Five Plant-Based Meat Predictions for 2022

Source: The Spoon / image: The Spoon / Author: Michael Wolf

Food tech prediction week continues here at the Spoon, and today we’re looking into our crystal ball to predict what 2022 holds for plant-based meat.

After you’re done reading this, make sure to check out my predictions for restaurant tech and food robotics!

Let’s do this.

The Year of the Whole Cut

After years of countless plant-based burgers and other minced alt-meat product introductions, the plant-based meat industry will see lots more whole cut analogs make it to market in 2022 and beyond.

We first got a hint at CES 2019 that Impossible was interested in whole cuts when The Spoon broke the story the company was working on a steak, but since that time we’ve seen a bunch of companies announce they are working on building whole cut alternatives.

Juicy Marbles, Novameat and Redefine Mean are also working on whole cut steak analogs. Others like Atlast are offering mycelium-based whole cut bacon. Then there are those making whole-cut seafood analogs like that from Plantish.

Many of these companies are looking to deliver their products in 2022, and you can expect a wave of new plant-based whole cut concepts introduced throughout the year.

Fungi-Powered Meat Alternatives

As we enter 2022, a whole crop alt-meat startups are rolling out a variety of meat analogs powered by fungi. One is Meati, which has developed prototypes of steak and chicken using mycelium grown using a submerged fermentation technique. Then there’s Nature’s Fynd, which debuted its breakfast patties which use its novel mycelium last fall. And in early January, MycoTechnologies debuted its meatless crumble brand Goodside Foods at CES.

The rise of myco-powered meat products shouldn’t be all that surprising since fungi, after all, is a lot closer in its molecular makeup to mammals than plants. For this and other reasons, fungi-based meat products don’t need as much high-tech trickery and processing to create a realistic meat analog. I predict this is only the beginning and we’ll see more fungi-based meat products debut throughout 2022.

Clean Label Enters Alt Protein

One criticism of some early plant-based meats is the long list of ingredients. While these alt-meats are no doubt miracles of modern food science, the unfamiliar ingredient list has scared away some customers concerned about eating exotic or genetically modified ingredients.

Enter the clean label. We started to see some startups begin to offer new plant-based meat analogs with simpler (and shorter) ingredient lists in 2021 and I expect to see more of this this year. Nowadays offered up their new pea-protein-based chicken nugget with seven ingredients, and Daring launched their soy-based nuggs that have a fairly straightforward recipe label. And then there’s No Evil Foods, which is leaning heavily into the whole plant-based clean label with a lineup of alt-meats ranging from chorizo to jerky. Expect to see these companies and other new ‘clean-label’ alt-meat startups push their simple (and understandable) recipes as a primary point of differentiation between themselves and those built with more (and more processed) ingredient lists

The Rise of the Plant-Based Meat Building Block

While many early-stage alt-meat companies have built much if not most of their end product in-house, nowadays there’s a growing cohort of new companies providing plant-based meat building blocks to enable others to get to market faster.

Take Motif. Last month, the Ginkgo Bioworks spinout announced the commercial launch of their yeast-derived heme protein HEMAMI, an umami-flavor and texture building block for alt-meat makers trying to produce a realistic alternative. This is good news if you’re a maker of alt-meat products who wants to replicate Impossible’s proprietary plant-based heme, because now instead of spending tens of millions trying to build it yourself, now you can buy a similar technology from Motif.

There are others making building blocks to get to market faster, whether that’s Jellatech and Geltor with their animal-free collagen, Hoxton, Melt & Marble and Nourish with their alt-fats, Umiami making a plant-based fibrous muscle alternatives, or Kingdom Supercultures creating the next great novel ingredient.

Forget Burgers, Let’s Eat Some Fish

While companies like Good Catch and Ocean Hugger have been at the plant-based seafood game for a while, others are diving in with new offerings: Asia plant-based giant Omnifood launched their line of plant-based seafood last summer, Plantish came out of stealth with their whole cut salmon last week, and Madrid-based Mimic recently launched its tomato-based alt-tuna. If 2021 was a big year for alt-fish, expect 2022 to be even bigger.

Bonus Prediction: Plant-Based Meat Consolidation

How many plant-based burger and chicken nugget brands can we expect to make it?

As with any market moving beyond adolesence, don’t be surprised to see some consolidation in plant-based meats. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, there are simply too many offerings in many of the same categories to survive. In 2022, I expect we’ll see some market consolidation as bigger players scoop up smaller players either to kickstart their plant-based lines or to shore up holes. And, sadly, some companies simply may not survive.