#Who’s a good little consumer? Who’s a good little meat eating tumblr user?

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tumblr users ranting about the death of media literacy and critical thinking vs an anti-vegan post with zero sources

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Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts its new plant-based burger

Watch out, Impossible. Beware, Beyond. A new competitor is entering the plant-based burger market.

Lightlife Foods, the brand behind Gimme Lean meatless “beef,” Tofu Pups hot dogs, Organic Fakin’ Bacon Tempeh Strips and other vegetarian staples, is joining the looks-like, cooks-like, smells-like, tastes-like-the-real-thing veggie burger fray. The new patties are expected to reach food service clients in February and will begin shipping to U.S. and Canadian retailers by the end of March, the company said.

Like its well-publicized competitors, the new burger is meant to be more like beef than its hockey puck-esque forebears. Unlike Impossible Foods Inc. and Beyond Meat Inc., which mostly rely on venture capital, Lightlife has the resources of a giant meat producer to help sell it. In 2017 the brand became a fully owned subsidiary of Maple Leaf Foods Inc., the US$2.6-billion Canadian meat conglomerate, which later placed Lightlife under the control of a newly created plant-based division, Greenleaf Foods SPC.

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That in-house expertise allowed the burger to go from concept to production in just six months, said Dan Curtin, president of Greenleaf. The company will also take advantage of the relationships it already has to help land the product in stores and restaurants, he said.

Lightlife is hoping to expand the audience beyond its core consumer base of traditional vegans and vegetarians for its new product, targeting so-called flexitarians and anyone looking to reduce their meat intake. The marketing budget is the largest in the company’s history, Curtin said.

Impossible Foods Inc.’s plant-based Impossible Burger.

Nearly one-third of consumers see plant-based burgers as healthier than their meat counterparts, according to research from Mintel, and 29 per cent say they’re acceptable fare for meat eaters. Only 15 per cent say they taste as good as real burgers, however, and just 5 per cent say they’d go to a casual dining restaurant to order one.

“Consumers may realize the product is healthier for them and their family, but when it boils down to it they’re probably going to go with the thing that tastes better or they’re more familiar with,” said Billy Roberts, senior food and drink analyst at Mintel. But manufacturers such as Lightlife are targeting younger consumers, he said, who are more likely to try new products they see as healthier.

Supermarkets may prove a more successful selling environment. “It’s easier to eat healthy at home,” said Meagan Nelson, associate director of fresh growth and strategy at Nielsen. As plant-based burgers shift into the meat section, she said, more consumers will likely reach for them.

In supermarkets, sales of meat alternatives are up 19.2 per cent, reaching US$878 million for the year ended Jan. 5, 2019, according to data from Nielsen. Meat alternative patties — known colloquially as veggie burgers — represent about 24 per cent of that market.

In most conventional grocery stores, consumers will find Lightlife Burgers within arm’s reach of standard beef patties. Impossible Foods is still awaiting final Food and Drug Administration approval before it hits the grocery aisle.

At Maple Leaf the expectations are high, even as meat-mimicking burgers become more widely available. “It has the potential to become a crowded field for a period of time,” said Chief Executive Officer Michael McCain. “But we have a superior product offering on taste, mouthfeel and nutritional profile.”

The burger itself is pink in raw form, is juicy when cooked and chars to a darker pink rather than the brown of real meat. “The ambition is to achieve a taste and a mouthfeel experience for consumers that replicates largely, if not fully, what they would experience on a burger,” McCain said.

The Lightlife Burger will have 270 calories — the same as the Beyond Burger and slightly more than the new Impossible Burger, which has 240 — but a shorter ingredient list than both. Like Beyond it’s made with a pea protein, an increasingly popular ingredient in the world of meat and dairy substitutes. The simpler ingredients and its non-GMO, soy-free, gluten-free pedigree may give it a leg up on its competitors.

“Plant-based proteins are kind of complicated to produce,” said Mintel’s Roberts. “Consumers can be a little concerned when they see a complicated ingredient legend.”

There’s another way it’s different, too, one that underscores Lightlife’s key consumer base of vegans and vegetarians.

“We stay away from the word ‘bleeding,'” Curtin said.

Bloomberg.com

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Vegan products – hold the stigma – become hot new entrants in food sector

When Kailey Gilchrist started NONA Vegan in Toronto in 2013, she says the vegan message didn’t really fly during sampling sessions for her pasta sauces. “It was quite challenging at the start. Even at Whole Foods, people didn’t know what vegan was. So I just stopped leading with the vegan part and said, ‘Here’s a great sauce’ … and then tell them after that.”

Now with all eyes on veganism and plant-based alternatives, the vegan message comes first. “If I just say, do you want to try my sauce, customers will say ‘I’m vegan’ and walk by. It’s crazy how much has changed.”

Crazy is a good word for what is happening in the vegan/plant-based food world. A&W’s adoption onto its menu of Beyond Burger, a meat alternative with the taste and mouth-feel of ground beef (and which has been selling out in many parts of Canada), is a telling indicator of just how much consumer interest in plant-based options is growing, whether they’re card-carrying vegans/vegetarians or not.

International food and restaurant consultants Baum & Whiteman, in fact, named plant-based foods as the No. 1 dining trend for 2018. Other reports indicate plant-based foods are resonating more strongly than ever with consumers, particularly the under-35 demographic.

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What the means for entrepreneurs like Gilchrist, is a hefty boost in sales and a much bigger market base.

“I feel like interest in vegan products has grown five-fold,” she says. “I’m not pushing to get my product in stores anymore. Even major grocery stores say they need a vegan section and are actively seeking us out.”

While she started out as a home-based operation, Gilchrist quickly graduated to a commercial kitchen, and eventually had to outsource manufacturing and distribution to keep up with demand. Today NONA sauces are sold in 100 stores across Ontario and is making moves into B.C., the East Coast and Quebec.

Along her journey, Gilchrist received joint funding from Futurpreneur and BDC, joined ventureLAB in Markham and worked with the George Brown Food Innovation Research Studio (FIRSt). She also did a small investment round with private investors and received grants from Ontario Centres of Excellence, among others.

Paula Bellavance, founder of Basic Roots in Calgary, has produced vegan cookies for eight years and says her business is experiencing a significant upswing with her new line of vegan cashew cheeses.

As their popularity grew, she had to abandon her original product line. “The demand for our cheeses was just too high,” she says. “We had to switch gears.”

She is now in the process of expanding outside of Alberta through distributors in major markets across Canada.

It’s not just vegans and vegetarians interested in these types of products, Bellavance says. “One of the biggest buyers of vegan products are people who are lactose intolerant.”

Veganism is also becoming a draw for other health conscious individuals interested in environmental sustainability, she adds. “People are realizing they don’t need to eat meat seven days a week. Now there are a lot of amazing alternatives. The Beyond Burger is a case in point.”

She estimates that her business will double over the next year, although she believes that is a very conservative projection. Bellavance is also helping other like-minded producers by offering the use of her equipment for production. “We ordered a lot of custom equipment that is very expensive. One machine we have is worth $70,000 so we know how hard it is for startups in this business.”

Jana Zaibak, founder of nomz Organic in Toronto, says that vegan certification is one of the key attributes drawing consumers to her healthy energy bites. In fact, she makes sure all certifications (e.g. vegan, gluten free, organic) are displayed on the front of her packaging. “That was intentional to put all our marketing claims on the front.”

When the first stores agreed to carry her product, she says, “I was over the moon when we had a dozen stores. We thought we had made it. Now we’re in a little over 500 stores, and available on Amazon in both the U.S. and Canada.”

Zaibak is now part of the 2018 Next Founders program in Toronto, where she is working on a line of vegan ice desserts that will be launching later this year. “The business is growing every month, which makes us really excited,” she adds.

But Zaibak also wants to make sure she paces herself. “We built a solid, steady foundation and have been self-funded. We want to stay sustainable. I see this (movement) going on for the next 50 years, so we’re not in a rush to win the market right away.”

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