthier plant-based meats, which will roll out in the US this spring.
Fuelled by the fourth generation of its core beef platform, the new Beyond Burger and Beef will replace the existing iterations on retail shelves, and their launch is headlined by improved nutritional credentials. There’s less saturated fat, less sodium, more calcium, more potassium, and slightly more protein.
The El Segundo-based company has now bid adieu to canola and coconut oils, replacing them with avocado oil. Plus, it has added fava beans and red lentils to its ingredient list, marginally shortening the ingredient list from 18 to 17. All this plays into key consumer concerns and demands: research has shown that people want better-tasting vegan burgers that are also better for their health.
Beyond Meat’s revamp comes with the backdrop of heightened criticism around the additives, ‘unnatural’ ingredients and ultra-processing used in meat alternatives. To ensure that its claims live up to scrutiny, the company worked with medical and nutrition experts in a multi-year research effort to improve its offerings and meet guidelines set by national health bodies and experts.
“We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished with Beyond IV as it marks our most significant renovation and step forward to date,” Shira Zackai, the company’s chief communication officer, told Green Queen. “As part of Beyond Meat’s rapid and relentless approach to innovation, we’re always working to advance the taste and nutrition of our products.”
Beyond Meat IV means more nutritious plant-based beef
Courtesy: Beyond Meat | Graphic by Green Queen
In the last year, brand strategies for plant-based meat have shifted drastically. There’s a bigger focus on health than ever before, in direct response to consumer attitudes and concerns about vegan alternatives. In August, with its first marketing campaign in years, Beyond Meat opted to subtly push back against targeted attacks from meat industry lobby groups, shining a light on the farmers who grow its ingredients.
However, it quickly changed tact two months later, with a new marketing drive honing in on its steak product, which was certified as ‘heart-healthy’ by the American Heart Association (AHA). It has continued that rhetoric, as has its biggest rival, Impossible Foods.
“There is a considerable gap between the strong health credentials of our products and a broader counternarrative that is now afoot, and this gap appears to have widened,” Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said in its Q2 earnings call. “This change in perception is not without encouragement from interest groups, who have succeeded in seeding doubt and fear around the ingredients and processes we use to create our and other plant-based meats.”
In retrospect, this served as a precursor to today’s announcement. Behind the scenes, Beyond Meat has been intent on answering critics of plant-based meat, and the belief is that its newest products are its strongest response yet. The Beyond Burger IV is an upgrade on the existing one on multiple counts: there’s 60% less saturated fat (2g per serving), 30% less sodium (310mg), 20% more calcium (120mg), and 12% higher potassium content (370mg).
Plus, the new Beyond Beef has 21g of protein, a gram more than its predecessor. This, by the way, is higher than most 80/20 beef products on the market. The company claims the saturated fat content is 75% lower than standard 80/20 beef too.
“The development of the new products occurred within an ecosystem of leading medical and nutrition experts, and were designed to meet the standards of national health organisations to create a product that delivers the taste, satisfaction, and utility of 80/20 beef – yet is demonstrably healthier,” said Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown.
The company has been able to do so by rejigging its ingredient list. Gone are the canola and coconut oils – the former is a seed oil that has high amounts of linoleic acid, which has been linked to inflammation and related diseases, while the latter is a fat infamous for its high saturated fat content. With avocado oil, there’s less saturated fat, less linoleic acid, and more monounsaturated fat (also known as one of the healthier fats). The new products have 8g of the latter, versus 6g in the 3.0 versions.
Half of Americans found plant-based meats to be healthy in 2020, but that dipped to 38% in 2022. The loss in faith has since continued, with a Mintel survey from last year showing that nutrition is the second-biggest reason (35%) for Americans’ reticence to try meat alternatives. Yet another poll revealed that health is the major factor behind Americans eating meatless diets, with six in 10 choosing it.
Beyond Meat’s beef is now recognised by the American Diabetes Association’s evidence-based nutritional guidelines for its Better Choices for Life programme, and now features Good Housekeeping’s Nutritionist Approved Emblem. Unlike its steak, the ground beef and burger aren’t yet certified by the AHA, but they have been included in a catalogue of ‘heart-healthy’ recipes by its Heart-Check initiative.
All this will no doubt appeal to a country where one citizen dies from cardiovascular disease every 33 seconds, over a third are clinically obese, and over 11% suffer from type 2 diabetes.
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
Beyond Meat leans into the whole-food trend, but there’s a snag
The other major additions to Beyond Meat’s mince and burger are fava beans and red lentils. The company joins a raft of others incorporating whole foods into their plant-based offerings, playing into a trend connected to the increased consciousness around health and ultra-processed foods.
Among different protein sources, those originating from whole plants experienced the sharpest rise in consumption among Americans between 2022 and 2023, with 28% eating them ‘somewhat’ or ‘much more’. These foods also had the second-lowest drop (11%) in intake, behind plant-based meat and seafood analogues (10%).
There is a lot of misconception about ultra-processing and plant-based meats, with consumers linking the former with healthfulness to explain their dismay about the latter. This outlook chimes with “concerns some people have around foods that are new – often called food neophobia“, Churchill Fellow Jenny Chapman told Green Queen earlier this month. “Some [marketing] campaigns really hone in on this, by using words like ‘fake’ and ‘unnatural’ to describe plant-based meats (which are safe, nutritious foods).”
With fava bean, pea protein and avocado oil, Beyond Meat is aiming to appeal to people looking for clean-label foods. Research by ingredients supplier Ingredion has found that 78% of consumers would spend more money on products with ‘natural’ or ‘all-natural’ packaging claims.
It’s important to note that there’s no agreed definition for what constitutes a ‘clean-label’ food, though the common understanding is that it means there are fewer ingredients and fewer ultra-processed elements. The 17-ingredient Beyond Beef and Burger IV don’t suggest they meet the former criterion, but the removal of ‘expeller-pressed canola oil’ and ‘refined coconut oil’ indicates they could fit the latter.
Backing up this claim is a Clean Label Project certification, the first such accreditation for plant-based meat – although the initiative is more focused on screening products for environmental toxins and ingredient quality.
However, there is one drawback with the inclusion of fava beans: it makes Beyond Meat products more susceptible to allergies. Estimates suggest that around 4% of the world’s population have favism, a genetic disorder characterised by allergy-like reactions to these beans. The company did not respond to Green Queen’s query about whether the inclusion of fava beans raised any internal concerns about allergies.
Courtesy: Beyond Meat | Graphic by Green Queen
Avocado oil pits flavour against cost
Using avocado oil doesn’t just come with health gains – it opens up more culinary attributes too. This is important: flavour is by far the biggest deterrent and attraction for alt-meat consumption. This is illustrated by an international survey from 2022, which suggested that plant-based meat’s taste and texture are as important as their conventional counterparts for over 75% of consumers. And remember that Mintel poll from above? Nutrition was second on the list to flavour, which drives 48% of consumers away from these products.
But by using this fat, Beyond Meat is hitting the taste vertical, with the neutral flavour and smoother mouthfeel allowing it to “unlock an even meatier, beefy flavour” for the new products. Plus, given avocado oil has a higher smoke point of any fat (270°C/521°F, versus 230°C/446°F for canola oil, on average), the new Beyond Beef is designed to sizzle and barbecue better.
If you’re worried about the change in ingredients meaning a change in your beloved Beyond Burger’s flavour, fret not. A 93-person taste test last September indicated that consumers preferred the meatier taste and texture of the new vegan beef. And at last month’s FoodFluence conference in Edinburgh, 29 out of 31 registered dietitians said they enjoyed the taste of the new Beyond Burger, found it healthful, and would recommend it.
“We are excited to be adding more nutrient-dense plant-based ingredients including red lentil and faba bean protein in the Beyond IV platform,” Zackai told Green Queen. “The interplay of the proteins with the avocado oil allowed us to deliver our meatiest product yet while significantly advancing the nutritional benefits.”
Moreover, according to its latest life-cycle assessment, the Beyond Burger 3.0 generates 90% fewer GHG emissions, requires 37% non-renewable energy, uses 97% less land and consumes 97% less water than a conventional 80/20 quarter-pound beef patty produced in the US. But the reformulation doesn’t necessarily signal a shift in Beyond Beef’s environmental credentials. “While more research is still needed, we don’t expect there to be a significant change,” he said.
We’re in an era of increased cost of living, and people are looking for wallet-friendly food. In the UK, inflation has bitten plant-based meats already. While Beyond Meat’s yearly accounts are due next week, the company’s previous financials have shown that it struggled last year, with a 26.5% sales fall in Q3 (over already declining sales in the previous quarter) forcing it to abandon its target of becoming cashflow-positive, lay off more staff, and cut back its full-year forecast.
There was always going to be one major issue with avocado oil – for all its benefits, it’s significantly more expensive. So, Beyond Meat had to make a decision: absorb the added costs, or pass them on to the consumer. “As avocado oil is a more premium ingredient, the new platform will be priced to reflect that,” revealed Zackai. “However, based on the significant nutritional benefits and elevated taste profile of these new products, we feel confident in the value we will be providing to consumers relative to their cost.”
So, it’ll be interesting to see whether consumers really are willing to pay more for healthier, tastier meat alternatives. The new products are initially exclusive to retail, and their foodservice path remains unclear. “It will be available at all retailers where the Beyond Burger and Beyond Beef are currently sold, replacing the previous version in grocery stores,” confirmed Zackai. “We are excited to get these products into the market and clearly communicate these benefits to consumers, so they can make a choice that not only tastes great, but is substantially better for them and the planet.”
Could platform IV be a catalyst for the year 2024 for Beyond Meat?
US mycelium meat maker Meati has appointed a new CEO and cut 13% of its workforce in a right-sizing move aimed at reaching profitability.
Meati has switched up its C-suite by making Phil Graves its new CEO. The former Patagonia executive, who joined the alternative meat startup just two weeks ago as CFO, takes over from Meati co-founder Tyler Huggins, who will move into the role of chief innovation officer. It follows ex-COO and president Scott Tassani’s exit earlier this month.
Amid restructuring in the wider food industry, the Colorado-based company has also let go of 13% of its workforce, marking the business’s third round of job cuts in nine months. The decision to right-size has been made with an eye towards accelerating the company’s path to profitability. The details of any severance packages are unclear, but Meati said it doesn’t expect any supply chain disruptions due to the layoffs.
Graves argued that although such changes are challenging, they’re essential for aligning resources with profitability objectives. “These changes allow us to better serve our customers and pave the way for long-term, sustainable growth,” said the new Meati CEO.
Meati layoffs come after a challenging year for plant-based meat
Courtesy: Charlie McKenna/Meati
In June last year, Meati laid off 17 employees (about 5% of its workforce), followed by another round of cutbacks in September that saw 30 staffers (10% of the total at the time) lose their jobs. This was accompanied by a reshuffle that meant the elimination of 60 positions, as well as the shuttering of its pilot plant.
Striking a similar tone to Graves now, a Meati representative told Green Queen at the time: “These job cuts, while incredibly difficult, are a necessary part of ensuring we achieve a sustainable business model. Despite creating incredible products and an excellent commercial start in the market, we must be nimble and focus on near-term profitability.”
They added: “Meati is a young, disruptive company navigating uncharted territory – bringing a novel food to the forefront of a highly competitive industry in a challenging economic climate. Each of these factors requires us to regularly evaluate every aspect of our operations.”
Meati is not the only plant-based meat company to have cut its workforce over the last year, which has been incredibly challenging for the industry in terms of both funding and sales. Beyond Meat, one of the sector’s leading companies, laid off 19% of its global non-production workforce (about 65 employees) last year in an effort to reduce operating expenses and improve its cost structure, after reducing its annual sales forecast. A few months prior, rival company Impossible Foods let go of 20% of its staff.
Circana data crunched by 210 Analytics reveals that retail sales of meat analogues dipped by 11.1% to $1.05B in the 52 weeks ending January 28, 2024, while volume was down by 16.5%. In comparison, sales of fresh meat declined only by 0.5%, with volumes decreasing by 1.5% in the same period.
Investment has also slowed down in the plant-based protein space, as part of a wider funding hurdle for food tech. In the first half of 2023, plant-based companies attracted just $124M in investment – while data for the second half is yet to be updated, it still represents an alarming drop from the $1.2B injected in the sector for the full year of 2022.
Meati – which has raised over $275M in total investment – said its latest cutbacks follow precedents set by other leading companies “navigating transformative market shifts”. Last month, over 6,650 layoffs were publicly announced in the food sector, which is the highest number of monthly cutbacks in the sector since November 2012 (which were a result of factory closures), according to data from Challenger, Grey & Christmas Inc.
Meati continues to grow, targeting 10,000 retailers by year-end
Courtesy: Meati
Graves’ move from CFO to CEO leaves the company without a dedicated chief financial or commercial executive, but a spokesperson for Meati told AFN that the departure of Tassani, who joined TreeHouse Foods after two years at Meati, wasn’t sudden: “He took another role that was offered to him that he couldn’t pass up. Scott left before Phil was brought in as CFO, and that hiring process had been ongoing.”
The reshuffle sees Huggins, who founded Meati alongside CSO Justin Whiteley in 2017, move to a product-focused position. He will oversee the launch of a new foodservice Chef Cut product and drive the business’s sustainability initiatives. “I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved to date, and I am confident that in Phil we have found the right individual to lead the company to our next exciting chapter,” said Huggins.
Despite the layoffs last September, though, Meati added nearly 100 positions to amp up production capacity for its mycelium-based chicken and beef alternatives, which have been produced in a ‘mega ranch’ facility in Thornton, Colorado since January 2023. This will ultimately be capable of manufacturing 40 million lbs of meat analogues annually to rival the output of animal farms, which will help the company achieve its goal of $1B sales, which was previously earmarked for 2025, but may now be pushed back.
“Our future is bright. This category-defining product is already in 3,600 stores nationwide after just one year of production, showcasing its boundless potential,” revealed Graves. Its products are available in Whole Foods Market, Meijer, Cub Foods and Sprouts Farmers Markets, among other retailers, while it launched a D2C marketplace in September alongside a subscription service for new product trials. By the end of this year, it aims to enter 10,000 retail doors.
The company added chicken nuggets, jerky SKUs, and more flavours to its roster ahead of Christmas, all powered by its patented MushroomRoot ingredient, its commercial name for the Neurospora crassa strain of mycelium. An AI-led study has shown that this ingredient, whose whole-food nutritional density could address “prevalent nutritional deficiencies” and enhance “cardiovascular health”, also boasts certain “exceedingly rare/non-existent” compounds in food that present “pointed” health benefits.
It’s a leading company in the red-hot mycelium protein space, which has seen a bunch of innovations and developments in the last year, including Esencia Foods‘ whole-cut seafood analogues, Better Nature‘s soybean mycelium chicken, Libre Foods‘ whole-cut chicken breast, and Bolder Foods‘ cheese alternatives. Plus, investors have shown heightened interest in the sector, with MyForest Foods bagging a $15M Series A extension in June and Infinite Roots securing $58M in Series B funding last month.
It speaks to the potential of mycelium, with a study authored by Meati employees revealing that the fungi can take on different desired tasting notes through biochemistry and flavour chemistry, while being high in protein with all essential amino acids and micronutrients. It has been shown to lower LDL cholesterol too, with the potential to reduce food waste by valorising the sidestream and be produced in a cost-effective manner.
The study argued that mycelium could resolve global hunger and food insecurity if scaled effectively with enough investment and consumer education: “Once achieved, mycelium will certainly be appealing as an environmentally friendly, nutrient-dense protein source that can aid in the reduction of global hunger.”
Shoppers attending Thursday’s grand opening of the new Whole Foods store in Albuquerque will be confronted by an 8-foot crying “monkey” chained to a massive coconut as PETA pushes the grocery giant to stop selling coconut milk from Thailand, where the coconut industry is involved in a scandal over the forced labor of endangered pig-tailed macaque monkeys.
Where: In front of Whole Foods, 2100 Carlisle Blvd. N.E., Albuquerque
When: Thursday, February 22, 9 a.m.
Credit: PETA
Many monkeys used in Thailand’s coconut-picking industry are illegally snatched from their natural habitat as babies, fitted with rigid metal collars, chained, whipped, and forced to climb trees to pick heavy coconuts. Their canine teeth are sometimes pulled out in order to leave them defenseless. Because the industry and the Thai government lie about their systemic reliance on forced monkey labor, it’s impossible to guarantee that any coconut milk from Thailand is free of it. Multiple companies that produce coconut milk sold at Whole Foods were named by industry workers in a PETA Asia investigation as having used coconuts obtained by monkey labor. HelloFresh, Purple Carrot, and Performance Food Group stopped sourcing coconut milk from Thailand following the exposé.
“Whole Foods’ continued sale of products implicated in the abuse of an endangered species is particularly appalling coming from a company that claims to care about animal welfare,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Whole Foods to live up to its values and sell coconut milk only from countries where monkey labor isn’t used, including India, Indonesia, and the Philippines.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness.
Shoppers attending Thursday’s grand opening of the new Whole Foods store in Albuquerque will be confronted by an 8-foot crying “monkey” chained to a massive coconut as PETA pushes the grocery giant to stop selling coconut milk from Thailand, where the coconut industry is involved in a scandal over the forced labor of endangered pig-tailed macaque monkeys.
Where: In front of Whole Foods, 2100 Carlisle Blvd. N.E., Albuquerque
When: Thursday, February 22, 9 a.m
Credit: PETA
Many monkeys used in Thailand’s coconut-picking industry are illegally snatched from their natural habitat as babies, fitted with rigid metal collars, chained, whipped, and forced to climb trees to pick heavy coconuts. Their canine teeth are sometimes pulled out in order to leave them defenseless. Because the industry and the Thai government lie about their systemic reliance on forced monkey labor, it’s impossible to guarantee that any coconut milk from Thailand is free of it. Multiple companies that produce coconut milk sold at Whole Foods were named by industry workers in a PETA Asia investigation as having used coconuts obtained by monkey labor. HelloFresh, Purple Carrot, and Performance Food Group stopped sourcing coconut milk from Thailand following the exposé.
“Whole Foods’ continued sale of products implicated in the abuse of an endangered species is particularly appalling coming from a company that claims to care about animal welfare,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Whole Foods to live up to its values and sell coconut milk only from countries where monkey labor isn’t used, including India, Indonesia, and the Philippines.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness.
The Body Shop has announced that its UK and German operations have gone into administration, with its business in other countries also in jeopardy. How did it get here, and what’s next?
A pioneer of cruelty-free beauty and a beloved brand for millions around the world, The Body Shop last week entered administration in the UK and Germany, three months after it changed hands in a deal worth £207M.
The move puts the jobs of more than 2,600 people at risk, and has left its fair trade suppliers in vulnerable countries with over $1M worth of ingredients and stock that may never be paid for. It comes after the brand witnessed disappointing sales over the Christmas period, and it emerged that the cosmetics label had insufficient working capital.
The 48-year-old business is now in jeopardy. Here’s what happened, and what happens next.
The rise and fall of The Body Shop
Courtesy: The Body Shop
Founded by human rights and environmental activist Dame Anita Roddick, the Body Shop grew from a small shop in Brighton to a global business with about 3,000 stores in over 70 countries. Famed for its emphasis on ethics, it was the world’s first cosmetics brand to commit to zero animal testing, way back in 1989.
Roddick was a champion of ethical consumerism and was the face of the company as it won over consumers – especially teenagers – for its cruelty-free products, including bath pearls, body butters, fruit soaps, White Musk fragrance, Hemp hand cream, and the famous Dewberry Perfume Oil.
After three decades of family ownership, The Body Shop entered the corporate world after Roddick sold it to French personal care giant L’Oréal for £652M in 2006. This attracted criticism from many of the brand’s consumers, who labelled it as a betrayal of its ethics and identity, given that L’Oréal’s products had been linked to animal testing and the company was part-owned by Nestlé.
In 2017, L’Oréal sold The Body Shop to Brazilian beauty giant Natura for £880M. But by this time, The Body Shop was no longer the be-all and end-all of the ethical beauty world. After the EU had introduced a blanket ban on animal testing in cosmetics in 2013, its brand identity wasn’t as distinguishable as it once was.
Its product portfolio became more dictated by trends, eliminating fan-favourite SKUs and introducing items thought of as untrue to its identity. There was also a case of too many launches, which clouded out the focus and fuelled already existing overconsumption patterns. The company has – like many – been forced to raise prices, but that has diverted many towards cheaper replicas of its products as the cost-of-living crisis bites.
Many of its customers flocked to competitors like Neal’s Yard, Aesop, Bath and Body Works, and Lush. The latter, for instance, is a business that champions animal welfare, sustainability and workers’ rights too, but is, crucially, still independently owned. There was a sense that The Body Shop – a company that had always been ahead of its time – had stopped evolving with time. Winning over newer consumers, especially Gen Zers, became a challenge.
Last year, The Body Shop – which employs over 10,000 people – was sold once again, but this time to a German private investment firm called Aurelius, which hoped to reinvigorate the brand. However, less than three months later, the cosmetics label is now in all sorts of trouble.
Financial woes lead to administration
Courtesy: The Body Shop
Reports began surfacing earlier this month that The Body Shop – which transformed its entire portfolio to be vegan-friendly last year – was set to appoint administrators, a move aimed at saving the business from liquidity or collapse.
It came a month after Aurelius announced it was selling off The Body Shop’s loss-making operations in most of mainland Europe and parts of Asia to “an international family office”, which is understood to be Alma24, whose majority shareholder Friedrich Trautwein has close ties with Aurelius. The Body Shop’s Ireland and Japan businesses are part of the deal.
“This further prioritises the Body Shop’s strategically important markets and global head franchise partner relationships, which it will look for opportunities to build,” the company told Retail Week at the time. “The Body Shop will also focus on more effectively reaching customers by strengthening digital platforms, developing new sales channels, and via differentiated retail experiences.”
And last week, the company – which recorded a £71M loss in its latest accounts in 2022, down from a £10M profit – appointed administrators for its home market of the UK, where it has over 200 stores, as well as a head office and a distribution centre. “The Body Shop has faced an extended period of financial challenges under past owners, coinciding with a difficult trading environment for the wider retail sector,” said the administrators.
This was swiftly followed by the company entering administration in Germany, where it has more than 400 employees and 60 stores. Staff in Belgium were told that the operation there would face the same fate soon. “The actions being taken may not be wrong, but it is how it is being done that is breaking people’s hearts,” one source told the Guardian. “People are being told with no notice: ‘You work for an unnamed family company,’ when some of these people have been with the company for years, some 30 years. It is so painful.”
Aurelius has faced criticism for its cut-price takeover of the beauty brand, which valued the company at £670M less than what Nature had paid for it six years ago. The private equity firm is facing allegations of failure to make payments worth £3M to around 20 former employees last month.
Is The Body Shop closing down?
Courtesy: The Body Shop
It’s unlikely that The Body Shop will completely disappear, but there will likely be a sea change in the business’s operations. “Administrators will now consider all options to find a way forward for the business and will update creditors and employees in due course,” the company has said, while conforming that it will continue to trade during this period, both in-store and online.
It’s important to note that this doesn’t spell doom for The Body Shop everywhere. While it’s expected to fall into administration in Ireland, Austria and Luxembourg too, its Canada and Australia operations – where it remains successful – are anticipated to remain open.
It’s unclear what this means for The Body Shop in the US, or even in France, Sweden and Spain, where directors haven’t signed documents finalising a transfer of ownership. As the company explained, the administration period “provides the stability, flexibility and security to find the best means of securing the future of The Body Shop and revitalising this iconic British brand”.
While it’s too early to tell how things will pan out, some say there will be a focus on cost reduction – including on property and rents – and building greater online presence. Others expect the brand to survive, but with far fewer stores (numbering 100 in the UK), with Aurelius a likely buyer for a diluted business. Next, the UK’s largest clothing company and parent of Reiss, Victoria’s Secret UK, GAP UK and Cath Kidston (among others), is also thought to be in the running.
One industry expert told the Guardian that The Body Shop wasn’t a brand that could work as a wholesaler. Instead, it would require a chain to ensure efficient communication about ethical sourcing. “If you stick a few products on a shelf in Boots, you would lose the magic,” they said.
It highlights the problem for the cruelty-free beauty pioneer – no one can seem to agree on what to do next. There are hopes that the company can be restructured to appeal to younger shoppers and compete with the likes of Lush, for instance. But there’s a feeling that e-commerce might be the most viable course of action next. For others, there’s a brick-and-mortar charm that is irreplaceable for a company like The Body Shop.
Most agree on one thing though: this is a brand steeped in nostalgia, and they don’t want to see it go. At a time when animal welfare, ethical sourcing, environmental sustainability, and vegan personal care are crucial, it would be against the grain for The Body Shop to say goodbye. Time will tell if it can bounce back.
Black-owned plant-based meat company Meat the Mushroom secured investment from two Sharks in the ongoing season on Shark Tank – here’s the inside story on how it all went down.
“In Shark Tank, we have so many plant-based products – they all taste like crap. This actually tastes good.”
As far as stamps of approval go, this one from Kevin O’Leary – known on the internet as Chef Wonderful – took the cake for Meat the Mushroom, the Baltimore-based startup that appeared on Shark Tank’s ongoing season. Owned by husband-and-wife duo Marvin and Aleah Rae Montague, the three-year-old brand’s flagship product is Shroomacon, a vegan bacon with only five ingredients: king oyster mushrooms, olive oil, natural smoke flavour, salt and black pepper.
The clean-label aspect drives the company’s nutrition-focused marketing strategy, with Aleah highlighting bacon’s association with high blood pressure and heart disease, its high saturated fat and cholesterol content, and the presence of nitrates and preservatives. With heart disease being the leading cause of death in the US – one American dies from cardiovascular disease every 33 seconds, and African Americans are 30% more likely to do so than non-Hispanic white people – the health focus on food is higher than ever.
A 1,022-person survey by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) last year found that health is the major factor behind Americans eating vegan or vegetarian diets, with six in 10 choosing it. And in terms of plant-based meat, ‘healthy’ is the most appealing description on product labels.
When it comes to protein intake, whole-plant sources saw the sharpest rise among Americans between 2022 and 2023, with 28% eating them ‘somewhat’ or ‘much more’ now. There’s also greater sensitivity around ultra-processed foods and their impact on health, a link that is extended to meat alternatives. All this has brought whole-food plant-based proteins into sharp focus recently.
For Marvin himself, going vegan was a health thing. Within a year of transitioning to a plant-based diet in 2014, he managed to overcome his lifelong battle with asthma and reverse a diagnosis of early heart disease. Giving up bacon was the hardest part, though, which led to him creating a mushroom-based version in preparation for a future restaurant. That has now evolved into Meat the Mushroom.
Two Sharks for the price of one
Courtesy: Christopher Willard/ABC
The Montagues’ appearance on Shark Tank – which has platformed many vegan brands, including Wild Earth, Everything Legendary, Project Pollo, Mrs Goldfarb’s Unreal Deli and The Cinnamon Kitchen – was two years in the making. “We applied two years in a row and got the call in the spring of 2023 that we were moving forward to the next round in the process,” Aleah tells Green Queen. “And it is a process.”
They received a call to find out they’re moving forward past the application stage, a moment she describes as “surreal”. “This entire experience is a real ‘pinch-me’ moment,” she notes. The nerves gave way to adrenaline as she and her husband walked down the famous Shark Tank hallway. “All of our practice really kicked in… and we made it all happen.”
Pitching to Mark Cuban (a known vegetarian and alternative protein investor), Lori Greiner, Daymond John, Daniel Lubetzky and O’Leary, Marvin and Aleah were seeking $150,000 for a 7.5% stake in their vegan bacon company.
But although the Sharks were impressed by the bacon, they didn’t have the same feeling about the $2M valuation. O’Leary offered the full $150,000, but for a 33.3% stake, valuing the company at $450,000 instead. “I have zero flexibility,” he warned. Were the Shroomacon makers surprised by that? “No, they are Sharks for a reason,” says Marvin. “Everything is negotiable, and just having an offer meant we had a chance to walk out of there with one on our team.”
Quickly, however, Cuban and John pulled out – for the former, it was a conflict of interest, given he’s an investor in Unreal Deli, while John believed it would be too hard to maximise profits. O’Leary followed up with a ‘mushroomed’ offer of 33.67%, and then 34%. Lubetzky then took himself out of the running too, encouraging the Montagues to take O’Leary’s offer.
Meat the Mushroom experiences the ‘Shark Tank effect’
Courtesy: Meat the Mushroom
You could sense the hesitation on the entrepreneurs’ minds, who knew they’d need to raise more money down the line, which is proving to already be an uphill task in the food tech sector. Things took a turn soon, though, when Greiner came in matching O’Leary’s original offer for a 33.3% stake.
Aleah explained that a third of the company is a lot more than they were willing to give. After O’Leary outlined the challenging financial landscape, Greiner sweetened the deal by offering to join his 33.3% offer. As the saying goes, two Sharks are better than one.
The Montagues countered with 25%, but the investors stood their ground. Their next counters – $200,000 for 33.33% and 34% – was unsuccessful too, before Cuban chimed in and warned that they were overnegotiating. While still looking a little uncertain, the Meat the Mushroom founders agreed to O’Leary and Greiner’s joint deal.
“We could see the value that having two Sharks could really bring,” explains Marvin. “Our goal has always been to make Shroomacon more accessible and to make it easier for people to really transform their lives by changing their eating habits. We felt two Sharks can get us there, and it felt worth the equity.”
While many deals end up gaining investment from the Sharks, roughly half of them never close after due diligence. But things look to be going positively for Meat the Mushroom. “We are in the process of finalising the details and are excited about what this partnership will bring forth,” reveals Aliah.
The startup was also subject to what’s become known as the ‘Shark Tank effect’, when businesses who appear on the show receive a huge uptick in sales and website visits after the segment’s airing. “In the 12 hours after our episode aired, we did over $60,000 worth of online sales. That’s more sales than we did in any month in the history of our business,” notes Marvin. For context, at the time of their pitch the startup’s all-time sales were $360,000. “Our minds were blown.”
Vegan bacon isn’t an easy game – in a $1.3B market crowded by innovators like THIS, La Vie, MyForest Foods, Prime Roots, the Vegetarian Butcher and Lightlife, to name a few, Meat the Mushroom would need to double down on the clean-label aspect for its Shroomacon to really stand out. Having a couple of Sharks on board will go a long way in doing so.
Since the pitch, the business has progressed nicely. “We’ve gone from about 25 stores to over 100 and closed 2023 with over a half million in sales,” Marvin says. “Our team has grown too – we now have over 12 people on our team, and we are very proud to be creating jobs in our city of Baltimore.” The city became the first in the US to officially proclaim January as the month of Veganuary earlier this year.
“We are working hard to get our product into grocery stores and restaurants nationwide,” adds Aleah. Currently, Shroomacon is available in Central Market, Green Life Market, MOM’s Organic Market and Jungle Jim’s stores. “But more than that, we want to continue to be a resource to anyone looking to live longer and healthier by making eating choices that are better for their body.”
