India’s Vegan Meat Startup Blue Tribe Debuts Chicken and Pork Sausages

Indian plant-based startup Blue Tribe Foods is expanding its portfolio of meat alternatives with a new line of vegan chicken and pork sausages. The new products, set to launch this month via the Mumbai-based firm’s e-commerce site, will be available to consumers in major Indian cities. It comes just months after Blue Tribe debuted its first products on the market in February. 

Blue Tribe Foods is expanding its line-up with plant-based chicken and pork sausages. Launching on September 6, the new 100% vegan products are made from pea protein, oat fibre, sunflower oil and natural flavourings. It comes on the heels of the startup’s successful launch earlier this year, with its vegan chicken keema and chicken nuggets garnering positive reviews from consumers, said the company. 

Vegan chicken and pork sausages

Each 100 gram serving of the brand’s new sausage line boasts around 10 grams of plant-based protein, as well as fortified nutrients such as Vitamin B12. It is also a source of dietary fibre, with 20 grams per serving. 

Available in all major Indian cities on its direct-to-consumer website for 350 INR (US$4.80) per 250 gram package, the company’s co-founders Sandeep Singh and Nikki Arora Singh say they hope to make sustainable and healthy choices more widely available and accessible to consumers in the country. 

“In addition to our plant-based Chicken Nuggets and Chicken Keema, customers will now be able to taste and enjoy plant-based Chicken Sausages and Pork Sausages,” said Sandeep Singh. “So far, we have received amazing traction and love from the customers, and we strive to do better each day.”

At the moment, Blue Tribe delivers to residents in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kochi, Chennai, Kolkata, Chandigarh and Lucknow. 

Creating alternatives for non-vegetarians 

Blue Tribe says that the goal is not only to provide vegans and vegetarians with more choices, but to win over mainstream consumers in order to make an impact on the food system. That’s one of the reasons why the startup has focused on chicken alternatives, with its keema, nuggets and new sausage product all designed to replicate chicken meat. 

While India boasts a reputation for having a large vegetarian population, chicken is one of the most highly-consumed animal proteins in the country, alongside fish. 

Understanding that for many consumers, “it is hard to say no to our non-vegetarian food love”, Sandeep Singh says that Blue Tribe wants to create substitutes that are just as delicious, so “consumers won’t have to compromise with taste and quality, and the Earth will have space to breathe and rejuvenate.”

Looking ahead, the co-founders plan on extending its distribution footprint to Indore and Jaipur.

India’s growing plant-based industry

India’s plant-based industry has been picking up speed of late, driven by growing consumer demand for meatless alternatives amid rising concerns about health, nutrition and sustainability in the wake of Covid-19. 

Aside from Blue Tribe, a number of homegrown players have been launching more vegan offerings tailored to the Indian market, including Greenest, which offers hyper-realistic shami kebabs, and Plantmade, which has created the country’s first plant-based lamb kebab alternative. 

Perhaps the most prominent startup in the space is GoodDot, one of the earliest names in the Indian vegan food sector, which has since its founding in 2016 expanded to a number of international markets. The company recently bagged funding from Sixth Sense, marking the first VC investment into the Indian plant-based meat segment, which will fuel the firm’s plans to launch in the US and Europe.  

All images courtesy of Blue Tribe Foods.