The Week In Food Tech: MEAT ZERO Heads to Singapore, Peas of Heaven Raises €2.7M, and Billie Eilish Unveils Vegan Chocolate

Just a few short years ago, it was unusual to get more than a handful of stories each week about meat analogues, dairy alternatives, and other alt and/or vegan foods. Nowadays, the opposite is true. In fact, there are so many developments in the alt-protein and food tech space we decided to create a weekly column that gathers all the various bits of news out there into one single place for easy reading.

This past week, there was news of Thailand’s CP Foods launching its plant-based brand MEAT ZERO in Singapore as well as Sweden’s Peas of Heaven raising €2.7 million. Bonus: singer Billie Eilish is adding a vegan chocolate bar to her merchandise lineup.

Thailand: CP Foods launches its alt-meat brand MEAT ZERO in Singapore

Thailand’s largest food company CP Foods aims for its MEAT ZERO brand to become the top alt-meat brand in Asia in 2022. MEAT ZERO has already sold over 4 million units and also has a deal to produce menu items for KFC in Thailand. The Singapore range will feature six vegan products including nuggets, bologna, and ready meals.

US: LikeMeat unveils plant-based “Chick’n” wings

LIVEKINDLY Collective brand LikeMeat’s newest product is a plant-based bone-free chicken wing analogue now available nationwide in the US at Sprouts stores. Wing packs even come with their own pouch of vegan buffalo sauce for dipping. 

EU: Enough Foods leads consortium to build huge alt-protein facility in the Netherlands

Dubbed Plentitude, the group of sustainable food partners just secured funding from the EU to build out a mycoprotein facility. Partners in the value consortium chain include Cargill, which will supply the agricultural byproducts used to make the fungi-based alt protein. 

Sweden/US: Oatly adds oat milk ice cream bars to its frozen lineup

The company’s first-ever vegan ice cream bars will be available at 3,000 stores across the US from December onwards, joining the company’s existing frozen treats offerings. The bars will be available in four flavors: chocolate fudge, strawberry swirl, salted caramel, and vanilla. 

UK: Meatless Farm will launch an alt-chicken fillet for Veganuary. 

The plant-based meat-maker will launch its pea-protein-based fillet alternative at Tesco and Asda stores this coming January. The launch, which coincides with vegan “holiday” Veganuary, will be Meatless Farms’ second retail launch ever.

US: Billie Eilish adds vegan chocolate to her merchandise line

To promote her new album, Happier Than Ever, the singer — a longtime vegan — is launching a vegan chocolate bar of the same name that is rainforest alliance-certified and comes in sustainable packaging materials. Ingredients include rice milk powder, tiger nut powder, hazelnut paste, and bourbon vanilla extract, amongst others.

US: Del Taco and Chipotle Veteran Michele Lange joins Plant Power Fast Food

California-based Plant Power Restaurant Group has hired former Del Taco and Chipotle executive Michele Lange as its new Director of Training & Development. The appointment comes as Plant Power continues to add new units to its growing vegan fast-food brand.

Australia: WOA to sell regenerative oat milk at Woolworths stores

Regenerative food and ag company Wide Open Agriculture has announced a distribution agreement with Woolworths to sell its Dirty Clean Food’s oat milk in stores. Called OatUP, the product is available at roughly half of all Woolworths stores in Australia and is made with regeneratively farmed oats. 

Sweden: Peas of Heaven raises €2.7 to fund European expansion

The round is part of a late seed round for the vegan food maker, and will help the company expand outside their homebase of Sweden. Food and bev VC Oyster Bay Venture Capital, led the round, which will also go towards additional product development and optimizing Peas of Heaven’s production facilities. 

Lead image courtesy of CP Foods/Meat Zero.