4-min read
I’m in Philadelphia this week attending Expo East where food brands, retail buyers, investors, and suppliers are convening for the east coast natural foods trade show. This is where startups and legacy brands debut their new product launches.
Many of the alternative/plant-based protein products that grace store shelves today were first released at Expo, and I expect to see many more new introductions this week – which makes me extra interested in this space given the recent reporting that plant-based is in decline – so I’m looking for signals on animal vs plant protein future innovation.
Before I go on, I have to share one pro tip that I got from my friends at TIG Brands for those of us getting back into large group networking (like if you’re going to Expo):
Digitize your business card with a QR code. No one wants to carry around a bunch of business cards that you have to sort through after the show.
Save your QR code to your wallet or photos for easy sharing.
Now back to plant-based.
Last year saw an explosion of new plant-based introductions, and as I mentioned, it just came out that almost every plant-based category is in decline in the second quarter of 2022. Inflation and the economy are to blame for pushing food prices up, which is part of the reason for loss of sales, since many of these products are more expensive than their mainstream counterparts. But more concerning is consumer sentiment around the highly processed ingredients in some plant-based foods. People are becoming suspicious that plant-based alternatives might not be healthier than traditional foods (see Beyond Meat burger’s 18 ingredients here).
I just listened to an excellent episode on the Honestly podcast called Eating Ourselves to Death where the guest, a Stanford trained physician, says we are making ourselves sick with processed ingredients – even those derived from otherwise healthy whole foods. For example, to mimic the texture and mouthfeel of animal proteins, many plant-based analogues use oils and thickeners derived from seeds or starches that in their natural state are perfectly healthy but in their altered (fractionated or refined) state can spike blood sugar levels.
Curious about new animal vs plant-based introductions, I turned to the NEXTY Award winners at this year’s Expo East. Of the winners in various categories, I found 3 plant-based winners and 3 animal-based. I’ll review the ingredients and other interesting points in each grouping.
Plant-based winners:
In this group of winners two are a non-dairy version of what would normally be made from real dairy. Checking for suspicious ingredients, I didn’t find anything I couldn’t pronounce. Both the sunflower cream cheese and pumpkin pie list coconut oil as a main ingredient, which isn’t necessarily bad for you unless consumed in large amounts, because coconut oil is a saturated fat. The pie uses tapioca syrup for a sweetener, which is better than corn syrup, but both are highly processed.
Atlantic Farms sea-veggie burgers’ main ingredient is kelp. Kelp is supposed to be super good for you. The burger is fortified with pea protein and uses pea starch, chickpea flour, and oat fiber as binders. Separating proteins from starches in pulses does require mechanical processing, and to make them taste good, some proteins are then treated with enzymes and acidulants. A quick ingredient count lists 9 main ingredients including olive oil as the fat, and 5 spices. No gums or weird fillers.
Animal-based winners:
Clover Sonoma is using gellan gum in their new Moon Milk. Gellan gum is used as a thickener or stabilizer in beverages. The FDA has not given gellan gum the Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) status, but it approves its use in foods. A quick search says gellan gum is a “water-soluble anionic polysaccharide additive commonly used in processed foods”. Hmm.
Neutral Milk is a one ingredient product: organic milk. But they won for Best Planet-Forward Product because they are Carbon Neutral Certified which means their dairies have undergone some third-party assessment for reduced carbon impact. The company says they are investing $1 million in their farmer partners to reduce carbon emissions. I’m super interested in this. I’ve reached out to the company for more details and hope to share in a future post.
Pasturebird’s is also a one ingredient product: chicken. But this chicken is more nutritious than traditional chicken with higher levels of vitamins, minerals and fatty acid – and no hormones, antibiotics, or added water. I have to give a shout out to this amazing company – you can hear their story here – the founder was a backyard chicken hobbyist that developed an automated outdoor rotational grazing coop and eventually sold his technology, and the company, to Perdue. Outdoor grazing improves the soil and is better for the animals which makes for more nutrient dense meat.
Based on these product introductions, I’m feeling optimistic that the new generation of plant-based foods will be cleaner and less processed than first gen offerings. I’m also bullish on animal producers adding value to commodities like milk and chicken through soil health and animal welfare that makes for better nutrition.
The market for proteins in the natural foods space is super impacted but hopefully competition will continue to incent more innovators to evolve to cleaner offerings, whether they be plant or animal based.
All my best,
Jennifer
Harvard Business Review takes Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to a whole new level. Says if your brand hits on 4+ of these needs you’ll have more loyal customers.