Skip to content Skip to navigation

A stampede of meatless products overrun grocery store meat cases

The “Beyond Meat” patties that offended Mr. Kendig were made with pea protein, canola oil, coconut oil, potato starch and “natural flavor.” They’re part of a posse of look-alikes invading meat country—from plant-based burgers that ooze “blood” at first bite to chicken strips grown in a tank from poultry cells. High-tech startups are building burgers from plant proteins and compounds that grill and taste more like the real thing than old-fashioned veggie burgers.Other firms are using cell-culture technology to grow animal muscle tissue—otherwise known as meat—in stainless steel bioreactor tanks, similar to the fermentors used to brew beer.Even dairy cows are feeling the squeeze, with consumer milk sales threatened by an ocean of substitute “milk” made from nuts, peas and oats. The National Milk Producers Federation has protested beverages made from potato, pistachio, duckweed, canary grass seed and other greenery bearing the “milk” moniker.Cattlemen and dairy farmers are saddling up, and lawyering up, in response. The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association has petitioned the Agriculture Department to bar plant-based products from bearing labels that say “beef” or “meat,” with similar restrictions on meat grown from animal cells.

 

Article Link: 
Article Source: 
The Wall Street Journal
category: