Consumer demand for more sustainable alternatives to animal proteins is strong and will lead to their expansion on restaurant menus, according to Michael Aucoin, CEO of Eat & Beyond, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based investment firm that specializes in alternative food companies. The company’s investments include Plant Power Fast Food, a plant-based quickservice chain in Southern California, as well as makers of plant-based foods, such as Nabati Foods, which supplies a plant-based cheese alternative to restaurants, and Eat Just, which is known for its Just Egg brand but also has a division specializing in cell-based meat alternatives.
Aucoin recently spoke with SFA News Daily about the opportunities and challenges ahead for plant-based foods and other alternative protein sources in foodservice.
Where do you see the key opportunities for restaurants in the world of plant-based meat alternatives?
I think the big opportunity for restaurants revolves around what I call “plant-based curious” consumers — the flexitarians predominantly. We’re see that up to 60, 70 or 80 percent of people are curious about plant-based foods. As restaurants try and figure out how to serve those consumers’ needs, offering more plant-based items on the menu simply allows them to meet those consumers’ needs better. That’s really the opportunity, and the companies that are the early movers and are really establishing their branding in this space will capture disproportionate growth tied to that.
What are the key challenges to more widespread adoption of plant-based menu items?
There are a couple of hurdles. The first one is cost. When you think about plant-based protein, the economies of scale that exist in the traditional animal-based categories simply are not there yet, but they are getting there. I think once we get to processing scale and those kinds of things, there will actually be a cost-benefit with plant-based, because it will be cheaper than the whole infrastructure of rearing and then butchering animals.
The second one is truly replicating the taste profiles and experience that restaurants are known for providing. That’s where a lot of work is being done. Some of the companies we invest in are spending a lot of time focused on quickservice restaurants in terms of matching taste profiles, texture profiles, and those kinds of things that were not readily apparent in the early plant-based products. One of our portfolio companies, Nabati, has been able to do a lot with cheese in terms of replicating the melt, so there’s that stretch and pull, and that same texture. That has truly been an advancement and garnered a lot of interest among a number of foodservice operators.
Overlaying that is taste — for a consumer who is used to the taste of mozzarella, how do you get that same flavor profile when they get a plant-based pizza? The restaurant operator wants the pizza to taste the same, so the consumer gets the same experience.
In plant-based, they don’t need to get over the hurdle of consumer awareness, because there is a tsunami of consumer demand coming, which is why we do what we do at Eat & Beyond. Restaurants just need to position their menu properly, and then deliver on that consumer experience, and they will have tremendous success.
What do you see as the opportunities for cultured meat in restaurants?
Cultured meat is a very interesting space. It’s a longer-term investment. It is going to be a little bit longer in terms of reaching economies of scale. The technology isn’t there yet, but there’s a lot of bright minds and a lot of investment around the world going into figuring that out. I think we’re a good five to 10 years out before we see any meaningful adoption flowing through the supply chain.
What it will allow us to do is to perfectly replicate the animal protein experience in a more sustainable way, whether that’s from an environmental perspective, or from an individual health perspective, because some of these products are going to be tailored around certain elements of that. From a consumer experience perspective, at a molecular level you can replicate that exact same flavor and texture.
We’ve already seen some tests in Singapore [with Eat Just’s Good Meat division, which tested cell-based chicken at a restaurant there]. It’s not economic yet, but they are a proof-of-concept that we think is very interesting.
In what animal protein categories do you expect to see plant-based products making inroads as replacements in the coming year?
I think seafood is the next one, but it is more complicated, only because you don’t have the ubiquity. Ground beef shows up in everything, and cheese is a surprisingly large part of the global diet, especially the North American diet, so those are huge opportunities. When you get to fish, it’s a little bit different. There’s a huge demand for fish overall, but it’s very specific to salmon, or tuna, or sushi grade, for example. Those opportunities in aggregate are just as big, but it’s a little bit narrower in terms of how they are developed on a product-by-product basis.
One thing that will be an interesting evolution over the next five to 10 years is that right now we are interested in replicating animal protein, but as more people become accustomed to a plant-based diet, I think we will start moving away from replicating animal protein and just start enjoying plant-protein or alternative protein for what it is. I think we will start to see novel ways to deliver protein in a well-rounded diet that doesn’t rely on animal protein.
Do you see innovative plant-based foods starting out in fine dining and trickling down to quickservice, as many new restaurant foods tend to do?
I think fine dining is already there. When I travel, I make it a point to visit the best plant-based restaurants in every market that I go to, and what is available in those kitchens is absolutely astounding. And I think from a cell-based perspective, that will be the same.
In terms of a volumetric opportunity, it’s obviously going to be QSR. We have some investments in that area — Plant Power Fast Food in Southern California, and we are very excited about their prospects. When it comes to widespread adoption, it will be QSR that I think will really pick up the ball and run with it.
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