| The growing market for plant-based meat |
Steve Kaufmann works as a Quality Control Manager at Curry 36, the most famous sausage restaurant in Berlin. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, diners have started talking: Is it safe to eat meat when low-income workers contract Covid-19 and slaughterhouses close?
In the U.S., meat shortages are driving more consumers to meat alternatives, with plant-based meat suppliers seeing triple-digit sales growth over the previous year, and products from companies like Meat and Impossible Foods. The price skyrocketed almost overnight. In Germany, the plant-based meat market is also booming. According to data from the Federal Statistical Office, in the first quarter of 2020, the production of meat substitutes such as plant-based burgers and spreads reached about 20,000 tons, an increase of 37% compared with the same period in 2019. At the same time, the value of the products also increased from 60 million euros increased to 85 million euros, and this is the data before the new crown cases in German slaughterhouses. While animal meat, worth 40 billion euros a year, still dominates the market, the role of these meat substitutes in shops and restaurants cannot be ignored.
"I think most people will continue to eat meat," Kaufman said. But even small shops like Curry 36 have long had to offer alternatives. The curry veggie sausage made from soybeans may seem like no one cares, but in fact, the sales share of vegan sausage in some branches has already accounted for 20%, and the trend is still rising. "At first we fried the sausages, but they weren't crispy enough, and now we're deep-frying them to make them crispy on the outside and tender on the inside," Kaufman said.
Vegetarian curry sausage at the popular Berlin store "Curry 36"
In Germany, more than 100 startups and micro-enterprises offer vegetarian meats and sausages made from soybeans, peas, wheat, jackfruit, rice bran or seaweed. Industry giants such as Nestlé and sausage maker Rügenwalder Mühl have also launched meatless products.
The Vegetarian Butcher, a small plant-based meat brand founded by Dutch farmer Jaap Kotwig, is now under the umbrella of multinational Unilever. Today, Kurtwig supplies soy burgers to 2,500 Burger King locations in Europe, and sells his sausages, schnitzels and burgers in more than 4,000 outlets around the world and a concept store in Berlin's Bergmankerz neighborhood.
| Replicate the look and taste of animal meat |
Some analysts estimate that the current global sales of meat substitutes is close to 20 billion US dollars, and it will grow by 30% every year in the future. Hundreds of companies are developing new products in Germany, USA, Canada, Israel, Japan or the Netherlands to meet the demands of a growing world population for a sustainable intake of protein. Plant-based meat alternatives are not only healthier, but also protect animals and nature, vegan meat suppliers say.
The production of animal meat produces a lot of carbon dioxide. To meet the annual meat and sausage consumption of Germans in 2017, animal feed had to be grown on 6.7 million hectares of land. To make way for mass farming, grow grass or soybeans for cattle - they also show up in feed troughs in Germany, where 70 percent of the Amazon's rainforest has been cleared. It is estimated that 60 billion pigs, cows, chickens, sheep and other animals are slaughtered every year in the world, and some of them die in excruciating pain.
Beets give meat substitutes the appearance of fresh meat, and beet juice concentrate is often used as a coloring agent.
For the future of meat production, no pigs should suffer and no rain forests should be destroyed. Meanwhile, plant-based meat producers say no one has to give up the texture of their favorite meat. Perhaps our craving for meat has never ceased since our hunting ancestors managed to tame the flames and toss it in for roasting a million years ago. Plant-meat market pioneers are reluctant to label their products "alternatives" or "imitations." They think they are making minced meat, burgers, patties or sausages, and although they are vegetarian, they clearly taste like "meat".
However, perfectly imitating the taste and texture of meat is a huge challenge, and the meat processing company "Rügenwald Mill" has been working on this for almost ten years. Catlin Gross, food technologist and head of vegan product development, stands between the multi-cookers, vegetable baskets and knife holders in the lab kitchen as she talks about the development of a pea liver and sausage vegetarian diet.
Peas and other pods are true "protein bombs" that are easy to make into sausages when minced and pureed.
"We pour the mix into the cup and start cooking," Gross says. "Animal meat products absorb the condensation that forms during the cooling process after cooking, but vegetable intestines don't." She had to change that. This is really easier said than done. It took her nine months and countless trials, experimenting with ingredients and their mixing ratios, until the liver and sausage veggies were finally able to stay hydrated.
Developing a vegetarian patty is even harder. The veggie patty also loses excess moisture, horribly, still in the deep fryer. "We've had it happen here once, and the veggie patty exploded in the hot oil," Gross said. She was reluctant to tell us how the problem ended up being resolved, the food industry has always been tight-lipped on the details of manufacturing processes and ingredients, and the fear of competitors is clearly greater in the meat-alternative space.
Few people talk about technical details, but everyone is happy to talk about numbers: in the first half of 2020, the "Rügenwald Mill" relied on vegetarian meat and sausages to increase its sales by 50% compared to the same period of the previous year. In this way, for the first time, sales of meatless products surpassed conventional products. "Since 2020, market sentiment has been high," said Gordo Robben from corporate management. "At present, in addition to many small start-ups, there are also some large multinational companies involved." For example, Nestlé also launched a plant The meat brand Jiazhiyao, in which a soy-wheat burger with beethead concentrate mimics a raw blood-colored hamburger steak, has been adopted by McDonald's. Robben says the big players don't frighten him. "We're significantly smaller, but we have more experience. When the first products came out, we spent most of the company's advertising budget on it, and some people were worried about the The outlook for meat is bleak. Today, we are the market leader with double-digit growth in our vegetarian meat division.”
By 2040, only 40% of world meat sales will be made by slaughtered animals, according to Kearney Corporate Consulting, and most of the rest should be won without slaughtering. According to the survey, in Germany, the soaring sales of plant meat is mainly achieved by about 20 million to 40 million flexitarians. They want to eat less animal meat for environmental or health reasons, but also want a good steak once in a while.
| Umami Sensor |
It is by no means easy to make plant meat perfectly replicate the taste of animal meat. However, why is "mimic texture" so important to the successful popularity of plant-based meat?
German molecular biologist Maikel Behrens has studied what happens when food melts on our tongues. "Taste receptors perform a quick chemical analysis with each bite of food, before swallowing it," Behrens said. Our tongues can distinguish between sweet and sour, bitter and salty, and umami.
Umami was discovered in 1908 by Japanese researcher Kikunae Ikeda. Umami tastes when we consume protein that contains a lot of glutamic acid or its salt (MSG). Meat and intestines are especially fresh, as do tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, fungi including yeast, and soy sauce.
The ability to taste good food guarantees human survival: bitter tastes make us suspicious, because many poisonous plants are bitter; sour tastes indicate immature fruit, which protects our stomach from indigestion; sweet taste receptors send signals that tell Our food is rich in energy in the form of sugar; salty taste receptors give us access to life-critical electrolytes.
What about umami receptors? It signals: it's a "protein bomb," rich in amino acids, the building blocks of skin, hair, muscle, and immune cells, the foundation of life in a nutshell. After frying, the meat will have a more complete flavor, such as caramel flavor, and the characteristic barbecue aroma when the sugar and egg whites are combined at high temperature. Therefore, people like to dip the meat in a sweet marinade before roasting it.
Today, this appetite for meat is forcing alternative makers to go to great lengths to replicate umami as perfectly as possible. Impossible Foods adds natural MSG, yeast extract, to burgers. According to the estimates of the European Food Safety Authority, we are prone to excessive consumption of this substance on a daily basis, and people with allergies may experience hot flashes and headaches.
"Rügenwald Mill" decided not to use MSG, but to use mixed seasonings and concentrated umami, such as umami from tomatoes. Gross, a product developer, walked into the experimental kitchen with a small porcelain bowl filled with khaki powder that tasted like a soup concentrate with a little ginger and turmeric. "It's a traditional umami blend," explains Gross. "Depending on the ingredients, it can be pork, beef or chicken flavors, and you can add barbecue flavors. This way, the meaty flavors of a plant-based product are combined. "
| Is plant meat healthy? |
One question that remains unanswered is: Even if these vegan meats, produced without slaughter, perfectly replicate animal meat, are they really healthy?
Unfortunately, there is no clear answer yet. In 2015, the World Health Organization classified processed meats such as sausage and ham as carcinogenic, saying that eating an extra 50 grams a day could increase the risk of bowel cancer by 18 percent. The risk of myocardial infarction and premature death is also slightly increased in those who do not have sex.
Conversely, a diet high in whole grains, pods, and fruits and vegetables appears to extend lifespan: Fiber and gelatinous plant fibers help good bacteria grow in the digestive tract, which can prevent cancer; Cell aging.
The deep red extract of pomegranate also lends a tantalizing color to vegetable pancakes.
But there is no strong evidence that we live longer if we eat small sausages or burgers made from peas or soybeans. On the one hand, these products have been on the market for too short a time, and there is a lack of long-term research on their health effects. On the other hand, many products that contain healthy ingredients, such as canola oil or pods, are often heavily processed.
In addition, consumer advocates have criticized many meat substitutes for being too salty. EcoTest magazine recently tested 18 vegetarian burgers and gave the Adidas supermarket chain's burgers extremely low ratings, also because each patty there contains too much salt. Impossible Foods, based in Redwood City, Calif., has responded to such criticism, proudly presenting its new product, the Impossible Burger 2.0, in 2019, saying it contains 36 percent less salt and more saturated than the previous version. 43% less fat.
Mazan Rizke and his "Mushroom Lab"
How to make the ingredients for making burgers healthier? Startup Mushlabs has experimented with innovation. In a petri dish, many colonies cling together like fluffy white fur. No one in the lab would say what kind of mushroom it was, and microbiologist and manager Mazan Rizke would like to chat about why mushrooms are better for plant-based meat than peas and soybeans: “We study mycelium, also It's the mushroom root. We don't isolate the protein from it, but process it whole, because the mycelium also provides plant fiber, vitamins, magnesium and calcium. So why throw it away?"
Rizke wanted to replace it with other meats Produces his products in a more sustainable way: his mushrooms are grown in the tightest spaces of fermentation tanks, fed with industrial food waste, and raised to look like dough for a cake. Rizick pulled out a bag of light-colored frozen mushroom chunks that smelled charmingly "honey" from the freezer. “Mushrooms certainly best imitate the umami of meat,” explains Rizke, “but there are other flavors that come with it, depending on what we feed it and how we feed it. To be sure, we don’t have to It adds fragrance."
Not long ago, Rizke got married. He said: "I want to celebrate afterwards. I told my Lebanese family that there will be a vegetarian buffet, no meat. For some people, it was really a culture shock. But, I'm pretty sure, without meat, We will also be very happy."
