How EVERY Cracked Tweezer Cuisine with Daniel Humm & Eleven Madison Park

The EVERY Company, the Californian startup making hen-free eggs from precision fermentation, recently debuted its flagship product as the centrepiece of a special dinner at Daniel Humm’s Eleven Madison Park. EVERY co-founder and CEO Arturo Elizondo tells Green Queen about how it all came about, and reveals a key regulatory achievement.

As one of the world’s most acclaimed chefs, Daniel Humm has been at the forefront of food technology and technique for years. He’s a man who has always aimed to be ahead of the curve. When he reopened his three-Michelin-starred eatery Eleven Madison Park after the pandemic-induced lockdown, he sent the restaurant industry into pandemonium as he announced he was ditching the thing he was most famous for: meat.

Not just that, he was getting rid of almost all dairy – bar the tea and coffee service. So, essentially a 99% vegan restaurant. To do that when you’re a three-star restaurant at the top of your game (with a recognition as the world’s best restaurant under your belt just a few years prior) was unheard of. But Humm persisted, insisting that the current food system is simply not sustainable.

It was a huge win for the plant-based sector then. Now, he’s done it again, this time championing another key pillar of alternative protein: precision fermentation. Humm made EVERY – the Silicon Valley maker of animal-free eggs – the only brand to ever have its product as a centrepiece on his restaurant’s menu.

In an exclusive dinner earlier this month, culinary innovators, chefs and creators were treated to cocktails, omelettes and creme brûlées, all starring the precision-fermented EVERY Egg, which was making its foodservice debut ahead of a wider launch next year. Can Humm take this path to protein diversification to the next step? Only time will tell.

“For nine years, my dream has been to build a food system humanity can be proud of,” EVERY co-founder and CEO Arturo Elizondo said at the time. “When I met Chef Humm, I knew I had met someone with that same dream, and I am thrilled to join forces to make our shared vision a reality.”

But how did the partnership come up? We caught up with Elizondo to find out.

This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.

Green Queen: How did Daniel Humm and EVERY connect?

Arturo Elizondo: We were drawn to Chef Daniel Humm because he is the consummate standard-bearer of quality in the culinary world. Lance Lively, our general manager who led the creation and launch of EVERY Egg, first connected with the Eleven Madison Park team when he shared videos of EVERY Egg in action. We quickly sampled our EVERY Egg, and they were blown away by its taste and performance.

In collaborating with chef Humm and his team at Eleven Madison Park, we successfully demonstrated that EVERY Egg’s quality delivers on the highest standards of culinary excellence. But even more importantly, in chef Humm, I found a kindred soul. 

When we first met, I quickly realized Chef Humm is not merely a culinary savant – he has an incredible vision for using his platform to push for a more equitable and sustainable food system. EVERY Egg is the embodiment of nine years’ work at EVERY, and the promise of our purpose to deliver food systems transformation. It’s thrilling that thanks to this collaboration with chef Humm and his team, EVERY Egg was unveiled centre-of-plate in an extraordinary context.

GQ: While this was a one-off dinner, does EVERY plan to continue the collaboration, and team up with other foodservice operators?

AE: We are thrilled with this public unveiling of EVERY Egg, and we will soon share more about how we’re bringing EVERY Egg to even more plates in 2024. More soon! 

Additionally, our egg protein products such as EVERY EggWhite are commercially available for food manufacturers to use as high-performance ingredients in their branded products, and we are actively sampling EVERY Egg to restaurants and food manufacturers.

GQ: What plant-based ingredients complement your precision-fermented protein in the egg?

AE: EVERY Egg is a nature-equivalent egg protein combined with beneficial plant-based fats, salt and water to achieve a whole egg taste and texture. Our egg protein is the secret ingredient that enables EVERY Egg to deliver such strong culinary performance across a multitude of dishes.

A major added benefit is that EVERY Egg is a high-quality source of protein that contains all the essential amino acids required for good nutrition, is highly digestible, and contains zero cholesterol or saturated fat.

GQ: You have received two GRAS notifications, while a third has been pending approval. What is the progress on that, and can you expand on what the three notifications entail and how they’re different?

AE: We’re excited to share that we have officially received GRAS notifications for all three of our protein products. In October 2023, we completed the trifecta with a Letter of No Objection from the United States Food and Drug Administration for EVERY EggWhite. We expect the dossier to join the FDA’s GRAS inventory any day now.

The recent GRAS notification for EVERY EggWhite underscores EVERY’s commercial leadership. All of our high-performance products are fully FDA-approved, are manufactured at large-scale production facilities, and have been fully commercialised.