What will the protein aisle of 2030 look like?

NOTE from LRIC: This post is one in a series of LRIC-prepared summaries of discussions and presentations that were part of the 2021 Future Food-Tech Alternative Protein Summit. LRIC attended this virtual summit to learn more about how the livestock sector is viewed and how it may be impacted by the growing popularity of protein alternatives. LRIC believes it is important for those in the livestock industry to know what is being said about our industry so we can refute where possible and change where necessary. Originally published in the August 2021 Livestock Innovation Newsletter.

The growth in popularity of alternative proteins is already being seen in consumer purchasing behaviour. As more plant-based and other animal-free protein products are developing, what will the protein aisle look like by 2030? How do plant-based, cellular and precision fermentation products fit into the mix?

That question was put to a panel of food industry professionals at the Future Food-Tech Alternative Protein Summit earlier this summer.   All panelists predicted a future different than what we know today.

Participating in the panel were Rene Lammers, Executive Vice President and Chief Research and Development Officer at Pepsico; Ryan Pandya, Co-Founder and CEO of alternative dairy company Perfect Day; Takoua Debeche, Chief Research and Innovation Officer at Danone North America; Xun Wang, President and CEO of Triton Algae Innovations; and Josh Silverman, CEO of sensing technology company Aromyx.

What will the protein aisle look like in 2030 and what are the key challenges you face in expanding your product portfolio?

Ryan Pandya, Perfect Day:
We are using fermentation of microflora to obtain the same whey protein as in dairy products. We started with ice cream because it spoke to the indulgent dairy delight that ice cream is and we felt there was a lack of true dairy delight in plant-based products with the creamy, milky profile of a true dairy product. We have a couple of products in the market right now. The economics also tip in favour of ice cream because there is only a small amount of protein. It’s protein, water, fat, and whipped-in air; all of these things let us stretch the small amount of protein we could make to the widest array of consumers.

Xun Wang, Triton Algae Innovations:
We work in fermentation of micro algae with 50% protein, iron, and omega oil. Green and red algae will be available later this year. The product has texture like real tuna but is 100% plant-based. We partner with brands who have consumers, with our innovation going into their final product to attract new customers for them and for us. We see micro algae as a future food ingredient.

Takoua Debeche, Danone North America:
We listened to our consumers and their most urgent needs. In the 1970s, we had our first plant-based milk and today, milk alternative is the largest dairy alternative category with high household penetration. Sixteen percent of total milk volume in the U.S. is plant-based. We have also expanded into other products like cheese, butter, yogurt, and ice cream, but they have much lower household penetration.

The volume share of dairy is 0.5% for alternative cheese to 6% for alternative yogurt so there are huge opportunities to expand those categories for plant-based products. We need to improve taste and texture and make those products more affordable - they need to taste as good as dairy and need to be at least at the same price.

Biotech protein or fermentation is helping us unlock some of the key challenges related to taste and texture. Plant-based cheese has a gap in texture and functionality, for example in stretchability and melting on a pizza. We hope using new biotech technologies to produce casein or animal fats without the animals helps us unlock those deep challenges and grow the categories.

Josh Silverman, Aromyx:
We are a biotech and data company. We use biotech to create more insightful measurements of taste and smell. We are cloning the receptors from nose and tongue and turning that into a lab based, reproduceable assay format to measure how a generic consumer would experience your product. Would they identify positive or negative flavour notes and what ingredients are they tied to? Our goal is to help new ingredient companies to create products faster.

Our real vision is to create something that is “better than”. To get broad market appeal, consumers have to not just like a product but to love it, and if we’re not trying to be better than what’s on the market now, we won’t get past single digit penetration. We’re competing with an established market.

Rene Lammers, Pepsico:
Collaboration is critical. The partnership between Pepsi and Beyond Meat has a health, wellness, and environment agenda. Pick who you want to partner with. The scalability of some of these technologies is exciting - how do you bring from lab scale or pilot scale to mass scale? That’s where the challenges lie. Consumers are taking us there and the pandemic may have accelerated that trend.

What’s working and what’s not?

Takoua Debeche, Danone North America:
We will continue to make improvements in cheese. There have already been big improvements since first launch of our cheese three to four years ago, but the big breakthrough won’t come for another five years when we can apply new technology to produce casein and animal fats without the animal. It could probably be even longer; those technologies are not yet at a commercial scale and will require huge investments. That’s why partnerships are essential.

Ryan Pandya, Perfect Day:
You’ll be seeing cream cheese from Perfect Day later this year. Casein is a difficult challenge that will take longer. Stretchy cheese is the holy grail for everyone. The flavour element in stretchy cheeses as well as functionality are still lacking. We will have close to 20 products on the shelf next year; it’s hard to even predict by 2030. We will produce 50,000 to 100,000 tons of protein on our own, not to mention our partners.

Xun Wang, Triton Algae Innovations:
I was in the agriculture industry for 20 years. Soy will still be there. It’s a fundamental commodity for animal feed and human consumption, but it has challenges. It is lacking some essential amino acids we need as mammals that we hope to balance in the future because of new protein sources like fungi and algae through fermentation. Those proteins are much more complete and easier to digest and have a much better nutrition profile than soybeans.

Takoua Debeche, Danone North America:
Soy is here to stay. Some consumers have negative perceptions of soy that are not based on science. We announced a partnership last year with Brightseed to uncover more functionality for soy. Soy is here to stay; we just need more work to promote the health benefits of soy. Scale will reduce costs for sure. If we want to replace an important share of current animal protein volume, we need a lot of fermenters. We need to think about that, but it will take time to ramp up to produce the volume we need.

Josh Silverman, Aromyx:
We see survey after survey that the deciding factor in mainstream purchase behaviour is flavour. For us to meet the targets of 2030 to surpass meat, it has to be if consumers really love it. Early adopters will buy based on sustainability, but repeat mainstream purchases are driven by taste. When people like something, they will pay for it.