Alternative Protein Fundamentals Programme

Policy & Entrepreneurship Track

Week 2: Plant-based Meat

When attempting to create alternatives to animal-farmed meat, it makes sense to first define what we mean by ‘meat’. Do we break it down to the molecular level and examine the composition of proteins, fats and minerals? Do we need to build animal cells and tissues? Does it matter so long as it closely mimics the organoleptic properties (taste, texture, colour and aroma) of animal-farmed meat?

This session encourages you to rethink meat and how we are able to generate a similar sensory experience using plants. It also shows that, despite recent large advances in plant-based meat technology, we have barely scratched the surface in terms of the potential for crop, texturisation and nutrition optimisation to improve plant-based products.

Core Material [~2hrs 15mins]

Good Food Institute MOOC Lecture 2: What is meat? video and slides [30mins]

Good Food Institute MOOC Lecture 3: Leveraging plants to create plant-based meat video and slides [25 mins]

Note these first two lectures are quite technical. Do not worry about all of the details, however it’s good to get an overview of the factors to consider when producing PBM.

A review of research on plant-based meat alternatives: Driving forces, history, manufacturing, and consumer attitudes - He et al. (2020) [Article, 50 mins]
Plant-Based Meat Regulations and White Space Opportunities video and slides [Start at 36:30/slide 45, 30 mins]

Discussion Prompts

Mimicking meat

How would you define the term ‘meat’?
To what extent do you feel that current plant-based meat (PBM) offerings match the taste of animal meat (AM)? [This may be difficult if you haven’t eaten AM in a while!] Do you foresee PBM ever becoming indistinguishable from AM (if you don’t think it’s there already) or is there a limit to how close it can get?
Which properties of animal meat (AM) are likely to be the most important to consumers when developing plant-based meat (PBM)? Eg. nutrition, texture, taste, smell, etc. Why?
- Which of these properties do you think the current PBM offerings are the least good at mimicking?
For many people, the cooking process is just as important as the final food itself. Think about how the organoleptic properties of meat change during cooking (visual cues, scents etc.). To what extent do you think the PBM should try to mimic AM at all stages of the cooking process (raw, during cooking and when cooked)? Which of these do you think is hardest to mimic?

Is mimicking meat the right way to go?

Should food companies aim for the exact replication of animal meat? PBM requires a large amount of processing to convert the building blocks of plants into structures that mimic meat. Would we be better to aim for options with less processing that taste less like AM or would this just fail to convert consumers? Is processing necessarily a bad thing?
Some traditional plant-based protein sources are part of the culinary tradition of certain countries, such as seitan and tofu in China, or tempeh in Indonesia. Nevertheless, these countries are among the ones exhibiting the largest growth in animal meat consumption. Why is this happening?

Consumer perception

Currently, more unstructured PBM products (burgers, sausages etc.) are available than whole-cut PBM products (steaks, chicken breasts). How do you think this affects the image of plant-based products with consumers?

To what extent do you think the AM industry profits from the trend of “natural eating” and “clean label” foods? How much do you think the processing involved to produce PBM impacts its healthiness? How does this compare to health risks associated with AM consumption, such as colorectal cancer from red meat or heart disease from intake of LDL-derived cholesterol?
Do you think consumers are more concerned about personal impacts of their food such as personal health or global impacts such as climate change? What kinds of actions could shift this focus (if it needs to be shifted at all)?
PBMs usually cost more than their animal-based counterparts in retail settings. How does this impact the development of the industry and the expansion of PBM adoption among mainstream consumers?
How might the inclusion of synthetic biology tools in ingredient production (i.e. use of bulk GMO-soy, or incorporation of recombinant haem proteins in products) affect the image or acceptance of PBM? Impossible Foods embraces them, while Beyond Meat condemns them. Should the industry have a unified position in this respect?

Regulation

Labelling is becoming a contentious regulatory issue across the alt. protein space (we will dig more into plant-based dairy labelling in week 5). How important do you think labelling (e.g. whether PBM can be advertised as ‘meat’/’burgers’/’sausages’) is for consumers?
Do you think the EU is justified in having separate novel foods approval processes for GMO and non-GMO? What could be the impact of this for the development of alt. proteins in the EU vs elsewhere?

Whitespaces

Of the business whitespaces identified, where do you see the greatest opportunity and which would you be best-placed to work on?
Can you think of any whitespaces not mentioned?