Can plant-based meats be wholesome? This foodtech startup says sure

Barcelona’s meals tech startup Heura has unveiled its new patent-pending expertise aimed toward producing meat substitutes with out the prolonged and typically off-putting elements checklist. The corporate says it’s the first scalable expertise of its sort so as to add “superior” dietary worth to plant-based meals. 

The info is abundantly clear – if we’re to have any probability at halting world warming, we have to revolutionise our meals programs. Roughly 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gases come from the elevating of livestock.

Moreover, research has shown processed purple meats to be carcinogenic. Which means what we select to placed on our plates issues, for the well being of each the collective and the person. 

Nevertheless, the preliminary enthusiasm for vegan meat options has waned considerably, with shares in some of the eponymous options, Past Meat, shedding over 60% of their worth over the previous yr alone. 

Usually, corporations behind the pretend meat revolution are criticised for relying too closely on synthetic components, with lengthy lists of unpronounceable elements. Moreover, the ultra-processed merchandise are sometimes devoid of important vitamins. 

“I feel that the worst enemy of the class are unhealthy merchandise,” said Heura’s co-founder Marc Coloma. “We see that there was form of a gold rush on this class the place a number of merchandise had been launched tremendous quick to the market with out assembly client expectations.”

Patent-pending thermomechanical expertise

Most approaches to creating vegan meat substitutes are type of trial and error. Producers experiment with completely different blends of binders and components in addition to vegetable proteins to see what works. 

Enter Heura’s patent-pending expertise. The thermomechanical approach makes use of warmth and mechanical vitality to form or modify a cloth’s properties. This, Heura says, permits it to create plant-based meat substitutes with increased high quality inputs and a shorter elements checklist. 

Día histórico en Heura: hoy presentamos nuestra primera patente (de muchas que vendrán) y no podemos estar más felices. #Sucesores pic.twitter.com/1mwG7VbOK8

— Heura Meals #FoodActivists (@HeuraFoods) April 25, 2023

We haven’t been in a position to glean the precise particulars in regards to the precise breakthrough. Nevertheless, throughout the launch of the mission platform, named Good Insurgent Tech, final yr, the corporate’s Science and Expertise director Isabelle Férnandez, stated that,

“As a substitute of specializing in extracting and isolating proteins from legume seeds, we’re researching methods to leverage the performance of entire vegetation of their naturally occurring buildings.” 

For now, focus might be on merchandise within the deli, cheese and entire meats. And as anybody who has ever dined in Spain can attest, these are way more widespread classes than essentially the most generally substituted burger patty.

However, protein?

The corporate has already developed two merchandise utilizing the expertise: a frankfurter-style sausage and ham-style slices, each made out of soy protein. The frankfurters have a protein density of 72%, and the “ham” 70%. Heura is hoping to have each merchandise hit retailer cabinets by the tip of This fall 2023. 

Listing of elements for the frankfurter? Water, soy protein isolate, further virgin olive oil, radish, carrot and paprika flavour concentrates, lemon juice from focus and vitamin B12.

You could have seen it doesn’t, like so many pretend meat merchandise, comprise coconut oil. This is because of one other milestone reached by Heura’s R&D division final yr, the place it managed to exchange the saturated fats various with a 100% olive-oil-based analogue. 

Profitable fairness crowdfunding

Heura Meals was based in 2017, in a co-working workplace within the centre of Barcelona. Its first buyer was a small, native enterprise within the Poble-sec neighbourhood. The startup has raised €36 million thus far – together with an fairness crowdfunding marketing campaign which landed it €4 million in simply 12 hours. In 2022, the corporate secured a turnover of €31.4 million, and in 2023, it grew 44% in Q1 in comparison with the identical quarter the yr earlier than. 

Moreover, Heura has tripled its market share in Spain over the previous three years, and has agreements with retailer teams in Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK.

Might the possession of a patent in an in any other case fairly wild west low barrier-to-entry plant-based meats trade lure extra traders to Heura’s trigger? We’ll get pleasure from a cruelty-free frankfurter (or two) whereas we wait to search out out, thanks very a lot.