Science Talk: Blended meat could boost Asia’s food security
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A meal made using Australian start-up Harvest B's B Strong Slow Cooked Diced Beef, which combines premium quality animal proteins with premium plant proteins.
PHOTO: HARVEST B
Ryan Huling
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SINGAPORE – Consumer perception studies in Singapore and other South-east Asian countries show that plant-based meat is broadly viewed as an appealing menu option that, unfortunately, comes at a substantial cost. On average, plant-based meats cost 35 per cent more than their animal counterparts, even as some fall short of expectations on taste and texture.
Until now, these factors have been driving consumers to satisfy their affinity for meat by purchasing resource-intensive, conventionally produced animal protein. And global meat production is projected to increase by at least 70 per cent by 2050, compared with 2012 levels, fuelled by a growing human population that is becoming more prosperous.
All this comes at the expense of Asia’s food security and sustainability.
According to the World Resources Institute, conventional meat producers currently feed up to 100 calories to a cow to create just one calorie of beef. Such staggering inefficiency accelerates deforestation and water depletion locally and globally, and sets greenhouse gas emissions on an upward trajectory – the exact opposite of what is needed to meet climate targets.
But even as some start-ups and researchers remain laser-focused on enhancing the quality and price-competitiveness of plant-based meats, others are exploring a new strategy: combining plant proteins with animal meat to make one compelling product.
This new generation of “blended” products mixes conventional meat with high-quality alternative proteins – usually from soya, pea or fungi – in a way that reduces the overall percentage of animal-sourced ingredients in the final product.
Integrating alternative proteins into conventional meat supply could substantially reduce our food system’s massive carbon hoofprint, mitigate supply chain risks, and deliver significant public and personal health benefits.
Plant proteins, for instance, contain no cholesterol, have extremely low saturated fat and high fibre, and require up to 96 per cent less land and 99 per cent less water to produce
Sensing a market opportunity, several Asia-Pacific companies are actively exploring the blended meat space. Australian start-up Harvest B recently debuted a line of blended meats that combine plant protein with diced beef and lamb. Malaysian company BaseFood produces fully plant-based products, but also sells its plant protein as an ingredient to conventional meat producers to help them strengthen their supply chain resilience without compromising on affordability or flavour.
Perhaps most surprisingly, global alternative protein brand Quorn, which sold exclusively meat-free meals for decades, announced a plan to blend its products with pork as part of a food service deal with National Health Service hospitals in Britain. At first glance, that may seem like a step backwards for a brand focused on accelerating a shift away from animal agriculture. But since blended meat purchases will be made by consumers who would have likely otherwise chosen conventional meat, it is also an opportunity to introduce alternative proteins to a much wider swathe of diners.
While blended meat products have only just begun to reach Asia-Pacific supermarket shelves, studies show that consumer interest in South-east Asia is nearly unanimous. On average, 93 per cent of survey respondents in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines say they are open to giving blends a try, including more than three-quarters of people who identify as sceptical of trying fully plant-based meat and 80 per cent of those who have eaten it before but do not intend to again.
Producers of other forms of alternative protein, like cultivated meat – which is grown directly from animal cells, rather than made from plants – are watching the blended meat space closely to see if it offers a useful model for how to more quickly ramp up production. Cultivated meats are already near taste parity
To start addressing that concern and to scale up operations more cost-effectively, Dutch cellular agriculture start-up Meatable
It is not yet clear what messaging strategy will be most effective at conveying the benefits of plant-animal blends to curious shoppers, but in large-scale blind taste tests, blended meat has received broadly positive feedback from participants – in some cases outperforming the conventional animal meat that consumers know and love. (The Good Food Institute Asia Pacific is currently conducting the first Asia-focused sensory study on blended meat, in collaboration with Singaporean scientists.)
And though these are still early days, some companies have already managed to meet or surpass price parity with conventional animal protein. That means that for shoppers walking down the meat aisle, the healthier and tastier choice could be more affordable too – a potent trifecta.
If consumer uptake of blended products is strong enough, it could enable plant-based meat producers to scale up their manufacturing capacity to service the increased demand. That can, in turn, create a virtuous circle as greater economies of scale drive down plant-based meat prices across the board.
In other words, if blended products find market success, they can be a meaningful first step towards achieving what existing plant proteins have so far been unable to do: satisfy rising meat demand via more sustainable proteins, bolster regional food security and supply chain resilience, and give consumers an alternative greater than the sum of its parts.
Ryan Huling is a senior writer at the Good Food Institute Asia Pacific – Asia’s leading alternative protein think-tank. He previously served as an international expert on sustainable food systems at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.
