January Highlights from the plant based sector: EU’s plant-based censorship and more

TRENDS & PROJECTIONS 

• Veganuary’s Matthew Glover spoke to Green Queen about the annual campaign and the future of the plant-based movement.
• About 85% of UK consumers want an ‘urgent’ ban on factory farming, according to a new poll.
• Agrana Fruit has released its 2021 global consumer trends for the food and beverage sectors, with plant-based, gut-health and immunity themes dominating consumer concerns.
• Meat alternatives are becoming the new normal in Spanish supermarkets, according to Vegconomist.
• Two-thirds of plant-based meat companies are willing to use cultured fat, according to a survey conducted by cultivated-fat producer Peace of Meat.

RETAIL FOODS

• Nescafé plans to launch a line of vegan flat white latte pods in the UK that will be available in almond, oat, and coconut variants.
• In a bid to enhance its plant-based offerings, UK supermarket chain Asda is currently trialling a vegan butcher counter concept.
• American supermarket chain Trader Joe’s is developing a range of plant-based seafood.

FOODSERVICE CHAINS/CATERERS 

• Domino’s has become the first chain In India to launch a plant-based-meat pizza.
• Impossible Foods has once more slashed its food-service prices, despite ‘skyrocketing’ demand.
• Leading Chinese fast-food chain Dicos will be replacing its conventional egg patty with JUST Egg‘s plant-based egg product.
• American pizza-franchise Papa John’s is launching a vegan stuffed-crust pizza as well as plant-based ‘chicken’ bites in the UK.
• KFC Singapore has debuted its first-ever meat-free product, dubbed the Zero Chicken Burger, at more than 80 locations.
• Burger King is launching its plant-based Whoppers across Asia, with the help of v2food and Unilever’s the Vegetarian Butcher.
• Dutch plant-based seafood brand Novish has announced the closing of a funding round, which included contributions from Kharis Capital, the owner of German seafood restaurant-chain Nordsee.
• Hong Kong-based company Green Monday recently launched its first Singapore branch of Green Common, its plant-based café-and-grocery concept store, the second outside of Hong Kong.
• Beyond Meat will be launching its plant-based beef in all 18 locations of Beijing’s 24-hour formal dining restaurant Jin Ding Xuan.

FOOD MANUFACTURERS

• Unilever’s plant-based brand the Vegetarian Butcher is expanding its partnership with fast food giant Burger King to launch its plant-based Whopper in Latin America, the Caribbean, and China.
• UAE-based halaal-food producer Al Islami has launched its first plant-based product in response to growing demand for healthier vegan alternatives in the region.
• Plant-Based pork sensation OmniPork has launched in nine UK restaurants, just in time for Veganuary and ahead of its official UK launch later this year, when its products will be rolled out in restaurants and supermarkets around the country.
• Vegconomist looks at the Russian companies that are experiencing success in the country’s still-embryonic plant-based sector.
• In the US, Danone‘s plant-based-dairy brand So Delicious has expanded its offerings to include shredded and sliced cheeses, as well as creamy spreads.
• Beyond Meat are busy with the construction of a $178m state-of-the-art production facility and global headquarters in Los Angeles.

INGREDIENTS SUPPLIERS/NEW TECHNOLOGIES 

• Independent producer EverGrain is upcycling barley waste into plant-based protein.
• Swiss technology group Bühler, together with the research institute Deutsches Institut for Lebensmitteltechnik are partnering in order to improve sustainability in the alt-meat sector.

ONES TO WATCH OUT FOR

• The Livekindly Collective, which owns a growing stable of plant-based brands, has acquired the No Meat brand from UK retailer Iceland Foods. Food Navigator spoke to the group’s management to learn more about its growth ambitions.
• Shanghai-based Haofood has developed a fried-chicken alternative based on peanut protein.
• BioTech Foods is leading a €5.2 million cultured-meat project funded by the Spanish government.

STARTUP & FINANCIAL

• A coalition of venture capitalists led a $32m funding round for Air Protein, a startup that uses fermentation to produce a meat alternative out of elements in the air.
• Plant-based snack-food company Outstanding Foods has raised $10 million as the plant-based-snack sector expands.
• Chinese cultured-meat startup Joe’s Future Food has raised US$3m in order to scale up its cultured minced pork.
• Matrix Meats, a US startup developing nanofibre scaffolding for cultured-meat products, has announced the completion of an oversubscribed seed-funding round aimed at scaling up production.
• Israel’s Aleph Farms is partnering with Japanese corporate giant Mitsubishi to bring its cultured-meat manufacturing platform to Japan.
• US cultured-seafood company BlueNalu has raised $60m in order to gear up for a commercial launch later this year.

STAKEHOLDER INTERVENTIONS

• ProVeg has joined forces with Veg Capital to fund promising plant-based food-tech companies. Thus far, the partnership has invested in the impactful food startups Zveetz, Hooked, and Remilk.
• From plant-based and cell-based regulations to policies governing alcohol, organic foods and sugar reduction, Food Navigator looks  at the key regulatory updates that the Asia Pacific food-and-beverage industry can expect in 2021.
• Oatly, Upfield, and ProVeg, along with other industry players, are petitioning to overthrow the labelling-restriction Amendment 171, which prohibits, among other things, any “evocation” of dairy products, and amounts to “plant-based dairy censorship”, says the coalition.

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