No Meat Milk: The Revolution of Plant Food

More and more people are switching to vegetable nutrition, vegetarianism and consciously abandon meat and meat products. With the growing demand for such products, there are more and more new solutions for the vegetable market.

There are many reasons for such a categorical change in consumer attitudes: moral (cruelty to animals and environmental damage), the high cost of meat products, the transition to proper nutrition, dietary indicators and more.

The course on plant nutrition

According to a Mintel study, in 2019, approximately 36% of consumers buy only plant foods, of which 60% are millennials. The Nutrition Business Journal writes that over the past year, 26% of the population has consumed less meat and meat products.

For agricultural producers, this is a good opportunity to fill the industry, which 5 years ago was a niche. According to Lux Research, vegetable protein can make up 1/3 of total protein intake by 2054. The growth in sales of plant-based products in 2014 was 14.7%, while that of traditional protein products was only 7.5%. It is predicted that by 2020 the global vegetable protein market will reach $ 5 billion.
Categories of plant foods that have shown particular growth have included meat substitutes, which Innova predicts will grow to $ 4.2 billion by 2022, and dairy alternatives, including vegetable milk and yoghurts, which reach $ 16.3 billion this year.

Meat no longer needed

A major barrier to plant nutrition was the rejection of meat. The real revolution was the artificial cultivation of meat in the laboratory. In 2013, Dutch scientists first bred meat for a burger, which was grown in vitro from animal stem cells. The principle was to germinate muscle fibers in a bioreactor. In 2018, Israeli scientists repeated this procedure, but with a whole steak. And if the initial cost of one burger was $ 300 thousand, today it can be bought up to $50.

Impossible Foods startup team, which began to produce meat from vegetable protein, went even further. In addition, it does not differ in all taste parameters from ordinary meat. The cost of the solution cost $ 80 million, but scientists promise that in 5-10 years vegetable meat will be on all store shelves. So far, Impossible Foods vegetable meat burgers are priced at $ 12, but owners promise that the price will fall with increasing demand for this new product.

Energy value per 100g

A real breakthrough in the course of meat from vegetable protein was Beyond Burger, which went public in an IPO in the United States. The company's value in 2 days increased from an initial valuation of $ 1.5 billion to $ 4 billion with sales of $ 88 million and a loss of $ 30 million. The taste of meat produced is 70% the same as the original. To do this, 22 herbal ingredients are used in the recipe, which include amino acids, lipids, trace elements, water that can recreate texture and juiciness.
But beef substitutes were not enough. The American company Memphis Meats plans to launch sales of test tube meatballs in 2-5 years, and also plans to grow steaks and chicken breasts in the laboratory. Israeli startup SuperMeat is already cultivating kosher chicken liver. In the near future, more and more variations are expected.

Alternative to dairy products

Dairy products of plant origin began to appear before cultivated meat. The reason for this was the growing number of people with lactose intolerance who also wanted to eat sweets and dairy products. There are a lot of bases for such milk - from oats, rice, millet, some types of wheat, almonds, soy, coconut and many other plants. All types are rich in protein and can easily be used in desserts. Such milk does not contain cholesterol or antibiotics, which may appear in a traditional product.

But there are more interesting ways to produce milk and dairy products, from ice cream to cheese, without cows. For example, Perfect Day Foods creates non-animal dairy products. In production, sugar is used, from which microflora is formed. In laboratory conditions, sugar in the fermentation process turns into milk protein. The casein and whey protein produced have exactly the same properties and taste as cow's milk.

Milk is no exception. The American company ClaraFoods began to synthesize egg whites. Fermentation and modern technologies allow the production of plant eggs, flour, pasta, confectionery, and many other products that were previously difficult to imagine without animal husbandry. The creation process is similar to milk - when combining sugar and yeast.