Future Food Quick Bites: Vegan Shawarmas, Pamela Anderson & Jobs for Cats

In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Pamela Anderson’s new vegan cookbook, OMNI’s call for cat taste-testers for cultivated meat, and a new dining club.

New products and launches

UK plant-based meat brand THIS has launched a vegan chicken shawarma SKU made from soy and fava beans. Currently available at Asda, it will retail at £3.30 for a 170g pack, and will appear on Waitrose and Co-op shelves next month.

Flora is introducing its previously foodservice-only Plant Cream to supermarket aisles in the UK, with the double cream available at Asda (and soon at Waitrose), and the single cream on the horizon too.

There’s a new alt-milk on the market, with Plantstrong Foods entering the category with clean-label versions of almond, oat, oat-almond, and oat-walnut. They are available exclusively at over 500 Whole Foods stores in the US, and will soon start selling on its e-commerce site.

Israeli 3D-printed meat producer Steakholder Foods has debuted in the US market with its ready-to-mix SHFish and SHMeat dried extracts for plant-based analogues.

Also in the US, vegan seafood company Impact Food‘s tuna analogue is now available at five Pokeworks locations in New York: Union Square, Grand Central, Williamsburg, Fresh Meadows and Woodbury.

Over in Chicago, Impossible Foods has brought its burgers and new hot dogs to baseball stadiums across the state, ahead of the latter’s supermarket launch.

Allergen-free vegan cheese brand Pleese Foods, meanwhile, has partnered with foodservice distributor Performance Food Group, meaning its pizza cheese is now available to buyers nationally.

In Asia, beanless coffee startup Prefer is ramping up its presence in Singapore and diversifying its portfolio with a line of black cold brew concentrates (caffeinated and decaf), soon to make their way into cocktail bars in the city-state.

Also in Singapore, Sichuan eatery Chengdu Bowl has added two vegan dishes – sour and spicy soup and mapo tofu – using Finnish food tech startup Solar Foods‘ Solein air protein, which are available for the next three months.

Nestlé has expanded its Harvest Gourmet product range in Malaysia with Puff Pastries in creamy curry, Koran gochujang and Oriental BBQ flavours.

And review platform abillion has unveiled the Vegan Dining Club, which spotlights 500 restaurants “committed to having great vegan options on their menus”. They will receive premium placements across all of abillion’s assets, keyword priorities, and more footfall.

Finance and company updates

At Upside Foods, chief scientific officer Kevin Kayser has stepped down to launch a consulting group, leaving a vacancy at executive level for one of the world’s leading cultivated meat companies.

Likewise, Triton Algae Innovations co-founder and R&D head Miller Tran is leaving the San Diego-based algae protein company.

Another move comes at Meati, where co-founder Justin Whiteley is stepping aside from his role as CSO to become a technical advisor to the CEO.

UK colour development platform Sparx has raised $3.2M to speed up the commercialisation of its plant-based pigments, which are made from cellulose that can be extracted from waste streams.

Berlin-based Torg has closed an oversubscribed €2.7M seed round to further develop its AI-led platform for foodservice and private-label buyers to find suppliers and source products more efficiently.

Dutch startup Time-Travelling Milkman has secured €850,000 in funding to expand the production and market entry of its sunflower seed fat called Oleocream, which is designed to replace palm and coconut oil in plant-based dairy applications.

South Korea’s Innohas has opened its second plant-based ingredient facility in Jecheon. Describes as the “world’s largest” exclusively plant-based factory, it will produce Korean foods like bibimbap, japchae and bulgogi for its Sunlit Foods brand.

In San Francisco, ingredients giant Givaudan, equipment manufacturer Bühler, and food innovation platform MISTA have opened an extrusion hub for snacks, cereals and plant-based meat at the MISTA Innovation Center.

Dutch plant-based dairy brand Willicroft has released the results of its independent life-cycle assessment, which revealed that its products generate up to 25 times lower emissions than their animal-derived counterparts.

Policy and pop culture

The West Hollywood City Council has voted in favour of vice mayor Chelsea Byers’ proposal to make vegan and vegetarian options the default at catering events like special meetings, luncheons and recreational activities, while meat options will be available upon request.

American model and actress Pamela Anderson is releasing a vegan cookbook titled I Love You: Recipes from the Heart, which will come out on October 15 and features over 80 recipes.

German alternative seafood producer Koralo made it to mainstream television in South Korea, with TVN Korea running a segment about its microalgae- and mycelium-based New F!sh filet.

Another vegan brand represented on TV was UK frozen pizza startup One Planet Pizza, whose co-founder, Joe Hill, appeared on The Apprentice as one of the judges for a vegan-cheese-themed episode.

Finally, alternative pet food producer OMNI, which will soon launch the UK’s first cultivated meat product alongside Meatly, is offering cat owners £60,000 in annualised salary to have their felines taste its Chicken Revolution product and monitor their experience and any changes in physical conditions.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.