How Rebellyous Foods’s New Mock 2 Platform Makes Cost-Competitive Plant-Based Meat

Seattle startup Rebellyous Foods has unveiled its Mock 2 Production System, which reduces the cost of manufacturing plant-based meat to reach parity with animal proteins.

In February 2023, Rebellyous Foods closed a $9.4M Series B funding round to build its flagship meat analogue production system, Mock 2, which it promised would deliver products on par with the price and quality of conventional meat.

Less than two years later, it has achieved that goal, announcing the completion of the technology platform, which can produce 2,500-5,000 lbs of different kinds of meat analogues every hour on a single processing line, and deliver 60% cost reductions compared to existing production methods for vegan meat.

Famous for its vegan chicken nuggets, tenders, and patties, the company unveiled the new Mock 2 Production System at RMS Foods’s New Mexico facility. It already offers cost-competitive products – its plant-based tenders go at $61.49 per kg for foodservice customers, versus $60.99 for Tyson’s Red Label Tenders, and $93.49 for Beyond Meat’s version.

But Mock 2 system – a fully continuous, automated, and chilled dough substrate processing system – enables further cost savings, while significantly improving energy efficiency, minimising material waste, slashing its climate footprint, and enhancing employee safety and working conditions.

This is important, considering that 53% of Americans are deterred from buying meat analogues due to their prohibitive prices, and that 45% of consumers are more likely to buy these products if they provided better bang for their buck.

How the Mock 2 system cuts production costs

“Our Mock 2 technology is the key to meeting the unmet demand for delicious, affordable plant-based options. We’re not just competing on price and volume – we’re setting new standards for texture, flavour and quality,” said Christie Lagally, a former Boeing engineer who founded the business in 2017.

The company has made a major play for the foodservice sector, and has products in universities, restaurants, correctional centres, and event and entertainment venues. The feather in its cap, however, is its partnership with cafeterias in the National School Lunch Program. Rebellyous Foods’s vegan nuggets meet the USDA’s child nutrition standards, and its products reach over four million students nationwide.

Mock 2 will drive the next phase of its growth. It replaces the Mock S1 system and its batch-based process with a “fully automated, labour-free, continuous production system”, Lagally explained.

“The Mock 2 system is an automated, continuous production technology designed for making high-quality plant-based meat,” she told Green Queen. “It integrates temperature control and digital monitoring to precisely hydrate, emulsify, chill and mix ingredients, ensuring consistency and quality.”

She added: “Unlike conventional batch processing, which requires employees to mix the product and move it to different systems, Mock 2 operates continuously, significantly reducing energy and labour requirements. It also maintains the quality that delivers delicious plant-based products.

“The Mock 2 reduces costs by automating the production process, which lowers labour requirements and the equipment-level chilling decreases energy usage. The system also improves consistency, leading to fewer errors and waste and minimizing the need for a cold work environment, which typically adds to operational costs​.”

In addition, Lagally noted that the platform “reduces space, energy, and labour demands, providing better worker safety and enhanced food safety due to less human involvement and improved sanitation”.

Rebellyous Foods readies itself for ‘aggressive growth’

Plant-based meat sales have been on the decline – they were down by 12% in 2023. More recently, dollar sales dipped by 6% in the five weeks ending September 1, compared to the same period a year ago, according to Circana data crunched by 210 Analytics.

But Rebellyous Foods’s sales have gone the opposite way, roughly doubling in each of the last three years, which the company says demonstrates “the need for delicious plant-based meat options” and is a marker of the brand’s differentiation.

It helps that the products taste good. A weeks-long blind taste test last year revealed that Americans prefer vegan nuggets from the leading brands (70%) than they do conventional versions (54%) – and one of these brands was Rebellyous Foods.

That said, Lagally confirmed that the brand has left the retail space for now. “The company is focusing on cost-sensitive, high-volume markets such as schools, hospitals, and correctional facilities where quality is always a priority,” she said, before adding that it “may re-enter” supermarkets in the future.

“Rebellyous will use the Mock 2 system for our products, including plant-based chicken nuggets, patties, and tenders,” confirmed Lagally. It will produce its own offerings with this technology at the RMS Foods facility. “We anticipate that it will help reduce our product prices, maintaining the quality and delicious flavour and texture our customers love. It will also eventually offer additional revenue streams through partnerships and deployments in other facilities​,” she said.

The company began inviting proposals for the Mock 2 technology – patented in the US, Canada and Japan, with others pending – from USDA and FDA food processing facilities at the start of the year. And it’s now exploring international partnerships too. “We aim to deploy the Mock 2 in these regions by collaborating with existing food processing facilities,” said Lagally.

“Now that Rebellyous has delivered on the milestones of our Series B – which was nearly two years ago – we are speaking with select investors to support high-margin growth,” she revealed. “Future funds will be used for scaling costs, sales and marketing growth, product development, ingredient optimisation, and Mock 2 deployments​.”

Lagally added that the company wants to regain its production technology too in the next 12 months: “Rebellyous plans to continue its aggressive growth strategy, including deploying new Mock 2 systems, expanding into new distribution points, exciting new product development, and entering new product markets.”