Long-held as a taste icon for many diehard animal meat-eaters, now bacon is also experiencing plant-based disruption. Sales of plant-based bacon are up 25% – double the rate for the same period for animal-based bacon – and the plant-based bacon market as a whole doubled in 2020 to $267 million, reports Bloomberg.
As multiple players are entering the space from different angles, here is the vegconomist latest from the major disruptors in alt bacon:
Robert Downey Jr. backed Atlast Food Co, a spinoff from Ecovative Design, has raised $100 million to create the world’s largest mycelium farm to create its fungi-based bacon flagship product.
Prime Roots has launched what it claims to be the world’s first plant-based bacon lineup of thick-cut, butcher-style bacon in Black Pepper, Sriracha, Maple, and Hickory flavors, which are created with a Japanese superprotein fungi called koji.
San Francisco’s Hooray Foods, producer of “cult” vegan bacon available in over 300 Whole Foods stores across the US, has raised $4 million in total seed financing to scale production capacity to meet immediate demand from leading national retail and grocery chains.
French startup 77 Foods has created highly realistic “pork” fat made from sunflower oil, an invention that led it to win Unilever’s Innovation Challenge. With the fat, 77 Foods has made plant-based bacon and pork lardons, with 92 percent of participants preferring the plant-based bacon over the conventional variety.
After developing the world’s first cell-cultured bacon, Mission Barns, has raised $24 million in Series A round funding to upscale its cell-cultured fat technology and build a pilot factory in the Bay Area, California.
British meat brand Richmond, owned by food giant Kerry, has launched low calorie, low salt, and low saturated fat meat-free bacon rashers made with soy protein, available at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Waitrose.
