Meet plants that taste like beef

Science enables vegetarians to enjoy the taste and texture ofmeatwith a clear conscience— thanks to lab- grown food

United States Cattlemen’s Association is not happy. Ranchers’ ire has been aroused by a raft of new companies that claim to be able to produce the perfect burger— without using meat. Earlier this year, the association took its case to theUS Department ofAgriculture, filing a 15- page petition, demanding Washington produces an official definition of both “beef” and “meat”.

The targets of the petition are companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, which believe that science now enables vegetarians to enjoy the taste and texture ofmeatwith a clear conscience. Animals are not killed and the carbon footprint is far lower than in traditional farming. American cattlemen are not impressed, to put it mildly, with the relentless advance of the plant food industry.

The immediate threat to the traditional US food industry is “meat” derived fromplants, which simulates the taste of the real thing.

But further down the track is what is known as “clean meat”. Produced without animal slaughter, themeat is derived from a small number of stem cells and produced in a laboratory.

Impossible Foods was started by Patrick Brown, a former Stanford biochemistry professor who, in 2009, took an 18- month sabbatical, which he devoted to carrying out research on eliminating industrial animal agriculture.

His goal was to produce a burger that would appeal to vegetarians who had given up meat on moral grounds, but still yearned for the real thing. The secret, he discovered, was creating “plant blood” from a molecule known as heme, which is found in animals and plants. When the plant burger made with heme is slapped on to a grill, it turns from red to brown, like one made from beef. It also tastes identical, according to Brown and his 50- strong team of chefs, farmers and scientists.

The rest of the ingredients include wheat, coconut oil and potatoes.

His targetmarket is not just vegetarians, but hardcore meat eaters whom, Brown believes, could be persuaded to try the plant- based alternative.

Beyond Meat was founded in 2009 by Ethan Brown. Endorsed by the Humane Society, its backers include Bill Gates. Its meatless burgers are not only sold in stores, but served up by restaurant chains like TGI Fridays, which is offering them at its 469 US locations.

Nielsen data released last year showwhy the traditional farming industry is becoming nervous as consumers turn away from animal flesh. They showed that sales of plant- based food rose 8.1 per cent over the past year, while demand for more traditional items — from meat to dairy — fell by 0.2 per cent. Other figures produced by HealthFocus data showed that 17 per cent of US consumers ate a predominantly plant- based diet and 60 per cent said they were cutting back on meat consumption.

Corporate giants moving in

Already the plant foodmarket isworth $ 3.1 billion ( Dh11.4 billion) in sales. Some of the corporate giants are also moving in on the market.

Tyson Foods is pumping $ 150 million into Tyson New Ventures, an offshoot specialising in “meatless meat”. Nestle, the world’s largest food company, bought Sweet Earth Natural Foods, a company that produces breakfast meats such as Benevolent Bacon. Last month, the company also bought a majority interest in Terrafertil, a Latin American company that sells its products in the UK as well. Nestle predicts the global plant- based food market could be worth $ 5 billion by 2020.

But there are still some who remain sceptical over the long- termfuture of the plant- based food industry.

“This has been a 40- year odyssey,” says John Quelch, the dean of Miami Business School.

“The first soy burgers for retail consumption — unsurprisingly, a commercial disaster — were developed byMorningstar Farms, a division ofMiles Laboratories, in the late Seventies.

“Technically, plant protein is almost the same as meat protein. But food is about more than nutrition content, it’s much more primal than that.

“For most Americans, the concept of a non- meat burgerhas been, andwill continue tobe, anoxymoron.

“Impossible Food may sadly equate with impossible profits.” ■ DavidMillward reports for the Telegraph fromthe United States.