Mega-corporations hunger for plant-based protein products

By Deena Shanker

Bloomberg

Tyson Foods has taken a 5 percent stake in Beyond Meat, a company proudly bringing customers fake meat that bleeds.

With Impossible Foods’ new “burgers,” made for high-end restaurants, and a list of established companies, like Morningstar Farms, Amy’s Kitchen and Dr. Praeger’s, it’s never been so easy to forgo animal-based protein.

Now the nearly $5 billion plant-based food economy is seeing growth in another segment: vegan seafood. Fake tuna. Fake crab cakes. Fake scallops.

With nary a net, customers of Fresh & Co., a New York City salad chain, can get Tomato Sushi in their quinoa bowls. New York’s May Wah Vegetarian Market sells vegan salmon, scallops, and tuna, along with your classic vegan spare ribs and stewed mutton. At Whole Foods, shoppers can pick up Gardein Crabless Cakes or Breaded Vegan Fish Fillets from Sophie’s Kitchen.

Vegans seem psyched. “Growth has been phenomenal,” at 20 percent or more a year, said Eugene Wang, managing partner at Sophie’s Kitchen. Wang started developing his seafood alternatives because his daughter is allergic to shrimp. That also led him to ditch soy and wheat in search of allergen-free ingredients. Now he uses mainly yellow pea for the protein, and Konjac, also known as Japanese or elephant yam, for the shellfish texture.

Curious omnivores may want to start with breaded and fried.

Big Food has taken notice. Even before Tyson’s October investment in vegan meat, Pinnacle Foods acquired Gardein Protein, which sells plant-based seafood as well as chicken and beef products, for $154 million. And other plant-based seafood companies report interest from Fortune 500 companies.

A number of legal skirmishes in recent years attest to the close attention being paid to the upstarts.

In 2014, Unilever, maker of Hellmann’s, sued the vegan company Hampton Creek for its Just Mayo product, alleging fraud for giving consumers the impression it was made with eggs. It ended up dropping the suit-and coming out with its own vegan mayonnaise.

Now, inevitably, it has come to this: a legal skirmish over a product called Chickpea of the Sea.

Tofuna Fysh, a small, 18-month-old Portland, Oregon, company marketing faux tuna fish, “fysh” sauce, and “fysh” oil, recently received a cease-and-desist letter over his trademark application for the name and a jingle on the company website. Founder Zach Grossman recognizes he’s probably going to have to give up the trademark, but he’d dearly like to hold on to the jingle.

“I think that would be a fair compromise here,” said David H. Bernstein, a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton with a specialty in trademark law, who isn’t involved in the case.

At the Plant Based Food Association, a trade group for protein alternatives, director Michele Simon said vegan seafood companies are “up and coming” but remain just a fraction of the group’s membership.

Consumers seem less aware of environmental and human welfare issues surrounding the fishing industry, she observed. “Land animals tend to get more sympathy.”

— Bloomberg