Alt Protein Startup HaoFood Partners With Restaurants Across Shanghai To Launch Its Peanut-Based Chicken

Female-led food-tech startup HaoFood, which develops peanut-based meats, has recently partnered with five restaurants in Shanghai to offer Chinese consumers a new plant-based experience that will feature authentic dishes from cultures around the world.

Founded last year, the Shanghai-based HaoFood is among the world’s first brands to develop meat alternatives using peanuts, unlike other companies that either use soy, wheat or pea.

The firm’s first product is an Asian fried chicken alternative and can be used in a variety of dishes including Chinese-style street food fried chicken, Japanese chicken katsu and Indonesian specialty ayam geprek.

Starting this mont (April), HaoFood along with its five restaurant partners in Shanghai, such as Green Friday (Xujiahui Station), Topolino (Changping Rd Station), STYX (Hengshan Rd Station), Wrap and Roll (Jiangsu Rd Station), and The Pawon (Yili Rd Station), will offer guests a plant-based dining experience.

For instance, Wrap and Roll will incorporate Haofood’s peanut-based chicken into its mini burgers, wraps and bowls. Green Friday, which already works with plant-based dishes, will use the plant-based chicken in famous Chinese dishes like la zi ji and gong bao ji ding.

In a press release seen by Green Queen, HaoFood’s CEO Astrid Prajogo said that through this partnership, they want to make plant-based cuisines a mainstream reality. “We want to unite the past, present, and future. The past being traditional menus by dedicated chefs, the future being plant-based meat, and the present being customers’ experiences today.”

We want to unite the past, present, and future. The past being traditional menus by dedicated chefs, the future being plant-based meat, and the present being customers’ experiences today

Astrid Prajogo, CEO, HaoFood

Other restaurants like The Pawon will bring consumers plant-based versions of its authentic Indonesian chicken dishes such as sate ayam, ayam rendang, and dabu-dabu grilled chicken; STYX will offer streetfood that originates from Southeast Asia such as chicken satay, chicken curry rice, chicken bites, and fusion tacos.

Elsewhere, Topolino plans to cook several authentic Sicilan foods including pizza, pasta, salads and paninis.

In addition, last year, HaoFood was admitted into ProVeg Incubator’s latest cohort of women-led techs that are making groundbreaking innovations in the alt protein market, as well as in Brinc’s China Alt Protein program.

Prajogo added: “We all know eating meat is less sustainable, but it’s an important part of so many traditional menus. So plant-based meat is one one of the ways to preserve this because we can continue our culinary heritage but also respect the Earth.”

Apart from HaoFood, other food techs are innovating with unique alternative ingredients to disrupt the alt protein sector, for instance, Chile-based NotCo, is using AI technology to create vegan milk out of chicory, cabbage, pineapple, and several other ingredients, and in France, Update foods is developing milk-free dairy alternatives out of faba bean protein and algae oil. 

In Asia, the alternative protein sector is booming, with more and more restaurants accepting plant-based products in their menus. Recently, in Hong Kong, 170 restaurant outlets, as well as the city’s supermarket giant ParknShop, are expanding their plant-based products with Impossible Foods and in Singapore, Next Gen Foods debuted its plant-based chicken brand across 11 restaurants in the city.

Lead image courtesy of HaoFood.