By : Alexandre Romet
It’s time we took a closer look at meat alternatives. The field has evolved very quickly since 2013, when Mark Post (now founder of MosaMeat), produced the world’s first “cultured beef” burger. Last summer, a KFC restaurant put Beyond Meat chicken nuggets on the menu for the first time and sold-out in just a few hours.
All the companies we met on the market face huge challenges — and potential business. The meat industry radically combines massive, fast-growing demand with societal impact and industrial inefficiencies. Existing production standards damage the environment, our health and animal well-being in a variety of ways that would be too long to sum-up here: all good reasons for us to keep an eye on alternative meat and agro products in general. In the recent years, XAnge has been an active investor in La Ruche Qui Dit Oui and Agricool. And you can take a look at this cool Agritech mapping we updated last-year.
This meat alternatives mapping references over 70 startups worldwide. We focused our analysis on cell-based and plant-based technologies, keeping in mind that:
- Both have their pros and cons.
- This mapping is not comprehensive. We might have overlooked or misplaced a startup.
- If so, please feel free to reach out via this link.
- We only mapped companies that produce (and market themselves as) meat alternative, and try to get as close as possible to the real deal with regards to texture, taste, smells and colors, etc.
PLANT-BASED
Plant-based meat startups are the best known and the best funded yet. The market has its leaders such as Impossible Foods or Beyond Meat, whose burgers are now being tested in Canadian McDonald’s. Most of us have heard of soy-based burgers. Some have even tried them. Recently however, these startups have exited the vegetarian sphere and started penetrating the $1000bn meat-eaters market. The challenge is greater however, as they now need to replicate the meat-eating experience (it was not the case when addressing veggies). We listed 39 startups targeting this market, with a vast majority in the US and Europe (4 France, 4 Netherlands, 3 UK, 2 Germany, 2 Spain, 1 Sweden, 1 Finland).
Plant-based meat sales are growing. They represented 0.25% of the $200bn american meat market in 2018 (according to The Good Food Institute Report). Their marketing potential is huge. Think healthy, eco-friendly, hallal, casher… or any given market traditional food producers can’t access. And scaling production is possible: Impossible Burgers are now sold in over 7 000 american restaurants. They will cost you more than your average steak right now, but price parity is likely to happen in the next couple of years.
Startups are now working on optimizing protein extrusion from beans and cereals, as they search for alternatives to soy. There is room for R&D improvement to limit the environmental impact of the mass production of raw materials. And even though startups are getting closer and closer to the meat-eating experience, offering juicy steaks, with the right texture and structure — including the fat component, cooking it is still a challenge to this day.
CELL-BASED
Cultured-meat, or cell-based meat is more recent. Developing a cell-based burger is scientifically feasible since 2013 (and cost $250k at that time). Except for JUST, founded in 2011 (and who developed plant-based meats before launching its cell-based chicken and wagyu beef program), all the startups featured on the mapping started after 2015. US paves the way with 12 startups, vs. 9 for Europe. Although beef and poultry take most of the focus, some startups took the challenge to replicate seafood (which would reach a price parity sooner) and even Foie Gras, like the French Startup Supreme.
Our main concerns here relate to marketing & engineering rather than science: how to produce cultured meat at scale, and when will we reach price parity? The startups we met hope to launch their products in 4 to 5 years a the best — and we’re talking about meats that don’t require scaffolding. Scaffolding is the process needed to switch from hamburger (un-structured meat) to a T-bone steak. In addition to scaffolding, the current challenges concern the growth factors and the medium used to cultivate the cells.
Cell-based meats have strong advantages, the biggest being their low environmental cost: 46% of the globe’s harvests are dedicated to feeding livestock and only 36% of the production is used for human consumption. Producing meat without having to breed animals could have a huge impact on reducing water waste, land use and CO2 emissions. It’s now too early and complex to know how much energy will be needed to produce at scale.
Health-wise, it would mean less antibiotics, a full-stack management of the supply chain and overall better food security.
The market addressed is also a tough question, for two reasons:
- Will vegans eat this kind of meat once the ecological and animal cruelty issues have been solved?
- Will meat-eaters look forward to eating these kind of products?
Cell-based meats have a lot of potential. Unlike their plant-based counterparts, cultured hamburgers will be made of the same beef fat and muscle we have been used to eat until now. Technically, the difference is non-existent. But will it be enough for meat lovers? We will know by 2025!
To send us information regarding your startups , it’s here.
