FDA has issued draft guidance to help ensure appropriate labeling of plant-based products that are marketed and sold as alternatives to milk, dubbed “plant-based milk alternatives” (PBMA). This draft guidance will provide the food sector with recommendations that will result in clear labeling and clarify that the common or usual names of some PBMA have been established by common usage.

The agency recommends that PBMA products labeled with the term “milk” in their names, such as “soy milk” or “almond milk,” and that have a nutrient composition that is different from milk, include a voluntary nutrient statement that conveys how the product compares with milk based on USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service fluid milk substitutes nutrient criteria. FDA hopes that these statements will help consumers understand certain nutritional differences between plant-based products and milk.

If a PBMA is not labeled with “milk” as part of its name, but instead is labeled with another term like “beverage” or “drink” and does not make a claim comparing the product to milk, then the voluntary nutrient statement recommendations in the draft guidance do not apply.

In 2018, FDA issued notice soliciting comments from the public to gain insight into how consumers use PBMA products and how they understand the term “milk” when included in the names of products made, for example, from soy, peas, and nuts. The agency received more than 13,000 comments.

After reviewing these comments and conducting focus group studies with consumers, the agency determined that consumers generally understand that PBMA do not contain milk and choose PBMA because they are not milk; however, many consumers may not be aware of the nutritional differences between milk and these products. For example, almond- or oat-based PBMA products may contain some calcium and be consumed as a source of calcium, but their overall nutritional content is not similar to milk and fortified soy beverages and, thus, they are not included as part of the dairy group in the dietary guidelines.

Comments on the draft guidance can be submitted to Regulations.gov.

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While dairy has maintained a strong presence throughout the history of human diets, its nearly universal appeal in the modern world was not inevitable. Milk—and dairy products in general—have only maintained their consumer appeal through a constant cycle of innovation in line with market demands.

Even today, we are discussing a radically different dairy landscape than the one that existed 30 years ago. Dairy, a product that was once predominantly centered around Europe and North America, has seen massive growth in production and consumption across the world, especially in Latin America and Asia. It has also seen a transformation in how it is perceived, reinventing itself as a health food to target contemporary consumer concerns and evolving to encompass plant-based milk products that extend the market “beyond the cow.”

This traditionally dynamic marketplace has only been made livelier by the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerating trends that were already underway and introducing new challenges to processors.

All of these changes and the “new normal” of the last two years during the pandemic have highlighted the need for novel and advanced testing and analysis technologies. Equipped with these, processors can adapt and seize new opportunities presented by this ever-evolving marketplace.

In this article, we will break down five key trends currently affecting the dairy industry and explore how, backed by robust testing technologies, dairy processors can best capitalize on these trends.

1. Plant-Based Products

A growing number of people, predominantly in Europe and North America, are identifying as vegan or attempting to reduce animal product consumption. This intensifying demand, paired with the novel formulation technologies that allow processors to better simulate the taste and feel of dairy products, has led to plant-based milk products commanding a growing market share.

As with any novel product, safety and quality assurance should be at the top of the agenda for any processor. While ensuring safety in all milk products is critical, it introduces some distinct challenges for plant-based offerings.

For example, plant-based milk products tend to hold more suspended particles than their animal counterparts, which can lead to processing difficulties in instrumentation originally designed for animal-based products. Plant qualities such as stickiness can lead to processing disruption and an increased need for maintenance. The suspended solids also cause issues in characterizing these products when using certain analytical techniques. The nature of these formulations means that the density of the products is not always clear, making it difficult to judge which products are fit to be used in specific instrumentation.

When analyzing a plant-based sample, we can apply what we know in traditional dairy products, where formulations higher than 30% solids require near-infrared instrumentation. Therefore, in solid-rich plant-based milk products, near-infrared is usually best suited. Alternatively, in those lower than 15% total solids, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) liquid analyzers can test samples in less than 30 seconds and with lower than 1% coefficient of variation (CV). Furthermore, diode array-based instrumentation, which can fit directly across a belt or pipeline, can provide rapid spectra of a product sample within six seconds. And for high-detail analysis, Fourier transform near-infrared (FT-NIR) can separate wavelengths in the near-infrared range within 30 seconds.

This is an area that is rapidly growing in response to market demands, with many instrument manufacturers beginning to roll out calibrations specific to plant-based milk products.

2. Dairy Industry Testing Is Traveling Upstream

Across the broader dairy industry, testing technologies are being applied further upstream in the supply chain by processors. With more stringent global food regulations, a growing clean-label product demand, and rising competition between brands, processors are requiring or intensifying early stage and raw ingredient testing in order to have more control of product quality.

The change to upstream testing can be most clearly seen in antibiotic residue testing. Veterinary drugs, such as antibiotics, are used on farms to prevent infections and promote health in cows. To prevent antibiotic residues from accumulating upstream and seeping into dairy supplies, processors rigorously test samples to ensure compliance.

Lateral flow strip tests, for example, can be used to test throughout the dairy creation process: from field and farm to contract and in-house processing labs. This easy-to-use, accurate technology can detect a broad range of antibiotics found in cow’s milk both at or below European Union and Codex Maximum Residue Limits. Better yet, they often require almost no sample preparation and produce results within minutes.

FTIR is also being applied more widely at milk collection points. Using solutions that ensure easy installation and minimal moving parts for easy transportation, these instruments can test for both composition and untargeted adulterants.

By routinely applying these technologies, processors can more easily adhere to regulations and continue to provide consumers with safe products. They can also more confidently assure safety in their products, as well as prevent the large-scale losses incurred when contaminated ingredients are mingled with healthy supplies. As testing continues to move upstream, easy-to-use and transportable technologies such as these will be important. 

3. Intuitive Instrumentation

The food processing industry generally sees high staff turnover. With broader labor shortages across several industries, dairy processors are also seeing more intense staff shortages. The specific and lengthy training requirements within the dairy processing industry in particular means that these shortages are leading to workflow breakdowns and reduced productivity. To keep profit margins stable, processors need to embrace technologies that can help remedy these issues.

Intuitive instruments and software that delivers real-time learning can reduce training times and keep workflows optimized, even as staffs change. Through clever design, manufacturers can integrate useful features like touch screens, one-button operation, and automation to lower barriers to use for operators and scientists alike. They can also ensure that maintenance on the equipment is simple to perform, thereby minimizing downtime. These collective modifications can add up to big benefits in workflow efficiency.

4. Responding to Regulation in the Dairy Industry

A hallmark of the modern food industry is tightening regulation. Across the world, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is driving higher standards. This, combined with greater customer expectations of ingredient transparency, means that dairy farmers, collectors, and processors need to understand their product compositions and safety profiles better than ever before. To do this, the dairy industry needs robust instrumentation that can help provide proper antibiotic, mycotoxin, and pathogen detection across a wide range of products.

By leveraging FTIR and FT-NIR systems, for example, processors can perform adulterant pass/fail screening in one minute or less; using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS), processors can thoroughly test for antibiotics and veterinary drug residues in milk; and with inline NIR systems, they can understand their dairy powder compositions in less than 10 seconds with no sample prep.

For efficient mycotoxin testing in complex dairy matrices, processors can also use DON ELISA kits, in which the workflow is designed for users to “set it and forget it,” minimizing manual intervention and manual error. Solutions like these are also highly efficient, helping lab teams process up to 192 samples in fewer than 90 minutes.

Equipped with the latest instrumentation and assay kits, manufacturers can best inform customers as to what’s inside their products, as well as help keep them safe from any possible adulterants.

5. Data in Dairy

While testing data solutions are currently being rolled out across almost every industry, they remain generally underused in the dairy industry, offering processors an opportune chance to get ahead.

One way data solutions can help processors is through synchronization of their workflows to achieve improved efficiency. Some solutions can give access to visualizations and predictive analytics, helping to provide a more complete overview of workflows, ingredient quality, and product performance. Modern software tools can also pull out areas where workflows can be made more efficient, with the overall goal of leveraging data to help managers make more informed and faster decisions that can reduce time, cost, and waste demands while increasing product quality.

Data solutions in dairy are undoubtedly going to scale up in the future. As sensors become more sophisticated, two areas within data solutions in particular will see advancement. First, more user-specific visualizations and information will be available for processors, and second, tailored automation when leveraging data will become widespread.

Looking to the Future

As with many industries, the dairy industry is currently undergoing a period of change. Adapting to this is fundamental if the industry wants to maintain dairy’s near-global appeal as a popular, reliable, nutritional, and tasty product. From plant-based milk products to tightening regulations, there are no signs that the dynamic dairy industry is slowing down. Further, with milk becoming ever more global and differences in product demands continuing to diverge, it’s highly possible we will see an even more varied and distinct marketplace in the future.

Smart, robust testing and analysis technologies are key when trying to stay on top in the quickly changing landscape of dairy. With innovative testing and analysis solutions and best practices, processors can add new firepower to their value and quality and continue to create competitively exciting and customer-driven products to the global marketplace.

Beukema is senior manager of R&D for PerkinElmer, Inc., Food Segment. Reach him at wopke.beukema@perkinelmer.com.

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A trio of bills designed to ensure that vegetarian and vegan foods sold in Wisconsin cannot be labeled as meat, milk, or dairy if they don’t contain those products, passed unanimously last week in the state’s Assembly.

Proponents of the legislation, referred to as “truth in labeling” measures, argue that these requirements will better protect Wisconsin’s agriculture economy by educating consumers about what they deem to be misleading food labels.

One bill deals with labeling on milk products and requires only milk that comes from cows, goats, or other hooved mammals to be classified as milk. A second bill prohibits the use of terms “cream,” “yogurt,” or “cheese” on products that don’t include dairy. The third deals with the use of the words “meat,” “bacon,” or similar terms unless the product includes animal flesh.

Wisconsin state representative Travis Tranel, one of the authors of the bills, expressed the importance of protecting the markets that farmers have developed in the state through public education programs. “Consumers deserve to know when they’re spending their hard-earned dollars on dairy that it’s actually milk from a cow or a goat,” he says. “Same thing with meat. When they decide that they want to purchase meat they need to know where that’s from, and I think that’s fair.”

Both the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association and Dairy Business Association have come out in favor of the Assembly’s passage of these bills.

The Plant Based Foods Association, an opponent of the bills, argues that the legislation presents presents a “misguided attack on innovation and all food producers’ free speech rights.”

The bills now head to the senate and Gov. Tony Evers has said on record that he will likely sign the bills if they reach his desk; however, the laws would only take effect if 10 states out of a group of 15 approve similar bans by 2031. To date, both Maryland and North Carolina have passed milk labeling laws that can’t go into effect unless other states follow suit. A total of 17 states have passed some sort of meat labeling law.

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Attempts to legislatively constrain the English language are rarely successful. There are many reasons for this, both legal and practical. Yet, the appetite for such efforts, especially in the food industry, seems to be all but insatiable. This article explores ongoing attempts to constrain the use of the term “milk,” and the legal battles being waged in furtherance of that pursuit.

The online Merriam Webster dictionary offers several definitions of “milk.” The first is “an opaque white fluid rich in fat and protein, secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their young.” Another is to exploit or defraud someone. FDA’s standard of identity for milk provides that “nilk is the lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows.” The FDA’s standard of identity of course excludes the milk from goats and other mammals. One final definition from Merriam Webster is “a liquid resembling milk in appearance, such as the latex of a plant or the contents of an unripe kernel of grain.”

In recent years, significant acrimony has arisen over which types of products may be called “milk.” Throughout the country, laws are being enacted and battles are being waged—both in the court of public opinion and the actual courts—over what types of products may be called milk. The increasing popularity of plant-based milk alternatives is largely attributable to shifting views about the health benefits of cow’s milk and the moral implications of animal agriculture, which include concerns about animal welfare, environmental impacts, and perceptions about the nutritional value of plant-based products.

In response to the explosive growth of plant-based dairy alternatives, i.e., almond milk and oat milk, the dairy industry has vociferously argued that using the term “milk” in the names of these products should be prohibited. According to the National Milk Producers Federation, “Dairy farmers take great pride in their high-quality, nutritious dairy products and have spent many decades building consumer confidence in them. Imitations should not be allowed to unfairly capitalize on these associations, especially in ways that encourage inadequate nutrition and consumer confusion.” The organization further advocates for efforts to end the “continued proliferation and marketing of mislabeled non-dairy substitutes for standardized dairy foods misrepresented as ‘milk,’ ‘cheese,’ ‘butter,’ ‘yogurt,’ ‘ice cream,’ or other dairy foods.”

Conversely, the Good Food Institute (GFI), an organization that advocates on behalf of plant-based products, contends that consumers are not fooled by plant-based dairy alternatives. The GFI asserts itself as a proponent of protecting plant-based companies’ first amendment rights to label their products using words that consumers understand. Echoing recent court holdings, GFI argues that no reasonable consumers are misled by the term “almond milk,” which any consumer instantly understands is not cow’s milk.

Legislation and Regulation

Politically, the campaign for and against plant-based dairy alternatives has been bipartisan. In April 2021, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), who is the chair of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, and U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) reintroduced the Dairy Pride Act, a piece of federal legislation that seeks to force FDA to take punitive measures against food producers that use dairy terms, such as “milk,” “cheese,” and “yogurt,” to describe plant-based dairy alternatives. The act previously stalled in the legislature, and it is unclear whether it will pass this time around.

From a regulatory standpoint, the debate hinges on whether these products are misleading or misbranded. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) prohibits the introduction or delivery into interstate commerce of any misbranded foods. A food is misbranded if it violates any of the voluminous and arguably arcane labeling regulations intended to prevent manufacturers from misleading consumers about the make-up or nutritional value of foods. Under these regulations, a food is misbranded “if it purports to be or is represented as a food for which a definition and standard of identity has been prescribed by regulations.”

FDA has historically posited that the standard of identity for “milk” only applies to the use of the unqualified term. As such, if a producer of almond milk simply labeled their product as “milk,” it would be mislabeled. Indeed, when the regulation establishing the identity standard for “milk,” was promulgated, FDA stated the standard would not preclude the use of the term “milk” for qualified products like chocolate milk. By way of comparison, there are other similarly situated foods, such as corn bread and rice noodles, which are not bread or noodles in the traditional sense. According to GFI, it’s equally clear that almond milk and other plant-based milks do not purport to be “milk.”

For several years, FDA has been reviewing whether these terms are likely to mislead or confuse consumers. In a July 2018 statement, Scott Gottlieb, MD, then-FDA Commissioner, stated that, “Because these dairy alternative products are often popularly referred to as ‘milk,’ we intend to look at whether parents may erroneously assume that plant-based beverages’ nutritional contents are similar to those of cow’s milk, despite the fact that some of these products contain only a fraction of the protein or other nutrients found in cow’s milk.” It is unclear at this point what that review has found or whether it remains ongoing.

Case Law

The cases that have been decided to date have been largely unfavorable to opponents of plant-based dairy alternatives.

In Gitson v. Trader Joe’s Co., the plaintiffs sued to enjoin the sale of soy milk, arguing they were misled to believe that organic soy milk complied with FDA’s standard of identity for milk and that organic soy milk provided quality, taste, and nutritional benefits comparable to cow’s milk.

The court disagreed with the plaintiffs and held that the standard of identity regulation “simply means that a company cannot pass off a product as ‘milk’ if it does not meet the regulatory definition of milk.” The court assested that it was implausible to believe that a reasonable consumer would believe soy milk is cow’s milk and has the same qualities as cow’s milk. In granting the extraordinary relief of dismissing the case, the court reasoned that Gitson was “one of those rare cases where the accused label itself makes it impossible for the plaintiff to prove that a reasonable consumer is likely to be deceived.”

Ang v. Whitewave Food Co. resulted in a similar outcome. In this case, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants had misbranded Silk products by using names like “soymilk,” “almond milk,” and “coconut milk,” since the Silk products are plant-based, and FDA defines “milk” as a substance coming from lactating cows (the “milk claims”). The court forcefully rejected the plaintiffs’ argument. In its decision, the court asserted that the names “soymilk,” “almond milk,” and “coconut milk” accurately describe Defendants’ products.

Further, the court noted that the name “almond milk” clearly conveyed the basic nature and content of the beverages, while simultaneously distinguishing them from cow’s milk. “Moreover, it is simply implausible that a reasonable consumer would mistake a product like soymilk or almond milk with dairy milk from a cow. The first words in the products’ names should be obvious enough to even the least discerning of consumers,” the court concluded. Of particular import, the court reasoned that adopting the plaintiffs’ position could increase confusion, “especially with respect to other non-dairy alternatives such as goat milk or sheep milk.”

The court went so far as to compare the plaintiffs’ claims in Ang to those in another case, Werbel ex rel. v. Pepsico, Inc. In Werbel, in which the plaintiff claimed to have believed “Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berry” cereal derived its nutrition from actual fruit because of its label’s reference to berries and because the “crunch berries” resembled real berries. The court derided the allegations as “nonsense,” observing that the word “berries” was always preceded by the word “crunch” and that the crunch berries depicted on the label did not remotely resemble any naturally occurring fruit.

These disputes highlight an important area of tension in the law. On the one hand, it’s critically important to maintain prohibitions against deliberately misleading or deceiving consumers. On the other hand, society must take great care not to enact linguistic prescriptions, especially for the purpose of granting a commercial advantage to one industry over another. Banning the use of descriptive terms, even if they might conceivably be misconstrued by some consumers, is a very slippery slope and one that can have far-reaching and devastating implications. As for the use of dairy terms to describe plant-based products, it’s fair to say there are reasonable arguments on both sides. However, to the extent a manufacturer goes too far, marketing a product that is in fact misleading, there are many remedies available to address that situation under the current civil and regulatory framework. As such, the courts will likely continue to reject further restraints. What state and federal legislators and regulators may do, however, is uncertain.

The only thing that is certain is that the lawyers will continue to milk this issue for all it’s worth.

Chappelle is a food industry lawyer and a consultant at Food Industry Counsel, LLC. Reach him at chappelle@foodindustrycounsel.com. Stevens, also a food industry attorney, is a founding member of Food Industry Counsel, LLC. Reach him at stevens@foodindustrycounsel.com.

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In October, the European Parliament ruled that food products not containing meat could still be labeled “burgers” or “sausages” in the EU, allowing plant-based food makers to continue to label their products as “veggie burgers” or “veggie sausages.”

This came as a blow to animal agriculturists and meat producers who brought forth a measure that would ban plant-based meat alternatives from being referred to by the names of their meat counterparts.

Chris Wells, global food safety consultant with Seaton Food Consultants, says that vegetarian alternatives to sausages and burgers have been available in the EU for many years and, to aid vegetarian and non-vegetarian consumers in understanding what the products are, the terms “sausage” and “burger” have been used throughout that time.

“It appears that the growing consumer interest in flexitarian eating combined with the growth of non-meat products may have started to concern meat producers,” he tells Food Quality & Safety. “But, whatever the underlying reasons, meat producers encouraged the EU to make these descriptors unique to meat products. The recent vote clarified that the terms may still be used for a vegetarian product, and thus maintains the status quo.”

U.S. Labeling Laws

The labeling of non-meat products is already a hot topic in the U.S., and has been an ongoing debate for several years. There is no shortage of controversy surrounding this topic; many states have passed laws stipulating that only foods made of animal flesh are allowed to carry the labels “meat,” “sausage,” “jerky,” “burger,” or “hot dog.”

The Plant-Based Foods Association provides voluntary industry standards for labeling of various sub-categories of plant-based foods, including plant-based meats. They are engaged in policy battles as lobbying against The Real MEAT Act, which would codify the definition of “meat” for labeling purposes, require the use of the word “imitation” on plant-based meat labels, and expand jurisdiction of the labeling of plant-based foods to USDA if FDA fails to act. The organization has also been fighting state labeling restriction bills in Mississippi, Wisconsin, and other states.

In fact, in October, vegan brand Tofurky sued the state of Louisiana over SB 152, which prohibited both plant-based and cell line meats from using the terms “meat” and “beef.” Another plant-based product company, Upton’s Naturals, has filed a federal lawsuit against Oklahoma for the state’s Meat Consumer Protection Act, which will force them to put the words “vegan” and “plant-based” in giant letters on their packaging.

“Hopefully these cases, as well as with the recent EU decision, will keep the path clear for plant-based companies to continue expanding,” Madsen told FQ&S. “Beyond the moral, health and environmental reasons for vegan foods, more choices are good for consumers.”

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Nestle is launching a new plant-based tuna alternative in Switzerland this month ahead of a global rollout, hoping that consumers eating at home during the COVID-19 pandemic will stay eager to try new products.

Nestle has been investing in plant-based food to make its prepared dishes unit trendier and more appealing to consumers wishing to lower their meat intake. The new “Garden Gourmet” tuna made with pea protein will be available in glass jars in the chilled aisle of Swiss supermarkets and can be used in salads, sandwiches, and pizzas. Ready-to-eat sandwiches will also be sold in some stores, Nestle says.

Developed by Nestle’s Swiss research facilities, the tuna is the group’s first plant-based seafood product to hit the market. Soy-based burgers, mince meat, sausages, and chicken nuggets are already available.

Nestle said last month that increased at-home consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic boosted demand for its Garden Gourmet plant-based products in the first half of 2020. The group’s sales of plant-based meat alternatives reached around 200 million Swiss francs ($218.7 million) last year.

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While the growing consumer taste for plant-based meat generates a wider choice of foods, from meatless hamburgers to meatless “chicken” nuggets, at the same time, it creates a number of unknowns for food safety experts.

One key issue is FDA’s food standards of identity, which are several decades old. FDA held a public meeting in September 2019 to address the standards and how they might be hampering food innovation. “We know that many standards were established decades ago and have not been recently amended to reflect changes in consumer expectations or opportunities for innovation, including the ability to produce healthier foods,” Susan Mayne, PhD, and director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told the meeting.

She says FDA wants to modernize the standards of identity program so it will protect consumers against economic adulteration; maintain the basic nature, essential characteristics, and nutritional integrity of food; and promote industry innovation and provide flexibility to encourage manufacturers to produce more healthful foods. Dr. Mayne says that FDA is close to proposing a new definition for “healthy” foods, as well as continuing to work on the claim that a food is “natural.”

Separately, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition has issued a request for information regarding the use of dairy food names in plant-based product labeling, so that consumers are informed and not misled by labels. “We issued this notice to obtain data and better understand whether consumers are aware of and understand differences in the basic nature, characteristics, ingredients, and nutritional content of plant-based products and their dairy counterparts,” she says.

Hitting the Mainstream

The popularity of veggie burgers made by Beyond Meat, which McDonald’s is testing at its restaurants in Canada, and the Impossible Burger, sold by Burger King and White Castle, demonstrates that plant-based proteins aren’t just for vegans and vegetarians anymore, but are going mainstream.

U.S. retail sales of all types of plant-based foods rose 11.4 percent over the past year, to reach $5 billion now, says the Plant-Based Foods Association and The Good Food Institute. Of that total, plant-based meat sales were up 18 percent, to $939 million. Refrigerated plant-based meat drove that growth, rising 63 percent. Plant-based meat now accounts for two percent of retail packaged meat sales, the two groups said.

“One of the most amazing developments is that more than 100,000 fast food outlets offer plant-based meat, including Burger King. McDonald’s has been testing it in Canada,” says Julie Emmett, senior director of retail partnerships at the Plant-Based Foods Association in San Francisco.

Customers ordered 228 million servings of veggie burgers and veggie sandwiches at quick-serve restaurants from April 2018 to May 2019, according to research company NPD Group. Beef burgers still are more popular by far, with 6.4 million ordered in the same time frame. NPD said the desire for more protein in their diets, concerns for animal welfare and how meat products are brought to market, sustainability, and a perception of healthier nutrition all drive customers to buy more plant-based meats.

“Ultra-Processed”

Plant-based meat, also known as plant-based protein and alternative meat, typically includes proteins such as soy or peas, fats including coconut oil, carbohydrates such as methylcellulose, minerals, water, and flavoring. All of these ingredients put it into the “ultra-processed” category of NOVA, a widely used food classification system developed by researchers at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

NOVA looks at the level of processing in a food. Ultra-processed foods contain at least five ingredients, typically have added ingredients like fats and salts, and have modified or processed food ingredients. The Impossible Burger, for example, lists 21 ingredients on its website, while Beyond Meat lists 17.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said in a 2019 report on food processing that the processing in itself is not a good way to assess the food quality scientifically, because today, nearly all food is processed in some way. But, consumers and companies competing in the meat and meatless markets do use the term “processed” with a negative connotation to mean the food isn’t in a natural state.

There is a conflict about processing, says David Ervin, vice president of emerging proteins at Tyson Foods in Chicago. He was part of a webinar on plant-based foods last September hosted by the Center for Food Integrity in Gladstone, Mo., a nonprofit that works to help the food system gain consumer trust. “The processing is required to get the taste and texture, from pulling isolates out of peas and processing them with heat, moisture, and pressure to develop textures,” he says. “Taste is important, and to get that taste there are certain things we have to do.”

Tyson Foods, the largest meat producer in the United States, initially had invested in the plant-based meat company Beyond Meat, but now has its own line of alternative protein products. Ervin says that using the words “plant-based meat” causes controversy among meat producers, so Tyson opted instead to call its foods “plant-based proteins.”

White Castle, an eastern United States restaurant chain, sells a variety of plant-based burgers in its 140 locations. They include Dr. Praeger’s veggie burgers, black bean burgers, and the Impossible Slider. “The Impossible Slider looks like, sizzles like, and tastes like beef,” said Jamie Richardson, vice president of corporate relations at White Castle, during the same webinar. The Impossible Burger has coconut oil and sunflower oil in it to help create that sizzle.

Meatless burgers have often been touted by their makers as more healthy than conventional beef, with less fat and more fiber, but, on the downside, they have more salt for taste. “People are reading the labels on all of their food, including plant-based foods,” says Emmett.

But, compared with conventional hamburgers, plant-based proteins have more ingredients, some of which, such as the additive soy leghemoglobin, aren’t familiar to the average shopper. Soy leghemoglobin, or “heme,” is a color additive. Impossible Foods, the maker of the Impossible Burger, petitioned FDA last year to approve the additive, which the government agency did in July 2019. The company said the additive optimized flavor in its meatless products. Before FDA’s approval for direct-to-consumer sales of uncooked, red-colored beef analogue products, Beyond Beef had been selling products in cooked form that consumers could eat in a restaurant.

“We are in the midst of a revolution in food technology that in the next 10 years will likely lead to more innovations in food and ingredient production than there have been in the past half century,” says Dennis Keefe, PhD, and director of FDA’s Office of Food Additive Safety, when heme was approved. “As these new products and ingredient sources come to market, FDA has a responsibility to provide the appropriate regulatory oversight to protect public health by ensuring that these new foods and food ingredients are safe,” he adds.

Food Safety for Plant-Based Meats

Because plant-based foods are relatively new to the food system, aspects from ingredient processing to potential allergic reactions to how to store and cook the foods still need to be reviewed under FDA’s Food Code for public health, according to panelists at last November’s Nation’s Restaurant News Food Safety Symposium.

Many of the plant-based meat products contain pea proteins and other ingredients that raise concerns about glyphosate residue levels from the broad-spectrum herbicides that are used to produce them, the panelists said. Soy, a frequently used ingredient in plant-based burgers, is a common allergen. As with conventional foods, plant-based foods can contain other ingredients that possibly could cause allergic reactions.

Most of the meatless burgers are transported frozen, says Emmett, and cooking temperatures usually are at least 165 degrees. “They can keep for nine months frozen and seven to 10 days thawed in the fridge,” she says.

As for assuring that the foods use only plant-based ingredients, the Plant Based Foods Association and product testing company NSF International launched a Certified Plant Based seal in November 2018. Foods eligible for certification include meat alternatives such as plant-based meat, poultry, and fish; egg substitutes; milk alternatives; and other dairy alternatives such as plant-based cheese, yogurt, butter, and ice cream.

Just for Vegans?

Meatless proteins aren’t just for vegans and vegetarians, experts say. In fact, it’s meat eaters who are driving the market. “It is about the choice of having plant-based meat in the diet once a week,” Ujwal Arkalgud, CEO of MotivBase, a cultural anthropology consulting company, said during the Center for Food Integrity webcast.

The more recently marketed burgers on the market, including the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Meat meatless burger, include more ingredients than earlier veggie burgers and are aimed at better taste, texture, and juiciness. “We’re clearly seeing a tipping point on consumer acceptance,” said Ervin at the webinar. “The biggest barrier in the past was taste. It’s not vegans and vegetarians driving the market, but meat eaters, so we have to satisfy them.”

Still, consumers remain focused on health and nutrition. Ervin says Tyson is bridging the meat and meatless markets with its “Raised and Rooted” brand of plant-based proteins, which blends equal parts of fresh Angus beef with plant-based protein. “It has 60 percent less saturated fat compared than 80/20 beef and 40 percent less calories,” he says. The 80/20 beef is 80 percent lean beef and 20 percent fat.

The Tyson blended burger has 150 calories and 19 grams of protein. It has 1 gram of dietary fiber. An 80/20 beef hamburger has about 300 calories and 30 grams of protein, according to calorieking.com. A Beyond Meat burger has 270 calories and 20 grams of fat, while the Impossible Burger has 240 calories and 19 grams of fat, according to both companies’ websites.

A 2019 Nielsen study says many of today’s shoppers are omnivores playing the field when it comes to exploring meat alternatives to get their dietary protein. “In fact, protein-seeking consumers are more likely than ever to consider all the options available to them,” Nielsen says. Some 98 percent of meat-alternative buyers in the United States also buy meat products, and 21 percent of those who typically buy only meat also are now buying plant-based meats.

White Castle, known for its sliders, noticed in 2015 that a lot of people wanted an alternative to beef. “We are an almost 100-year-old company, so we’ve always had to adapt and change to what our customers want,” says Shannon Tolliver, social responsibility and environmental sustainability manager at White Castle. She says the company started by partnering with Dr. Praeger’s, which makes burgers out of vegetables. White Castle later added a black beam burger. In 2018, it partnered with Impossible Foods to sell the Impossible Slider, and rolled that out to all White Castle restaurants last year. “Dr. Praeger’s is a veggie burger that doesn’t taste like a hamburger, but the Impossible Slider is similar to a beef taste,” she says. The beef taste has proven popular among Generation Z and millennial customers.

“Plant-based burgers allow consumers to substitute without sacrifice,” NPD food and beverage analyst Darren Seifer said when the market researcher released its data on that food category last summer. “With that said, U.S. consumers have not given up on beef burgers but are willing to mix things up every now and then.”

Arkalgud sees opportunities for both meat and meatless product sellers to innovate. Meat producers can potentially give more information to consumers about the meat they are buying, for instance. “One retailer I talked to wanted to tell consumers where the meat they were buying came from, what farm, and what the animals ate,” he says.

“This is not a fad,” says Arkalgud.

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Lab-grown meat, first introduced to the world six years ago in the form of a $280,000 hamburger, could hit supermarket shelves at $10 a patty within two years, European start-ups told Reuters.

Consumers concerned about climate change, animal welfare, and their own health are fueling interest in so-called clean meat, with the number of associated business start-ups climbing from four at the end of 2016 to more than two dozen two years later, according to the Good Food Institute market researcher.

Plant-based meat alternatives are also booming. Shares in Beyond Meat have more than tripled in price since its initial public offering in May. Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods each sell 100 percent plant-based meat alternatives to retailers and fast food chains across the U.S.

And cultured meat grown from animal cells could be next on the mainstream menu, with producers eyeing regulatory approval as they improve the technology and reduce costs.

It was Dutch start-up Mosa Meat’s co-founder Mark Post who created the first “cultured” beef hamburger in 2013 at a cost of 250,000 euros ($280,400), funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, but Mosa Meat and Spain’s Biotech Foods say that production costs have fallen dramatically since then.

“The burger was this expensive in 2013 because back then it was novel science and we were producing at very small scale. Once production is scaled up, we project the cost of producing a hamburger will be around 9 euros,” a Mosa Meat spokeswoman told Reuters, adding that it could ultimately become even cheaper than a conventional hamburger.

Price Parity

Biotech Foods co-founder Mercedes Vila also highlighted the importance of moving from lab to factory.

“Our goal is to reach production scale and have regulatory approval by 2021,” Vila said.

She said the average cost of producing a kilogram of cultured meat is now about 100 euros, significantly below the $800 cited a year ago by Future Meat Technologies, an Israeli biotech company that has received funding from U.S. meat processor Tyson Foods.

Biotech Foods, Mosa Meat and Higher Steaks, a London-based competitor also contacted by Reuters, have yet to file applications for EU approval because they are still working to improve their growth serum.

To make cultured meat, stem cells from the muscle of an animal are placed in a culture medium that is then put in a bioreactor—similar to those used for fermentation of beer and yogurt—to support growth of new strands of muscle tissue.

Liz Specht, associate director at the Good Food Institute market research firm that focuses on meat alternatives, said in a whitepaper this year that it was likely that cell-based meat would achieve price parity with conventional meat once production is on an industrial scale.

Specht identified the cell culture medium as the most significant cost driver and said it was possible to produce it without animal-derived components and at much lower prices.

Energy Efficiency

Proponents of this new technology say it’s the only environmentally sustainable way to satisfy meat demand that the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization expects to double between 2000 and 2050.

But John Lynch, an environmental scientist at the University of Oxford, said it remains unclear whether scalable lab-grown meat production can really convert energy and nutrients into meat more efficiently than conventional meat production.

“Some studies have suggested that cultured meat may require less of a ‘feed’ source than conventional livestock production, but require more energy. If this is the case, then their impact on the climate will depend on where this energy comes from,” he said.

Interest in the category has ensured start-ups have had ample access to funding.

Biotech Foods’ Vila said the company had sufficient funds up to 2021, the year it hopes to generate its first revenue, thanks to a capital injection from an unidentified investor.

Mosa Meat has meat processors Bell Food Group and Merck KGaA’s venture capital arm M Ventures among its investors.

In May food and agriculture group Cargill announced it had invested in cultured meat company Aleph Farms. ($1 = 0.8916 euros)

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U.S. meat processor Tyson Foods Inc. launched its first vegetarian and mixed-protein products, including a beef and pea burger, as it seeks to compete with Beyond Meat and other companies catering to rising demand for plant-based alternatives to meat.

Tyson is betting that meat eaters wanting healthier diets will see their blend as offering a meat taste and vegetable health.

It joins other food companies vying for a share of the U.S. alternative meat market which analysts estimate to be worth $100 billion by 2035 as consumers seek to reduce meat consumption amid growing concerns over health risks and environmental hazards of industrial animal farming.

Tyson will sell blended protein burgers made from beef and pea protein, and sausages and meatballs that combine chicken with plants including chickpeas, black beans, and quinoa, the company said in a statement. It also will offer vegetarian nuggets.

California upstarts Beyond Meat Inc. and Impossible Foods Inc. each sell 100 percent plant-based meat alternatives to retailers and fast food chains across the U.S.

Tyson sold its 6.5 percent stake in Beyond Meat in late April, just days before the company went public, to focus on the development of its own plant-based products.

Tyson’s plant-centered products, under its new Raised & Rooted brand, will be sold through its customers, sales outlets, and food service operators, Justin Whitmore, head of Tyson’s alternative protein business, said in an interview, declining to elaborate.

The largest U.S. meat processor, known for its Ball Park hot dogs and Jimmy Dean sausages, will launch the nuggets in the summer and the blended burgers in the fall.

Whitmore said it was too early to estimate revenues, calling Tyson’s plant-based business highly incremental, but he noted that could change.

“The double-digit growth in the sector is largely driven by meat eaters who want the health and nutrition that they perceive to come from plants along with the taste they’ve always had from animal protein,” Whitmore said, adding that the company was working on additional plant-based products.

Analysts at Mizuho Securities USA cast doubt on the company’s blended protein approach.

“We’re less confident in blended meat/plant products as we believe in the early stages of alternative meat, consumers want to make a simple binary decision between eating meat or not,” the analysts said in a note.

Tyson Chief Executive Noel White said in a statement the company remained firmly committed to expanding its traditional meat business, but is shifting toward becoming a protein company.

Other companies following a similar path include Canadian packaged meat producer Maple Leaf Foods Inc., whose vegan “ground beef” and burger patties, sold under its LightLife brand, will be on U.S. store shelves this summer.

Nestle, the world’s biggest packaged foods group, is aiming to sell a pea-based veggie patty called Awesome Burger under its U.S. plant-based Sweet Earth brand in the fall.

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Vegetarian burgers may finally be getting the recognition they need to go mainstream. On April 1, Burger King and Silicon Valley startup Impossible Foods announced the rollout of the Impossible Whopper in 59 stores in and around St. Louis, Missouri.

To mark the launch on April Fool’s day, the burger giant released a hidden-camera-style promo video showing the serving of plant-based Whoppers instead of meat to customers who marvel that they cannot tell the difference.

“We wanted to make sure we had something that lived up to the expectations of the Whopper,” said Burger King’s North America president, Christopher Finazzo. “We’ve done sort of a blind taste test with our franchisees, with people in the office, with my partners on the executive team, and virtually nobody can tell the difference.”

The Impossible Whopper comes at an extra cost—about a dollar more than the beef patty Whopper. But Finazzo said research shows consumers are willing to pay more for the plant-based burger.

Plant-based meat substitutes have been gaining popularity as more attention is focused on the environmental hazards of industrial ranching. Finazzo said his research shows customers mainly like it for the health benefits. The Impossible Burger patty has zero cholesterol.

Impossible Foods, based in Redwood City, Calif., launched its first faux meat patty over two years ago. A genetically modified yeast creates the key ingredient, called heme, which makes the patties appear to bleed and taste like real meat.

Burger King is not the first to serve up a no-meat burger. Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat in early January announced it was rolling out its plant-based burger at fast-food chain Carl’s Jr. Beyond Meat counts actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Microsoft founder Bill Gates as investors. It filed for an initial public offering in November.

Finazzo said Burger King also researched Beyond Meat, but decided that Impossible Food’s, which also counts Gates as an investor, offering was a better fit. “Around the taste, around the brand recognition, around the price, all those things were important factors in choosing Impossible,” he said.

Impossible Foods tailored a patty specifically for the Whopper, Chief Executive Pat Brown said.

“We’re now in well over 6,000 restaurants. If the Burger King launch is as successful as I expect it to be, and we go nationwide, that will add more than 7,000 restaurants that serve the Impossible Burger,” Brown said.

Impossible also counts Google Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Horizons Venture Singapore-based investment firm Temasek and U.S. chicken processor Tyson Foods Inc. among its investors. It’s been making inroads in Asia with the Impossible Burger as well.

Last year total U.S. retail sales of plant-based meat substitutes grew over 23 percent to exceed $760 million, according to Nielsen sales data analyzed by The Good Food Institute, a non-profit promoting plant-based alternatives to animal products.

Burger King rivals, food conglomerates, and meat packers are cooking up more plant-based burgers. McDonald’s Corp., the world’s biggest fast-food chain, sells soy-based burgers in Finland and Sweden.

Nestle S.A. is planning to debut its “Incredible Burger” soon in Europe. Unilever Plc late last year announced its acquisition of The Vegetarian Butcher to build out its plant-based portfolio.

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