From seafood to chicken and charcuterie: there’s no question we need options that are sustainably sourced from plant ingredients and cell cultivation. In the face of consumer demands and population growth, the plant-based meat and fish industry is slowly but surely becoming an additional category in the food industry. Rebellyous Foods is a US based startup that is leading the way and you want to know about.
Rebellyous Foods is a food tech company that makes chicken from plants. That’s right: they make nuggets, patties and tenders without the use of birds. Seattle-based Rebellyous Foods has developed a patented production system – The Mock 2 Production System – that will allow the company to out-compete animal-based chicken nuggets on quality and price.
A Fresh approach
Christie Lagally, CEO and founder of Rebellyous Foods, shares how she got inspired to start with her business: “I started Rebellyous Foods after realizing that the plant-based meat industry, and its potential impact as a solution for climate change and other social harms, was being held back. No one was addressing the price and production constraints of the industry which followed the status quo of traditional meat processes. As a mechanical engineer, I saw an opportunity to take a fresh approach through the design and implementation of novel food production equipment. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a measurable impact on climate change and social causes close to my heart. Ever since, we’ve come a long way: I started small in my kitchen, and now we have a team of animal-loving engineers putting in the work to create real food tech that will take plant-based production into the future.”
Food system under pressure
And with that, she believes these developments are highly necessary – even though it might not sound ‘life-changing’ at first. Christie: “With the pressure that our food system is under, from supply chain issues, labor shortages, contagions like bird flu looming and a changing climate, our supply of animal protein is increasingly unstable. The looming demand is the heart of why we believe it is so important to drive down the cost and increase the supply of plant-based alternatives. Today, plant-based meat cannot be efficiently and consistently produced at scale, so we are inventing new and better ways to make it possible. And we started with plant-based chicken knowing that conventional chicken is the most consumed animal-based meat today. A nugget may not seem like a big deal, but a technology-backed solution will take a big bite out of big issues like climate change.”
Rebellyous Foods was one of the finalists of the Brave New Food Startup Challenge 2022. Read all about the finalists and winners here.
Read also about the plant-based changemakers Loki Foods and Renegade Foods.