Race to replace chicken: Impossible Foods launches vegan chicken nuggets

This fall, Impossible Foods will launch plant-based chicken nuggets in the restaurant business. The new Impossible Chicken Nuggets, the company’s first chicken product, will be unveiled next week at DOT Foods (the country’s largest food redistributor) to show operators the potential of its plant-based chicken. The Impossible Chicken Nuggets will be made from sunflower oil and textured soybeans, potentially from non-GMO sources, and are expected to expand into the retail sector once they launch into the retail channel. catering, which may include school lunch menus.

In May, Impossible Foods earned a Child Nutrition (CN) label – an accreditation from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) – which allows its Impossible Burger products, both in patties and in bulk, to be served for breakfast and lunch from kindergarten to grade 12. schools across the country. Chicken nuggets can be found in many school cafeterias across the country, and Impossible’s new herbal nuggets were designed as a viable alternative.

Until now, Impossible Foods has been best known for its Impossible Burger, which mimics beef using soybean legumes (“heme”), a heroic ingredient that gives the plant-based patty the same qualities. meat. The new Impossible Chicken Nuggets will not contain heme, an ingredient the company tried in its formulation process but found to be redundant in its new chicken product.

And while Impossible Foods now has a few plant-based meat products under its belt – and a “working” plant-based prototype of milk – the disruptive company aims to create viable plant-based alternatives to every single food item. animal origin in the next 14 years. years. “Our mission is to completely replace the use of animals as food technology by 2035. We’re very serious about it and we believe it’s doable,” Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown said during from a recent conference. “I was confident we would be successful when I started this business, and now I’m completely confident. It’s over for the holder [meat] industry, they just don’t realize it yet.

Beyond Meat launches vegan chicken

Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have faced each other over the past five years in their race to replace beef and pork with plant-based alternatives on store shelves and foodservice menus around the world. Now both brands are taking on chicken, with the Beyond Meat version first making its way to restaurants.

Last week, Beyond Meat announced the launch of its Beyond Chicken Tenders in around 400 restaurants, including pubs, bars, traditional chicken wing shops and vegan chains. The tenders aren’t Beyond Meat’s first foray into vegan chicken – it offered (now discontinued) plant-based chicken strips in 2012. However, its innovation team has spent a decade perfecting the vegan chicken that reproduces its animal counterpart. Breaded Beyond Chicken Tenders are made from a blend of faba beans and peas and previously received an award from the National Restaurant Association which called them “a must-have menu item that will elevate your menu to participate in the Chicken War. “.

The carnage of the chicken wars

Billions of chickens are tortured each year to create nuggets, wings and fillets and chicken meat is now scarce due to disruptions in the meat industry caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The demand for chicken has also skyrocketed due to the so-called “chicken war” sparked by the popularity of chicken sandwiches in chains such as Popeyes and Chick-Fil-A – the new entrants in the chicken war. putting even more pressure on the meat industry to pump cheap chicken at the expense of animal welfare.

However, plant-based companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are entering the chicken market at an opportune time. As fast food chains struggle to stockpile animal-sourced chicken and the meat industry struggles to close the production gap exposed by the pandemic, vegan chicken is starting to become a very attractive alternative.

In 2019, KFC aimed to differentiate itself from its chicken chain competitors by adding Beyond Fried Chicken to its menu at a location in Atlanta for a day. There, the vegan chicken was made by Beyond Meat and sold out in less than five hours. KFC then expanded the test market to various locations in Southern and Southern California, but has yet to launch Beyond Fried Chicken nationwide. With Popeye’s reportedly stocking chicken as it prepares to launch its own chicken nuggets at the end of the month, a move in the vegan chicken direction could pay off for forward-thinking chains.

One channel ahead of the Chicken Wars is Panda Express, which is set to test a vegan version of its famous Orange Chicken created in partnership with Beyond Meat. Starting July 26, Panda Express will be adding Beyond The Original Orange Chicken, which has the same taste, crunch and hot sauce as the original but without any animal products, in select locations around the world. New York and Los Angeles for a limited time with the goal of a larger rollout after the test begins.