Future Food Quick Bites: Beyond Bareburger, Oatly Barista & Hybrid Salmon
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Beyond Meat’s Bareburger expansion, Crafty Counter’s Whole Foods ramen collab, and One Planet Pizza’s sales milestone.
New products and launches
Plant-based leader Beyond Meat has extended its partnership with US chain Bareburger, which has released an Everything Beyond menu at select locations, featuring the Great Beyond (an Italian sausage hero), a smash burger with oat milk cheese, and chicken nuggets.
US plant-based dairy brands Malk and The Coconut Cult have teamed up to launch a Vanilla Malk Shake, combining coconut yoghurt and milk with vanilla bean powder. It’s available on the latter’s website, with a Whole Foods Market scheduled for the spring.
Crafty Counter, the company behind plant-based WunderEggs, has partnered with Whole Foods to offer its vegan boiled egg at ramen-making tables across 250 stores until February 24.
In the UK, Oatly has officially launched three new flavours for its barista oat milk: vanilla, caramel and coconut. These are available at Morrisons and Ocado for £2.30 per one-litre pack, with more retailers to follow.
British legacy plant-based brand Linda McCartney Foods has reformulated its Vegemince product with a gluten-free recipe to support allergen-free requirements in schools.
Vegan Chocolat, a B2B distributor of plant-based chocolate in the UK, has rolled out Dark Confectionery Chips and Rice-Based Cocoa Confectionery Chips for foodservice operators, manufacturers and wholesale customers to use in a wide range of applications.
In the Netherlands, Vegan Visboer has expanded the distribution for its hybrid salmon, which is now available in a burger, fillet, and hot smoked and pulled format at foodservice distributor Bidfood. It contains 54% ASC-certified salmon and 46% plant-based ingredients.
And New Zealand-based Nutrition From Water has launched Marine Fiber 95, a 95% pure beta-glucan derived from microscopic algae. The highly bioactive soluble fibre supports immune activation, heart and metabolic health, and gut balance.
Company and finance updates
British frozen plant-based food startup One Planet Pizza has hit £1M in sales over the last year, officially entering NielsenIQ‘s Million Club 2026.
Also in the UK, vegan restaurant Holy Carrot is opening a new location in London’s Spitalfields Market, fitted with an on-site fermentation vault that can turn vegetable scraps into upcycled molasses, XO sauce, and more.
In sadder news, beloved New York City vegan eatery Red Bamboo – which has been around since 2002 – is permanently shutting down at the end of the month, after raising just $45,000 out of its $100,000 crowdfunding target.
French dairy giant Bel Group, owner of cheese brands Babybel, The Laughing Cow and Boursin, has become the newest member of trade association Plant-Based Foods Europe.
Research and policy developments
Brits remain divided over the labelling of plant-based milk, with 41% of respondents to a YouGov poll saying that non-dairy alternatives should be allowed to call themselves ‘milk’, and 38% disagreeing. The Supreme Court sided with the latter in a decision against Oatly last week.
Peta has released a new ad inspired by When Harry Met Sally, showing that vegan men get more right swipes, based on social experiments the animal rights charity ran in the UK and Australia.
Finally, as consumers embrace whole foods, the European tofu market is set to cross $2B in value by 2034, growing at a compound annual rate of 12.5%, shows a new report by Market Data Forecast.
Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.