STRATEGY ▶▶▶
Egg substitute targets growth by partnering with poultry firms
The past few years have seen egg farmers in Europe battling to keep up with consumer requirements. First battery cages were banned. More recently their replacement, enriched cages, have come under scrutiny after less than a decade in use – could a synthetic egg fit the bill? Some of Europe’s largest poultry businesses seem to think it might.
BY JAKE DAVIES T
“JUST is on a mission to build a food system where everyone eats well,” chief executive Josh- ua Tetrick tells Poultry World.
ype “Just Egg Scrambled” into YouTube and you will receive links to nearly a hundred thousand videos. Scroll through the top selection and, rather than cooking tutorials, most videos will be vegan cooks
reviewing a scrambled egg substitute produced by San Fran- cisco start-up JUST Inc – and they are almost universally ex- cited about it. Understandable. But watching one of the vide- os gives an indication as to why – it scrambles like a normal egg into a texture that would be familiar to anyone who has ever cooked the dish. What’s more, those who have tasted it (it’s currently only on sale in the US) say it manages to repli- cate the taste and texture of eggs incredibly well. To top it off, JUST says that the nutritional elements are close to that of a real egg, minus the cholesterol. Poultry producers – be aware.
Product range The secret is mung beans, which contain a protein that scrambles like egg when warmed through, along with a com- plex array of other plant proteins that mix together to synthe- sise eggs. And it is just a start for the company founded in California back in 2011 by Josh Balk and Joshua Tetrick. The duo first brought Beyond Eggs to the market in early 2013, a powdered egg supplement that it later pulled from retail (but continued to sell to food service companies). Its flagship product, Just Mayo came later that year, and since then the range has grown to include cookie dough, a nutrient-rich porridge called Powder Gari aimed at developing nations and Just Egg – the scrambled egg substitute. It is also developing cultured chicken, produced entirely from replicated cells grown in a lab (see box, cell-produced meat).
On a mission Why go to the effort? “JUST is on a mission to build a food sys- tem where everyone eats well,” chief executive Joshua Tetrick tells Poultry World. He is evangelical about the potential that
12 ▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 2, 2019
PHOTO: NICK KLEIN
PHOTO: HAMPTON CREEK
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
