Pigging out on mock pork

Macau–

It’s Friday afternoon at the Venetian Macao hotel’s Portofino restaurant, and on the terrace a handful of chefs in white uniforms are preparing the casino hub’s famous pork chop bun for waiting guests.

But today, the bun has a difference. As guests dive in, they’re biting not into pork but into a vegan pattie created to mimic pork’s taste and feel.

In a region where pork is king – it is the favoured meat in most dishes – switching diets to a tasty vegetable substitute could be a major way to curb climate change, experts say.

But will “Omnipork” pass the taste test?

“The appearance and texture is the same, I can’t tell the difference,” said Suki Chu, who runs a Facebook cooking group called “Be Jealous by JM”, and is there with her husband and 11-year-old son.

Eric Tang, who works in customer services at a telecom company, agrees the pattie looks like minced pork, but notices a subtle difference in the taste.

It doesn’t have “the gamey flavour of real pork”, he said.

A plant-protein made from peas, soy, shiitake mushroom and rice, Omnipork is the latest venture by Hong Kong-based David Yeung, whose social enterprise Green Monday aims to curb climate change, shore up global food security and improve public health.

A vegetarian for 18 years, Yeung started Green Monday to persuade diners to take one day a week off meat – a movement that has spread to 30 countries. Now another venture, Right Treat, has created Omnipork for the Asian palate.

While beef and chicken is popular in the West, and US foodtech firms like Impossible Foods and Beyond Burger have created plant-based meat alternatives, pork has been overlooked, Yeung says.

But pork is the most consumed meat globally, the Worldwatch Institute says, and is in high demand in Asia, particularly China.

“Chinese people use pork in everything,” Yeung said. Indeed, 65% of all meat consumed in China is pork. And China’s 1.4 billion people eat it in soups, dumplings, stirfries and pork buns.

Omnipork – designed to mimic minced pork – aims to direct an emerging middle class away from meat as a staple.

With rising incomes, Asia’s meat consumption is expected to grow by a third by 2030. – Reuters