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Functional beverage sales rise, but not all ingredients, benefits gain equally as consumer interest shifts By Elizabeth Crawford Sales of functional beverages are bouncing back after slowing early in the pandemic when fewer people bought on-the-go products, reflecting increased consumer mobility, rising interest in food as medicine and innovation that resonates with health-focused consumers, according to data from SPINS and Nutrition Business Journal.
While the dramatic shift to eating at home during the pandemic helped lift overall sales of natural and organic food and beverages 12.7% to $259bn last year, the benefit was uneven across the industry with sales of functional foods and beverages growing much slower than organic, according to NBJ data presented at virtual Natural Products Expo West last week.
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Nowadays plant-based nuggets boast ‘unparalleled nutritional profile: We don’t just need to remove animals, we need to create better products By Elaine Watson The plant-based meat category is not short of starry-eyed founders armed with me-too products and a lofty mission to fix the broken food system (spoiler alert, they probably won’t). But there is still room for new players with a genuine point of difference and a scalable business model, say the founders of Nowadays.
Founded last year by Dominik Grabinski (Kitchentown, Yeap, DSM, Cargill) and Max Elder (Institute for the Future),
Nowadays seeks to punch above its weight in the category with frozen plant-based chicken nuggets with an ultra-short ingredients list (filtered water, yellow pea protein, whole wheat flour, sunflower oil, yeast extract, maple fiber, mushroom extract), with no added salt, sugar, starch or methylcellulo
Insect protein as beneficial as milk protein, find researchers Researchers in Denmark say mealworm protein and milk protein have the same performance on digestion, absorption, and on the ability to stimulate muscle production.
Insects have attracted significant interest as an alternative source of dietary protein. Not only do they contain essential amino acids and trace minerals and vitamins, but insects have strong sustainability credentials.
Crickets, for example, are said to produce 11 times more food than cattle for the same amount of feed and 1,000 times less water. Mealworms produce at least 14 times fewer greenhouse gas emissions than cattle.
How insect protein – and in particular, mealworm protein – stands up against the ‘gold standard’ milk protein, however, has yet to be investigated. Researchers from Maastricht University in the Netherlands have sought to do just that.
As firms such as Motif FoodWorks have
observed, hard fats such as coconut oil - which are typically added to plant proteins post extrusion - are not distributed throughout plant-based burgers in the same way that fat is distributed in animals, plus they have a tendency to leak out during cooking and impart a coconutty smell.
“Specialty fats such as coconut are being added to plant-based meats for particular functional or mouthfeel purposes, said Dr. James Petrie, co-founder and CEO at
Nourish Ingredients, which is based in Canberra, but plans to target the North American market. The problems is, they don t resemble animal fats closely enough, in terms of their performance, mouthfeel, flavor and aroma, Petrie told FoodNavigator-USA.
The Israeli minerals and chemical specialist has launched ICL Planet Startup Hub, which will provide pioneering start-ups with backing and mentorship to propel game-changing ideas to market.