New School Foods, a Canadian startup in the plant-based market, has signed distribution deals to expand the availability of its signature product: an uncannily realistic whole-cut salmon.
Company founder and CEO Chris Bryson told AgFunderNews that he wanted his company to break free of the slump that's affecting plant-based products such as burgers and processed meats.
"There's no silver bullet in this market or a single explanation as to why products are not delivering. It's everything … price, taste and texture, the cooking experience, the nutritional profile, plus this whole market is definitely being politicized," Bryson told the outlet.
From the consumer perspective, there's little reason to buy something that costs twice as much but is half as good, he added.
New School Foods' salmon isn't made from plant proteins like many other products on the market. Instead, the company uses a patented "directional freezing" technology that makes the plant-based salmon look and taste just like the real thing.
"If you can create a clear value proposition, there's always an opportunity. People have been blown away by our product," Bryson said.
The report explained the production process, which begins by placing a hydrogel made with hydrocolloids such as alginate on a freezing surface. Elongated, fibrous ice crystals then grow throughout the gel, leaving it with a porous honeycomb-like structure.
That's then immersed in a solution full of proteins, fats, flavors, colors, and other nutrients, which fill in the gaps to ultimately resemble a raw-looking slab of meat.
"Imagine a big piece of Jell-o," Bryson told AgFunderNews. "The freezing experience restructures it into a very porous scaffold that we're then able to infuse stuff into."
New School Foods claims that the final product manages to simulate the muscle fiber texture and fat layers that you'd get with the real thing.
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More tax incentives 🏦 Since hitting the market late last year, the company has been selling to customers looking for more inspired plant-based products beyond burgers, the report explained, including venues such as sushi restaurants and boutique hotels.
Deals with Gordon Food Service and Bondi Produce will help the company expand its reach nationwide, as will its scalable technology.
Not only are plant-based products a more healthful alternative to meat, but they're also better for the environment.
Almost 15% of all planet-warming pollution stems from the production of meat, dairy, and eggs.
By shifting to a more plant-based diet, agricultural land use could be reduced by nearly 80%. That could improve biodiversity and help maintain the soil's natural microbiome for healthy plant growth and carbon sequestration.
Planet Forward shared that, on average, 640 gallons of water are used to create a single hamburger patty. By changing to a diet with more plants, we could reduce agricultural water use by around 50%.
New School Foods has received a total of $18 million in funding from backers that include Ikea, which could carry the company's plant-based salmon on its menu in the future, according to AgFunderNews.
"We're currently producing at a fairly small scale with manual labor and we're still able to get to a point where we're selling our product at admittedly a premium, but one that works, because we're signing up restaurants," Bryson said.
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