Future Food Quick Bites: Burger King Royale, Vegan Chocolates & SuperYou Protein
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Burger King’s Vegan Royale offer, The Undairy Co.’s dairy-free chocolates, and the cost of UPF labelling.
New products and launches
As part of its ongoing partnership with The Vegetarian Butcher, fast-food chain Burger King is offering a buy-one-get-one-free deal on 250,000 Vegan Royale sandwiches to UK customers who purchase one of the former’s products in supermarkets. The purchases must be made before November 22, and shoppers can redeem the burger offer until December 31.
UK chocolate brand The Undairy Co. has launched the Icons Selection Box, a plant-based take on Mars’s Celebrations chocolate mix, featuring seven options that resemble Dairy Milk, Terry’s Chocolate Orange, Biscoff truffles, and the Cadbury Creme Egg.
Speaking of vegan chocolate, Cornwall-based Buttermilk has launched a Caramel Choc Biscuit Fingers bar in the style of Twix at Morrisons, priced at £1.50 per 50g.
HappyVore, France’s best-selling meat alternative brand, has expanded its plant-based cordon bleu range with a tomato version, after it became the “biggest launch” in the country’s vegan deli category, according to its founder.
Indian pet food brand Drools has rolled out 100% Veg Gravy, a plant-based wet food for dogs, designed to be served as a complementary food or mixed with dry kibble to add moisture, aroma and variety.
Fellow Indian startup SuperYou, co-owned by Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh, has made its US debut, launching its fermented yeast protein powder at Walmart, and soon on Amazon.
US woman-owned wellness startup Mujo Co. has teamed up with Rubisco protein maker Plantible Foods to launch a vanilla protein powder combining the latter’s duckweed-derived protein with yellow pea protein and coconut MCT oil. It delivers 22g of complete protein per 30g, and will begin shipping next month for $45 per 450g pack.
Meanwhile, US frozen food company Blackbird Foods‘s plant-based pepperoni pizza has landed on the shelves of select Target stores.
And New York-based Sweet Vegan has kickstarted its fifth annual Harvest Basket Giveaway, bringing together 16 brands to offer one winner a box of vegan food, desserts, beauty, wellness, fashion, dining experiences, and lifestyle products worth over $3,500.
Company and finance updates
US fermentation startup Superbrewed Food has hired former Kerry Group and Nuritas executive Rizwan Khan as its new CEO, who will take over from co-founder Bryan Tracey (who now serves as company president). It has simultaneously announced results from a consumer trial of its Thrvia postbiotic, with 89% of participants showing improvement in their overall digestive health scores after four weeks.
Californian precision fermentation startup The Every Company has secured a new US patent covering advanced ovalbumin (the main protein in egg whites) compositions and food applications across a range of microbial strains (such as Pichia pastoris, Trichoderma reesei, and Aspergillus niger). It is the firm’s 65th granted patent globally.
Israeli precision-fermented dairy startup Imagindairy has appointed Paul Kollesoff as its executive chairperson. He previously had senior leadership roles at Glanbia Nutritionals and Perfect Day (where he founded consumer brand The Urgent Company).
Copenhagen-based mycelium protein startup Tempty Foods has been recognised as the Danish Food Startup of the Year 2026 by the Danish Startup Group.
US rubisco protein startup Fudi Protein and cultivated meat media supplier Deco Labs have won the pitch competition at Bezos Earth Fund‘s second annual summit by the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein at North Carolina State University, securing $75,000 each.
Russian dairy processor Milk Logic (formerly Danone’s subsidiary in the country) has acquired Poligrin, the parent company of the 5Yes! brand of plant-based milk, preserving the latter’s product recipes and team.
Research and policy developments
French precision fermentation startup Verley has secured its first US patent, covering the microparticulation of its animal-free beta-lactoglobulin protein.
If the UK Parliament replaced 30% of its meat, fish and shellfish purchases with plant proteins like legumes, nuts and tofu, the government could save £216,000 a year in food procurement costs, according to analysis by Humane World for Animals.
The UK’s Alternative Proteins Association has published a best-practice guidance document for conducting novel food taste trials, drawing on insights from the Food Standards Agency‘s cultivated meat sandbox programme.
Algal oil and yeast protein have been named the top ingredients for use in alternative pet food by the Centre for Feed Innovation and the Pet Sustainability Coalition.
A large-scale study of 1,305 cats by the Griffith University School of Environment and Science in Australia has found that felines fed a vegan diet have a 34% lower chance of being assessed as overweight.
As the US government weighs up how to define ultra-processed foods (UPFs), a University of Chicago analysis suggests that mandatory UPF labelling could impact nearly three-quarters of packaged food products in the country and cost them $14.2B – and that doesn’t include an extra $1B a year in lost revenue for domestic agriculture and $7.7-8.7B in increased annual food import costs.
Finally, speaking of weight and UPFs, a study by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has revealed that eating more meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products was linked with weight gain even when they were minimally processed, while similarly processed plant-based food – like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans – had the opposite effect.
Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.