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Jenny is a D.C.-based writer and Senior Contributor for Forbes covering food, agriculture, climate and technology. Additional bylines: The Washington Post, Popular Mechanics, New York Magazine and Mental Floss. Events and panels: National Academies of Science's LabX, the Reducetarian Summit, the International Food Information Council and the Museum of Science Fiction. Inquiries: [email protected]
Your favorite plant-based foods are about to get cheaper. Impossible Foods just announced it's lowering prices by 15%, and Eat JUST's $4.99 plant-based egg will hit the shelves of Whole Foods in the next few weeks. Leading companies in the plant-based space are inching closer to price parity with meat, and it's a goal they're reaching by going big.
Your favorite plant-based foods are about to get cheaper. Impossible Foods just announced it's lowering prices by 15%, and Eat JUST's $4.99 plant-based egg will hit the shelves of Whole Foods in the next few weeks. Leading companies in the plant-based space are inching closer to price parity with meat, and it's a goal they're reaching by going big.
"The name of this category is still a question," says Aleph Farms' Yoav Reisler, diplomatically gliding over the cultured meat industry's struggle to agree on a name for their product-individual pieces of meat grown from a few animal cells rather than a whole slaughtered animal.
There's a huge demand for new plant-based foods these days, primarily driven by the almost 39% of omnivores now opting to swap out meat for a plant-based alternative. But some carnivorous delights can be trickier to replace than others.
Popeyes, an American-based multinational fried chicken fast food chain and the creator of 2019's blockbuster sell-out chicken sandwich, is also the latest company to sign on to a set of animal welfare standards called the Better Chicken Commitment. Popeyes joins hundreds of other corporate brands including Starbucks, Subway and Whole Foods.
On August 5, 2013, Chef Richard McGeown was in London, preparing to film a cooking segment on British television. McGeown was searing a simple burger, something he'd done countless times before. But this time, an estimated billion people would be watching or reading about what was about to transpire.
The plant-based food trend has experienced clear exponential growth in recent years but the data behind what's driving this trend remains somewhat fuzzy. In a new consumer survey released today, the International Food Information Council (IFIC) has taken a closer look at consumer perceptions of these foods, finding that many consumers believe these foods to be healthier, and are not dissuaded by what plant-based critics often describe as a long list of processed ingredients.
First it was burgers. Now plant-based startups are coming for the nugget - but chicken is a much tougher challenge. C hristie Lagally used to see a lot of chicken trucks when she drove 35 miles each morning from Seattle to her job in Everett, Washington.
Mike Weaver isn't a vegan. For close to two decades, in fact, Weaver has been a contract chicken grower for the Brazilian-owned poultry company, Pilgrim's Pride. But last January, Weaver decided to get out of the poultry business and start growing plants instead, hemp, to be specific.
Unlike Impossible Foods, which gets its beefy taste from genetically engineered yeast, Beyond embraced the non-GMO label in hopes of straddling the nature-tech divide. The move failed to win over critics but critics may have missed the mark too. Can the plant-based movement get past this debate?