A Kiwi food company is winning over vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians with a range of alternative meat products sold under the brand name Plan*t.
Sustainable Foods currently supplies plant-based burgers, mince and sausages to New Zealand supermarkets and takeaway chains and will soon enter the competitive international market.
A burger made with a plant-based pattie manufactured by NZ company Plan*t Photo: Plan*t
In the last 3 years, the Kāpiti-based company has grown by 850 percent and they've now secured a $1.25 million government loan to expand further.
Sustainable Foods is focused on nutrition, local sourcing and sustainability, but the most important thing to get right is taste, says co-founder and CEO Justin Lemmens.
"If we don't pass the taste test we simply don't pass go," he tells Kathryn Ryan.
To date, a lot of alternative meat products haven't delivered on taste and texture, says Lemmens, who's been in the vegetarian food manufacturing industry for 25 years.
Good taste, rather than the accurate replication of meat, is key to what Sustainable Foods is trying to achieve,
"When people taste the product it's less about does it taste like meat but does it taste great?"
Their target customers are the many people reducing their meat consumption for better health as well as sustainability and animal welfare concerns, he says.
Since 2018, Plan*t has sold burgers, sausages and mince, and this year they're releasing a world-first Hemp Chick*n made with sustainable hemp from Taranaki's GreenFern Industries and developed alongside Massey University's Riddet Institute.
To develop innovative products with a high percentage of locally grown ingredients and sustainable systems, food manufacturers have to collaborate with local farmers and scientists, Lemmens says.
The level of processing required for plant-based meat alternatives is a question that comes up often, he says, but factory-made doesn't have to mean artificial.
Sustainable Foods, which is based in the former Fonterra dairy factory in Paraparaumu, try to make production methods as low-impact and natural as possible.
"If you look at a potato fry, for example, that goes through many steps to get from paddock to plate … is that highly processed because it's been through a number of steps?"
Sustainable Foods has a goal of $20 million in revenue by 2025, with half of that driven by export.
