Future Food Quick Bites: The Vegetarian Butcher, Protein Chocolate & Non-Dairy Sales
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers The Vegetarian Butcher’s burgers in the UK, another yeast protein in India, and fluctuating plant-based milk sales.
New products and launches
The Vegetarian Butcher, owned by meat giant JBS, has launched its vegan beef and chicken burgers, named Grilliant and Happy Go Clucky, respectively, at Tesco in the UK.
UK plant-based brand Bosh! has introduced three nutrient-dense grain bowls high in ‘plant points’ at Tesco. The Mediterranean Orzo & Beans meal has 17 plant varieties, the Thai Sweet Potato Grains SKU has 10, and the Korean Firecracker Grains version has nine.
In more news from Tesco, London-based Minor Figures has brought its regenerative oat milk, created in partnership with Wildfarmed, to the retailer’s shelves nationwide.
German firm Planteneers has rolled out Culinary Balls, a new plant-based concept that doesn’t intend to mimic meat, but instead puts flavour and texture centre stage in a three-layer format.
Across the Atlantic, Kellanova-owned MorningStar Farms, one of the leading plant-based meat players in the US, has refreshed its packaging, taking inspiration from its 1974 origins with the tagline ‘Where Goodness Grows’.
US dairy-free pioneer Elmhurst 1925 has expanded its Clean Protein line of plant-based milks to Canada, with the four flavours – pistachio, chocolate-sea salt, vanilla and strawberry – hitting Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, Farm Boy, Save-On-Foods, Longo’s, Fortinos and other retailers in the coming weeks.
Indian startup Nutrazen is jumping on the country’s alternative protein bandwagon with the launch of Simply Pure, a line of fermented yeast protein powders available in plain, cold coffee, chocolate, chocochino, and matcha-chocolate flavours. They contain 24.5g of complete protein per 36g scoop.
And Singaporean food tech startup Coa, which makes plant-protein-boosted chocolates, has expanded into New Zealand and Australia with matcha-white chocolate and coconut-dark chocolate clusters.
Company and finance updates
The Australian Food and Beverage Accelerator has opened access to the QUT Pioneer BioPilot in Mackay’s Pioneer Valley, providing companies with infrastructure to develop, test and validate precision-fermented products between the lab research and commercial production stages.
In the last year, volume sales of plant-based milk have fallen by 5.4% in the US, with almond milk dropping by 7.9%, according to Circana. In the UK, volumes fell by 2.5% in the 12 months to June, while growth in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain slowed.
Speaking of which, in Germany, Europe’s largest market for plant-based food, volume sales of meat alternatives grew by 15.7% between January and August, against a 0.5% decline for conventional meat in the same period.
US whole-food plant-based startup NoBull Burger has become the latest casualty in the sector, with the 15-year-old business having announced its closure.
Canadian mycelium specialist Maia Farms held an Open Lab event bringing together government partners, supporters, customers, and food industry leaders to explore the blended meat opportunity.
Scottish cellular agriculture startup Roslin Technologies has developed a novel method for producing structured cultivated pork by incorporating induced pluripotent stem cell biomass into Swiss biotech startup Sallea‘s plant-based Protein Pure scaffolds. It offers inclusion rates of up to 78%.
German mycoprotein firm MicroHarvest has shaken up its C-suite as it prepares to scale up to industrial production. Co-founders Katelijne Bekers and Jonathan Roberz are now co-CEOs, leading commercial expansion and European scale-up, respectively. Fellow co-founder Luisa Cruz remains CTO, while head of operations Jan-Philipp Birke is now COO and head of finance Justus Reich has become CFO.
Indian precision fermentation startup PreferCo, which is working with Germany’s Glatt to build an integrated precision fermentation facility in Hyderabad, has appointed Shakthi M Nagappan as its chairman and managing director. He was previously the CEO of the Telangana Life Sciences Foundation.
Policy, awards and events
The Dutch House of Representatives has voted in favour of a motion to include a plant-based action plan in the country’s nitrogen package and national food strategy, following a call by dozens of organisations to establish such a strategy with a €65M annual acceleration fund.
Swedish hemp protein startup Hemisphere Technologies has been selected as a winner at FoodNavigator’s 2026 Global Food Tech Awards EMEA.
US climate-smart rice farming startup Mitti Labs has been named one of eight winners of the Climate Curve Prize: Methane, shortly after raising $9.5M and signing a four-year carbon credit deal with Google.
Finally, Vegan Summit Budapest, which claims to be the largest of its kind in Europe, is returning for its second edition on November 7, featuring a new awards ceremony honouring companies in 16 categories.
Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.