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Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Turning The Cacao Harvest Into More Than Chocolate
Cacao beans are processed through fermentation, roasting and grinding to make chocolate flavoring. ... More They only comprise 30% of the harvested weight of the Cacao crop There are many potential pathways for innovation in the food and beverage sector, but one strategy that is particularly positive from both an economic and sustainability perspective is to find uses for components of the harvested crop that haven't previously been utilized. A list of candidate crops for this concept has been published by the Good Food Institute. When this sort of potential can be developed it not only adds to the total crop value, but it increases the overall resource-use-efficiency in terms of land, water, fuel and other inputs for the growing process. For most of the major commodity crops virtually all of potential co-products and 'side-streams' are being captured and sold (see the examples for corn and soybeans). For many other crops it would be quite challenging to develop the processes, logistics and business structures that would be needed to fully use the harvest. That is why it is encouraging to see an example of this kind of innovation being applied to Cacao - the crop that provides the world with one of our favorite flavors - chocolate. Cacao is harvested as pods, only 30% of which are the beans used to make chocolate flavoring (Photo ... More By). Cacao is a tropical tree crop that produces large pods. The seeds within those pods are commonly called 'beans' and they comprise only 30% of the harvested weight. The other 70% is a combination of a fibrous 'skin' and a white pulp material. A split Cacao pod showing the fibrous skin and the white pulp which covers the "beans" Typically, none of the pulp or skin is used to make commercial products and the focus has been on the steps necessary to extract, clean and ferment the valuable 'beans.' That flavoring is then combined with other ingredients to achieve the sweetness, 'mouth feel' or other organoleptic features of the chocolate experience. Two companies at the opposite ends of the chocolate value chain independently initiated projects with the goal of more fully utilizing the Cacao harvest. One was started by an entrepreneur named Oded Brenner who had run a successful restaurant business in the US but who sold that and decided to move into a new category. He was inspired by seeing whole Cacao pods in fresh fruit markets in South America and set out to develop a network of beverage shops to sell products made from frozen Cacao components. Oded co-founded Blue Stripes with Aviv Schweitzer in 2018 to develop this business, but during the COVID pandemic they ended up shifting to a consumer packaged goods (CPG) model for sale at grocery retail. A crew harvesting Cacao pods Meanwhile a Cacao plantation owner in Ecuador was independently experimenting with the logistics and processing steps to turn the previously un-used parts of Cacao pods into consumable products. Throughout history the Cacao industry has faced severe pest issues, particularly in terms of plant diseases. In 1965 a new Cacao cultivar called CCN51 was developed which had resistance or tolerance to three major diseases and which has four times the yield of the traditional cultivars. That reinvigorated the Cacao industry in several countries. There is some controversy about the quality of chocolate from CCN51 but that can be addressed by the details of the fermentation process and/or by blending. CCN51 is clearly the most attractive option for growers because there are not significant premium price options for the other types. To fully utilize the harvested pods, the plantation had to work out new steps and facilities for harvesting, handling, refrigeration, temporary storage (6 days for some steps), processing details and bottling/packaging line in order to utilize the pulp and skins. The plantation made the substantial investment required for this change to what could be called a 'Cacao winery.' Since Blue Stripes was sourcing their initial frozen ingredients from Ecuador, the two innovators ended up being introduced. That led to the formation of a partnership spanning production through marketing. The Cacao Water pressed from the pulp is then flavored with other fruits When the pods are harvested the beans are extracted from the pulp which is then pressed and pasteurized to generate Cacao Water – a novel, tart flavored liquid. THe solid portion of the pulp is dried to make gummies The solid material from the pulp is made into 'gummies' or put into a trail mix. The fibrous skin of the pod is ground and turned into a pasta-like product or a bread flour. This full set of products from the Cacao pods delivers its full 'superfood' content including minerals (magnesium and potassium), vitamins B, C and D, powerful antioxidants, electrolytes and dietary fiber. These components can be linked to many potential health benefits. The outer husk of the Cacao pod can be used to make a pasta Blue Stripes launched their Cacao-based products in 2022, and they are currently available at all Whole Foods stores throughout the US. Retail level sales now exceed $10 MM per year and initial consumer interest suggests significant growth potential.
Sky News
26-03-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Veganism in trouble - and the man who sold half a million steaks with a 12,000-year-old idea to fix it
Reading death threats sent by vegan "fundamentalists" was Neil Rankin's first introduction to plant-based food. The Cordon Bleu-trained chef had just opened a nose-to-tail barbecue restaurant, Temper, in 2016 when he became the target of so much abuse he deleted his social media accounts. Eight years and half a million steaks later, he's running a vegan food company, Symplicity, and has a message for the rest of the stuttering plant-based industry: None of it tastes very good - and he has a 12,000-year-old cooking technique to fix it. "It's crap. It is. Most of the stuff in the supermarket is terrible," says Rankin, 48, who has worked in Michelin-star restaurants run by the likes of Gary Rhodes and Nuno Mendez. "It needs more chefs and less food manufacturers: Most of those people are pretty shit at cooking." After five years of rapid growth, the plant-based industry has flatlined since 2021 and in 2023 the appetite for vegan products shrunk. Unit sales of plant-based food in the UK fell by 9.9% between 2022 and 2023, according to the Good Food Institute, driven by declining interest in chilled desserts, ready meals and meat alternatives. Businesses have responded in kind. In 2023, trade magazine The Grocer reported the number of meat alternatives on sale in Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Waitrose shrunk by 10%. "Zero sales growth led to lots and lots of disappointment from investors and lots and lots of adverse publicity in the financial community," says Andrew Godley, professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the University of Sussex. "That's absolutely, categorically unambiguous. That's clear. What we don't know is why the market has switched from several years of very rapid growth to these three or four years of flat growth." The ultra-processed problem Rankin believes he has the answer: "None of it tastes very good." He says products are too processed because manufacturers are too focused on making "a good idea cheaper" and supermarkets are insistent on "crazy price margins". Their preoccupation with imitating meat has also forced them into "weird corners of chemistry" to replicate its texture, or even blood. Indy Kaur, the founder of market research and strategy company Plant Futures Collective, says a lot of the investment in meat alternatives comes from the technology industry, which has underestimated how much "richness" is lost without chefs. "There's just a lot of nervousness and scepticism with consumers about this category within the tech space. It is something that businesses really need to check in on." She says new customers trialling meat alternatives stop "after any bad taste experiences". But it is important not to overestimate industry decline, she adds, with year-on-year sales comparisons becoming less reliable since 2020 due to a pandemic spike that has since petered out. The cash value of plant-based food sales increased by 9% between 2020 and 2021, before declining by 3% in 2022 and 2.8% in 2023, according to the Good Food Institute. Sophie Gordon, 32, a private chef and author of vegan cookbook The Whole Vegetable, says the number of her clients ticking "vegan" as a dietary requirement has halved since the pandemic. This is because they have become "hyper-aware" of how their food is made and "a lot of the vegan products" are highly processed. Part of the problem is machine manufacturing at scale, something Ms Gordon had to contend with when she took her own brand, Dust Granola, to factory. "I had to change the whole recipe machine physically couldn't make the recipe I could make at home." The new technology problem Professor Godley, who has published papers on the poultry, agribusiness and meat alternatives sectors, disagrees that flatlining sales are the fault of the industry, retailers or their products. Instead, most consumers just don't understand plant-based alternatives or their health benefits. "'What is the point of an alternative meat?' is going to be the question that most people would ask." As a result, plant-based sales have behaved more like a product in the technology industry than the food industry, he says. When new tech goes on sale for the first time (think CDs or personal computers), knowledgeable consumers rush to shops and drive an initial growth spike: in this case, they were vegans and vegetarians. Meanwhile, the majority of customers initially "don't get it", causing a pause or decline in growth before they realise the technology's benefits and get on board, he says. This would make it only a matter of time and marketing before growth resumes. But according to Plant Futures' Kaur, there is a growing movement in the industry to recognise the meat alternatives that satisfy vegans and vegetarians do not necessarily satisfy the preferences and motivations of most customers. Plant-based companies must innovate - and perhaps fail before they succeed - to cross this "chasm" between the two groups, she says. And it seems like imitations are on the out, and the indulgent and artisanal are in. Vegan chocolate and cookies are performing well, she says, with brands like Nomo seeing double-digit growth. Unit sales of plant-based cheeses rose 4% in the UK between 2022 and 2023, according to the Good Food Institute Europe, while cream was up almost 10%. And while meat alternative unit sales were down 11.9%, mushroom supplements, tofu and tempe are ticking up. A 12,000-year-old solution? It's a shift towards Rankin's vision for the industry. He believes the solution to its problems lies in sourcing ingredients locally, using every part of each vegetable, and, crucially, fermentation. It is one of the oldest forms of food processing, with experts estimating the method was first used between 8,000 and 12,000 years ago. "Fermentation is the key for taking something that tastes kind of ordinary and okay into something that's exceptional." At his vegan burger company, he takes beetroots for sweetness, mushrooms for density and onions for meatiness and ferments them in Japanese soy sauce in a method similar to kimchi for 15 days. The whole vegetables are minced in a meat grinder and mixed with miso added for umami flavour and flax seeds to emulsify, all to produce a dough that is steamed, baked and moulded into different products. "It's weird to people because it looks f***ing different," he laughs. "The main thing is we're not trying to make it look like meat or taste like meat." Just a few years after setting up his business, Rankin supplies restaurants across the country including Dishoom and Gordon Ramsay Street Burger, and has endorsements on his website from chef Tom Kerridge and Professor Tim Spector. Open omnivores His idea could be the kind of innovation Kaur hopes will propel the plant-based industry back into growth. But for that to happen, the industry needs to win over a group beyond vegans and vegetarians - and it has its eyes set on "open omnivores". These are meat-eaters the industry thinks will be receptive to new innovations if they can be convinced they are wrong to believe lots of meat and dairy is nutritionally necessary. "That's one of the biggest barriers that we've got in the plant-based sector at the minute, overcoming entrenched beliefs around food and nutrition," she says. "As soon as we cross the chasm, hit open omnivores, that's when we're going to start seeing the meat-alt market back into growth."
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
These vegan meat brands taste almost as good as the real thing. Taste tests prove it.
Imagine this: You're hungry. You've arrived at the frozen foods section of the grocery store, and you're faced with two options: a pack of chicken nuggets or a pack of similar-looking nuggets, but made without meat. How do you choose? Do you look at price first or compare ingredient lists? Or maybe, after you do both, do you ultimately go with your gut? You are hungry, after all. A new report highlights the important role that taste plays for consumers when considering whether to buy plant-based protein. Nectar, an Oakland-based initiative conducting research on faux meat, surveyed thousands of meat-eaters in a series of blind taste tests to find out how vegan meat substitutes stack up against the real thing — and got some surprising results. Four vegan products received nearly indistinguishable scores from real meat — and Nectar also found that plant-based products that were rated highly in terms of taste had higher sales volume. The report, which was released earlier this month, 'underscores a simple but crucial point: Consumers want to eat food that tastes delicious, full stop,' said Abby Sewell, the corporate engagement manager at the Good Food Institute, a think tank that promotes 'alternative proteins,' the industry term for plant-based meat substitutes. (The Good Food Institute was not involved in the report and does not have any formal relationship with Nectar.) The question of how to increase sales is one that has troubled the plant-based industry in recent years. Plant-based meat saw declining sales from 2021 to 2023, according to the Good Food Institute. In the past few years, ersatz meat brands have made headlines for steep layoffs and talk of potential acquisitions or shutdowns. It's also a question with potentially significant implications for the climate and the environment. About 80 percent of the world's agricultural lands are used to raise livestock (taking into account the land used to grow crops for animal feed like soy and corn). Cutting out animal protein would free up agricultural land and reduce demands on water. Adopting a plant-based diet would also help greatly in terms of emissions. Animal agriculture is responsible for 16.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Even if we stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, we would still have to change the way we eat — specifically, we'd have to eat less meat — to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. Plant-based advocates often say that when faux meat products taste as good and cost as little as conventional meat options, then consumers will flock to them. But impartial information about whether vegan protein brands meet consumers' exacting flavor standards is surprisingly hard to come by. According to Caroline Cotto, the director of Nectar, plant-based meat companies typically only perform taste tests with their own employees or investors — hardly unbiased sources. Samantha Derrick, who leads an applied learning program on plant-based foods at University of California, Berkeley, said more third-party taste testing is 'critical' to growing the industry. Derrick and Cotto both describe Nectar, an initiative born out of and funded by Food System Innovations, a philanthropic organization, as unique in the plant-based industry. When companies do taste tests internally, they typically don't make the results of those tests publicly available the way Nectar has. This was the second time the organization has conducted blind taste tests with plant-based protein brands. For this round, Nectar solicited more than 2,000 participants who said they eat certain meat products at least once every month or two. They selected 122 vegan products designed to look and taste like real meat across 14 categories — including breakfast sausage, meatballs, pulled pork, and steak — and prepared them alongside their animal-based counterparts. (Participants weren't told which products were vegan and which contained meat.) The testing was conducted in New York City and San Francisco restaurants instead of sterile white rooms because Cotto wanted to replicate a familiar environment. Nectar also plated the products in conventional ways — hot dogs in buns, pulled pork in sandwich form — instead of presenting each food item in its 'naked' form. If participants were testing, say, hot dogs, they could add condiments — as long as they applied the same condiments to every hot dog they tried. Nectar found that 20 plant-based products were rated the same or better than their animal counterparts in terms of overall liking by at least 50 percent of participants. These included five unbreaded vegan chicken fillets, five vegan burgers, and two vegan chicken nugget brands. Four of those products performed so well they almost reached taste parity, which Nectar defines as there being no statistically significant difference in how participants scored the vegan product versus the animal one in terms of overall liking. Those four are Impossible Foods' unbreaded chicken breast, chicken nuggets, and burger, as well as Morningstar Farms' nuggets. The results show that the plant-based chicken products are leading the industry in terms of closing the flavor gap, said Cotto. It might help that chicken breast is essentially a blank canvas. 'From a flavor perspective, I think chicken has a more subtle flavor that's actually easier to replicate,' she added. The plant-based products that Nectar found most need to improve on taste — such as bacon — are some of the hardest cuts of meat to imitate. Unlike chicken fillets, chicken nuggets, or burgers, strips of bacon are not generally homogenous in texture and flavor. Mimicking fatty parts of bacon as well as the striated meat is extremely challenging to do with just plants. Sewell, from the Good Food Institute, said additional research and development could help. 'Continued investment in alternative protein R&D is essential to accelerating innovation and ensuring these products deliver on flavor and affordability for consumers,' she told Grist. Of course, there's a difference between liking a vegan product in a taste test and actually choosing to buy it in a grocery store, when there aren't any researchers around. 'Even if taste and price parity are achieved, it's not a surefire' guarantee that people will choose, say, vegan hot dogs and burgers over the beef kind, said Cotto. In the United States, meat is tied up with national identity and masculinity; it won't be so easy to win every type of consumer over. Still, Derrick, who wasn't involved in Nectar's study, says that younger consumers 'absolutely' do not want to feel like they're compromising on taste at the grocery store — and that research like Cotto's will help brands figure out how to satisfy them. 'I think that blind testing is objectively done as the best way to' improve plant-based products, said Derrick. More testing would provide 'a road map of what's possible, what's better.' This story was originally published by Grist with the headline These vegan meat brands taste almost as good as the real thing. Taste tests prove it. on Mar 25, 2025.
