Meat Alternatives to Watch in 2022

It’s food month there at TechRound, and to celebrate we’ve been listing some of the top, up-and-coming startups and brands in the industry – including the top health food and drink companies to watch, sweet treat brands and more.

With meat alternatives on the rise and now offering a range of high-tech, great-tasting substitutes, we decided to round up our top picks in the industry…

 

Meat Alternatives to Watch in 2022: 

• Beyond Meat – Founded by Ethan Brown
• Everything Legendary – Founded by Duane “Myko” Cheers and Danita Claytor
• Meatable – Founded by Krijn de Nood, Daan Luining and Dr. Mark Kotter
• SuperMeat – Founded by Ido Savir
• Current Foods – Founded by Jacek Prus and Sònia Hurtado
• Aleph Farms – Founded by Didier Toubia and Professor Shulamit Levenberg
• GreenBay – Founded by Paula Alcalde and Anderson Caicedo
• Planted Foods – Founded by Pascal Bieri, Christoph Jenny, Lukas Böni and Eric Stirnemann
• Heura – Founded by Marc Coloma and Bernat Añaños
• Stalk & Spade – Founded by Steele Smiley

 

For any questions, comments or features, please contact us directly.

 

 

Beyond Meat

 

Website: https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-GB/

Founder: Ethan Brown

 

Beyond Meat’s mission is to serve consumers’ growing demand for more diverse protein options by increasing accessibility to plant-based meat globally. As of today, Beyond Meat products are available at approximately 130,000 retail and foodservice outlets in 90 countries worldwide. The startup have partnered with some of the UK’s leading retailers including Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Whole Foods, and Ocado. Currently they have four products available in the UK, including the Beyond Burger, Beyond Sausage, Beyond Mince, and Beyond Meatballs.

Beyond Meat are in partnerships with some of the world’s most ubiquitous and iconic restaurant chains too, including McDonald’s, Starbucks and Pizza Hut in the UK. These partnerships are critical to the company’s mission of democratising and popularising plant-based meat for mainstream audiences.

In Europe, Beyond Meat have more than doubled the size of their business across retail and foodservice channels in 2021. The UK is an important part of Beyond Meat’s long-term growth strategy, and they’ve made investments in their team, infrastructure, and capabilities across Europe in support of driving that strategy forward. Having a manufacturing presence in Europe allows Beyond Meat to increase the speed, scale and efficiency with which they can serve the growing demand for Beyond Meat products in the UK and across Europe.

Beyond Meat comment that “It’s been fantastic seeing such positive taste test reviews from The Guardian and the Evening Standard, as well as The Independent who recently rated our Beyond Burger a 10/10! We’re really targeting meat lovers who are looking for delicious, satiating plant-based protein without the compromise.”

“All Beyond Meat products are made of high-quality plant-based ingredients and are designed to look, cook and taste like animal protein. Take for instance our Beyond Burger – it sizzles in the pan and satisfies like a conventional burger, whilst containing 19g of protein and no cholesterol, soy or gluten. Peas and rice provide the protein; beetroot provides the meaty red hue and coconut oil and potato starch offer mouth-watering juiciness and chew.”

Beyond Meat enables consumers to continue eating the things they love, but with the nutritional and environmental advantages of plant-based protein. For instance, a peer-reviewed Life Cycle Analysis conducted by the University of Michigan found that producing the original U.S. Beyond Burger uses 99% less water, 93% less land, nearly 50% less energy and generates 90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Everything Legendary

 

Website: https://bestburger.golegendary.com/plant-based-burger

Founders: Duane “Myko” Cheers and Danita Claytor

 

Everything Legendary, creators of plant-based food with legendary flavour, announced that it closed $6 million dollars in Series A funding. The round was led by CircleUp Growth Partners with additional investments from the venture capital arm of General Mills, 301 INC, and Mark Cuban. Also, International Entrepreneur and Record Executive, Russell Simmons joined the all-star team as a Senior Advisor.

The rapid rise of Everything Legendary, the nation’s fastest growing plant-based meat company, began in early 2021 when they were hand-making burgers in their own kitchen. In just 10 months they went from zero to 1500 grocery store shelves including Safeway, Acme, Giant, Target, Ralphs, Kings and Balduccis, with additional placements coming in Sprouts, Meijer, Publix, and more in early 2022. In less than a year, the company has grown from a family kitchen operation to a brand with a national retail footprint, three co-packers and a rockstar team to take the growth to the next level.

“There are a lot of people trying to get into the $5 billion+ plant-based food market,” explained Everything Legendary co-founder Duane “Myko” Cheers. “What has our investors excited about us is they can see that we aren’t just another plant-based product…we are looking to disrupt the multi-billion dollar industry with unprecedented flavor, premium ingredients and high-energy marketing that sets our brand apart. Having partners like CircleUp and General Mills, that work with some of the biggest brands in the world, is an amazing honour.”

Up to this point, all of the sales and growth of Everything Legendary has been organic. Now with this capital infusion, the company believes it will be better positioned to expand even faster nationally. The new funding will be used to support a planned launch in 5,600 grocery stores by summer 2022. The company will also introduce new delicious products like sausage, boneless wings, and breakfast patties. And they will deploy street teams that will help spread the word of their legendary burger in the same fun, energised way the founders have used to elevate the brand to date.

“We’re all about breaking through barriers,” said Vince Parker, Everything Legendary COO. “We’re a black-owned, grassroots business competing with large, well-established companies vying for the same customer. Just two years ago we were working out of a garage. We’re pretty proud of what we’ve achieved so far, and like my good friend Duane has said, we’re just getting started!”

 

For any questions, comments or features, please contact us directly.

 

 

Meatable

 

Website: https://www.meatable.com/

Founders: Krijn de Nood, Daan Luining and Dr. Mark Kotter

 

 

SuperMeat

 

Website: https://supermeat.com/

Founder: Ido Savir

 

SuperMeat, is a food-tech company working to supply the world with high-quality meat grown directly from animal cells. The company’s products offer a delicious meat experience and a high-quality nutritional profile, while being manufactured in a sustainable, slaughter-free way. SuperMeat’s proprietary cultivated meat platform allows food companies to be at the forefront of the emerging cultivated meat industry and manufacture a wide range of products containing cultivated meat inside. SuperMeat is the first B2B company to address the entire category of poultry meat from fat to muscle, providing a complete solution to cultivated meat production. The company has been showcasing the versatility of its meat platform in various events at its pilot production plant, The Chicken, the world’s first farm-to-fork facility for local meat production, and is planning to host additional events in the near future.

More recently leading culinary figures including MasterChef judge Michal Ansky gathered to judge the side-by-side tasting of cultivated chicken compared to traditional chicken. Each participant received ground cultivated and traditional chicken – without any seasoning, processing, or flavor overlay – and were split in their responses, finding it very challenging to pick which chicken was which – showcasing how similar the samples were in taste, texture, and substance.

SuperMeat also recently announced it partnership with Ajinomoto Co., a global leader in food and biotechnology to create, and validate, commercially viable production and value chain solutions helping to accelerate commercialization of the cultivated meat industry while solidifying consumer and manufacturer acceptance.

SuperMeat believes that transparency should lead the food industry’s journey to a more just and sustainable system. To help fulfill this goal, it was the first company to open its pilot production plant to the world, providing an unfiltered end-to-end view of its manufacturing, from the plant floor to the open kitchen serving cultivated meat dishes.

 

 

Current Foods

 

Website: https://currentfoods.com/

Founders: Jacek Prus and Sònia Hurtado

 

Current Foods is a leader in the alternative seafood space with sushi-grade seafood. TIME magazine named Current Foods’ plant-based tuna one of 2021’s Best Inventions and called it “the catch of tomorrow.” Now, that “catch of tomorrow” is available in the current. Current Foods is the first plant-based seafood with taste, texture, and nutritional density that goes toe-to-toe with the traditional stuff and it will soon be available for consumers to order to their doorstep.

“Since we began our company journey 3 years ago, our goal has been to create plant-based products that enable us to enjoy the best parts of seafood: taste, texture, and nutrition, without any of its usual drawbacks: mercury, microplastics, and oceanic depletion. The rollout of Current Foods – bringing the future of sustainable eating to the current – is a massive step forward in realising this goal,” says Jacek Prus, CEO and Cofounder of newly rebranded, Current Foods. “These products are now available for everyday consumption, from the comfort of home. Enjoy a Current Foods poke, ceviche, or crudo and restore our ocean’s health in one bite.”

Meticulously formulated over 2 years by a team that’s spent decades working in food science, Current Foods has always gone one step further than making plant-based seafood – the company makes seafood…that just happens to be made from plants. This distinction guides the company’s product development and its
uncompromising standards on taste, texture, and nutrition.

Current Foods uses 100% plant-based ingredients including algae, bamboo, peas, and radish to provide consumers a taste of the ocean while staying true to its plant powered roots. The new addition of pea-protein to the product’s ingredient profile, brings a higher level of protein to the product, further fortifying the product’s original cocktail of omega-3 DHAs, iron, vitamin B12, and fiber, and preparing it to appeal to more Flexitarian and plant-curious eaters.

 

Aleph Farms

 

Website: https://www.aleph-farms.com/

Founders: Didier Toubia and Professor Shulamit Levenberg

 

Aleph Farms grows beef steaks, from non-genetically engineered cells isolated from a living cow, without harming animals and with a significantly reduced impact to the environment. The company was co-founded in 2017 by Didier Toubia, The Kitchen Hub of the Strauss Group, and Professor Shulamit Levenberg from the Biomedical Engineering Faculty at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Aleph released the world’s first cultivated steak in December 2018 and the world’s first cultivated ribeye steak in 2021. The company’s vision is to provide unconditional nutrition for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Aleph is developing a global platform for local meat cultivation – producing cultivated meat closer to where it is consumed. This strategy eliminates dependency on global trade, transportation and helps maintain a resilient and profitable supply chain and local economy.

Aleph recently announced it is expanding its product line to include a unique platform for cell-cultured collagen production. The company’s highly differentiated, integrated strategy to develop complete alternatives to intensive animal farming is a testament to its inclusive vision to supplement sustainable, but less productive, livestock agriculture practices.

 

For any questions, comments or features, please contact us directly.

 

 

GreenBay

 

Website: https://www.greenbaysupermarket.co.uk/

Founders: Paula Alcalde and Anderson Caicedo

 

Co-founders Paula Alcalde and Anderson Caicedo arrived in the UK some 11 and 13 years ago respectively, Paula with £150 in her pocket and not being able to speak the language and Anderson in nearly a similar situation.

Against all odds, they then established themselves in their careers, with backgrounds in some of the most prestigious firms in the world, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Bloomberg.

Becoming long-time friends, they decided to switch to a vegan diet for ethical, health and environmental reasons, and gave up their high-profile careers to start a business creating a positive impact.

Now they are celebrating five years of launching what we believe is the UK’s first vegan omnichannel supermarket, with both a physical and online presence – GreenBay in West London.

The business has experienced incredible growth over five years: with over 50,000 customers and over half million of plant-based products sold, they now employ 10 members of staff. They stock over 1,200 vegan friendly products – many that are impossible to find elsewhere.

In 2021, GreenBay won the Feefo Gold Trusted Service Award for its “outstanding customer service in 2020.”

GreenBay donates a portion of every new purchase to charities and organisations fighting climate change and supporting rural communities with reforestation projects, in order to offset their carbon footprint. GreenBay has helped plant over 5,000 trees in Marotaola, Madagascar since starting the reforestation project.

 

Planted Foods

 

Website: https://www.eatplanted.com/

Founders: Pascal Bieri, Christoph Jenny, Lukas Böni and Eric Stirnemann

 

The Zurich-based food tech company, Planted Foods was founded in 2019 by Pascal Bieri, Christoph Jenny and food engineers Lukas Böni and Eric Stirnemann who were quick to build intellectual property around their bio-structuring approach to making alternative meats simply from plants.

The start-up currently employs 172 people and it has raised over 36 million Swiss francs (nearly $39M) in 2021 from investors including international footballer Yann Sommer.

Planted produce delicious meat from alternative proteins, focusing on the perfect bite. Inspired by nature, the company pioneers a novel bio structuring approach that combines protein structuring and biotechnology.

Using various proprietary technologies, Planted designs and structures alternative proteins in any size, shape, and fibrous texture and is convinced that bio structured proteins will outperform animal meat in the future in terms of taste, sustainability, health, efficiency and price.

Planted is committed to using only clean and natural ingredients and no additives in all its products – making it a healthy and sustainable option for all. Truly better than animal meat.

Planted produces all its products under a glass-house production facility in Kemptthal, Switzerland – the first transparent meat production open to the public.

Available at restaurants and retailers across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, it lau
nched in February in the UK following a ‘Best Alternative Chicken Product award’ at the Plant-based World Expo in London last year.

 

For any questions, comments or features, please contact us directly.

 

 

Heura

 

Website: https://heurafoods.com/

Founders: Marc Coloma and Bernat Añaños

 

100% plant-based meat start-up, Heura, was founded by activists Marc Coloma and Bernat Añaños in April 2017.

As Europe’s fastest growing plant-based meat company, it is Heura’s mission to create solutions that make the current food system obsolete and accelerate the transition to a world in which animals are out of the protein production equation. As a social mission-turned-business, Heura doesn’t just make food products, it empowers people to drive change to the entire current food system.

The brand’s Mediterranean culinary heritage is reflected proudly in its products. Heura’s delicious taste and juicy texture comes from its innovative extra virgin olive oil fat analogue. The company also prides itself on having short labels and high nutritional values (43% better than the industry average). For example, Heura “chicken”has 1.5 times more protein than an egg and five times more fibre than tofu. It also has the same amount of protein as animal chicken, but over 60% less fat. Heura’s product range includes plant-based chicken strips, chunks and nuggets, plant-based beef burgers and plant-based meatballs, sausages and chorizo.

In the past year, Heura has more than doubled the number of households that consume their product, and increased their world-wide POS by 333% – from 3,000 to 13,000. The company closed 2021 with €17.7 million in turnover, up from €8 million in 2020.

Other major achievements from 2021 for the brand included entering into the largest retailer in the world, Walmart, and a fantastic €16m Series A investment round led by Impact Fooding, as well as football players Chris Smalling, Sergi Roberto and Cesc Fábregas.

Currently, Heura is present in 20 countries around the world, including Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Egypt, Canada, Mexico and Chile, with greater expansion planned for 2022.

 

Stalk & Spade

 

Website: https://www.stalkandspade.com/

Founder: Steele Smiley

 

Stalk & Spade is the meat alternative, fast-casual restaurant chain launched by Steele Brands in 2021. Stalk & Spade is the first to bring plant-based restaurant to scale in the United States. In 2022, restaurants are opening in first-tier markets in Minnesota, Iowa, Florida, and California. Stalk & Spade is on a trajectory to open more than 25 restaurants by the end of this year and 100 total stores within three years, which would be a new industry record for restaurant chain launch and expansion.

Steele Brands’ founder and CEO, Steele Smiley, says an entire generation of young people are driving the plant-based trend. “It’s not that they want plants, they just don’t want to eat meat,” Smiley says. “A five-year-old child doesn’t care today, but 12-year-old kids do care. In five years, those kids will be our customers and the industry better be ready for what the next set of consumers want. Not many brands are paying attention to that.” Smiley adds, “If you look at the landscape today, legacy brands are in big trouble. It’s going to be a fascinating shift, and the shift has already begun.”

Steele Brands is the parent company of three healthy fast casual restaurant chains including Crisp & Green, Stalk & Spade and Paco & Lime. Crisp & Green is the fastest growing restaurant chain with 100 stores open in 2021 and committed to opening 150 new stores by the end of 2022.

Steele Smiley, the founder of Steele Brands is best known for building national and international lifestyle and wellness brands dedicated to creating healthier, happier, and stronger communities. Smiley was most recently featured in a Worth Magazine article entitle, Man of Steele: Meet The Healthy Fast-Food Entrepreneur Bringing America’s Eating Habits Into The 21st Century.

 

For any questions, comments or features, please contact us directly.