Casey Laughman, Food Engineering (CL): What have you seen over the last couple of years, just kind of in terms of general growth and where it's positioned now compared to where it was two, three years ago?

Kristie Middleton (KM): Having been a vegan for over 20 years, I can tell you that plant-based foods are booming like never before. I certainly would have never predicted that we're seeing food manufacturers ranging from start-ups to established some of the world's largest meat companies, you know, consumer-packaged goods companies innovating rapidly in this category. It seems like it's a race to the top to see who can be the ones who are really shouldering this industry.

Kristie Middleton is vice president of Business Development for Rebellyous Foods. This interview is part of the Food Engineering Podcast Series.

Kristie Middleton, Rebellyous Foods

A Rebellyous Foods production line for its plant-based chicken nuggets. Photo courtesy of: Rebellyous Foods.

CL: It seems like that there's been so much more interest from consumers in a couple of different things here. I want to start with the health aspect of it. As you mentioned, there are things like cholesterol-free, natural and things like that, that just seems to be a much more important part of the consideration that people make now when it comes to making food choices, is that it's, in a lot of cases, it's still driven by cost, but also, they're looking for some of those healthier options and that takes precedence over cost.

KM: Right. I mean, the research indicates that what consumers look at when they go to the grocery store is convenience, cost and taste. But, you know, if you're making decisions in advance or you become a routine consumer of something, the health aspect is really driving people to eat more plant-based foods.

It's uncanny to see that it's not just in the retail space but even restaurant chains like Burger King, or I saw recently that Jack in the Box was launching a plant-based chicken sandwich or at least trialing it, or KFC trialing Beyond Chicken, that's an indication that consumers are looking for the flavors that they're familiar with. They want to be able to go to the same restaurants, the same chains that they're used to going to, but they want to have something that's a little bit better for them and it's never been easier to do that than it is today.

CL: And then the second aspect of that is, over the last few years we've seen a huge increase in the number of consumers who want more information of the environmental impact of their food, where it's coming from, how the supply chain source, things like that. And as you mentioned, traditional meat production is very resource-intensive. So, how much of a factor do you think that is playing? What's kind of the difference between the resources needed to produce plant-based meat as opposed to traditional meat?

KM: Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that producing animal-based foods is very devastating on the environment, from the crops that are grown to be fed to animals, to the transportation of those crops to get to animals, to the greenhouse gas emissions that come from factory farms. There's an abundance of evidence that animal-based food production has a much bigger carbon footprint than plant-based food production. Consumers are concerned about that, and in fact there was research that came out from Nielsen just last year that said that 61% of Americans said that they would reduce their meat consumption due to concerns about the environment, and 43% of them said that they would replace their meat consumption with plant-based protein types of alternatives. But what we really find is that, while there is concern about the environmental impacts and some people are motivated by that, really health tends to be the No. 1 motivating factor that's driving people to eat more plant-based foods, at least in the United States.

"While there is concern about the environmental impacts and some people are motivated by that, really health tends to be the No. 1 motivating factor that's driving people to eat more plant-based foods, at least in the United States."

CL: Where do you see the market going over the next year, two years, five years, that kind of thing?

KM: Yeah, it's interesting and I wish I had a crystal ball, but I definitely see products like Beyond Meat and Impossible, which were, you know, we've had plant-based meats around for decades, some of them way better than others. But these products really disrupted the category by rolling out products that had the same look, the same taste, texture and mouthfeel of meat, and that are being marketed to meat eaters, and of course that are also being displayed in the meat case right beside meat in some instances. So, I think we'll continue to see more such products that are really focusing on giving consumers that same experience that they're used to when eating an animal-based product, and that's certainly what we're going for at Rebellyous.

I think we'll also start seeing more value added products using plant-based food. That's been happening for a little bit, but in recent months, we've seen a lot of companies like Gardein, which is a plant-based meat producer that's been around for probably over a decade at this point, announcing that it's rolling out a new line of soups containing plant-based chicken. But also, other large established consumer-packaged goods companies are adding plant-based meats to their lineups like Lean Cuisine, which now has some of its more popular frozen ready meals that contain plant-based meats. And then I feel like we'll also see a lot more retailers that are rolling out their own line of plant-based foods. Kroger announced late last year that it was rolling out its own store brand of products from cookie dough that you would bake at home that's totally plant-based, to plant-based meats and cheeses, and then just a couple of months ago announced that it was adding even more products to that line. So, I believe we'll see a number of more retailers who are doing the same thing, rolling out their store brands of plant-based foods to compete with other brands that are coming out every day. //

FOODENGINEERINGMAG.COM I FEBRUARY 2021

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