It’s a mega trend — the meat-free alternatives. And it is technology

3 innovation and digital news in 1 minute. Every Monday. Episode 301

News 1: Discover CO2COA, Mars launches a new generation of dairy-free chocolate bar

Perfect Day is the technology company behind, it is a precision fermentation specialist — artificially reproduced the milk proteins. Technical indeed, they take microflora and DNA-change them to “do” what a cow protein will. This in the process of fermentation. The result is now in a mass-market chocolate bar called CO2COA. Opinion: Always a breakthrough when a mass market brand takes on a new technology, here a new protein. And distributes it to all. In the case of CO2COA through a web shop in a DTC (Direct-To-Consumer) strategy. Well, just one product on the site for $2.39. It definetely is an experiment, a proof of concept.

Experiment yes, but a great first step by Mars (already distributing a vegan line).

News 2: Impossible Food, long time no hear

Remember the hype around Impossible burgers, meat-free burgers that ressemble the taste of meat (a patented process of imitating heme)? Impossible Foods has been expanding with care, mainly in the US (added a few countries, not in the EU). They expand distribution to Burger King (in the Whopper) and United Airlines. The challenge is still huge. Mass-market. Opinion: Impossible Foods regularly talks about their battle for taste and the limitation in production. But also the limitation in a pure-vegan audience. Today the marketing goes to mix meat and meat-free for the barbecue seasons. “People think this is a warm beer, cold shower solution — ‘I’m sacrificing’. It’s not a sacrifice — these are great products” — a great quote.

BTW, it tastes super (when crispy grilled).

News 3: Beyond Meat struggles to go mainstream

Beyond Meat also emphasises the ‘no sacrifice” and works against the limitations in the mass-market rollout. All initiatives go in that direction, they engage Kim Kardashian for a campaign, they are partenering with PepsiCo to build new snack ranges (a joint venture called Planet Partnership). Opinion: Beyond Meat has been listed on the NASDAQ for 3 years. Shares, valuation continuously going down since then. The latest quarter results show low level of revenue for a consumer brand ($100m) and above all large losses ($78m).

It is the “champion” of tech category, and the champion struggles.