Nestle invested in a start-up that makes a vegan friendly copy of chicken with even fake bones and skins.
Nestle, the largest food company globally, has been looking for plant-based substitutes as much as they can. They recently invested in a company which is trying to create the most realistic chicken experience with their 100% vegan meat. It includes fake bones and skin to add more to the realistic experience. The company is called Sundial Foods. Nestle reportedly invested over $4 million, said Jessica Schwabach, the CEO of this California based start-up. She added that this investment will help them to expand their business to the bay area and more in California.
Nestle has been investigating a lot into companies and start-ups like these since animal products are not entirely environmentally friendly and is also not the healthiest thing to eat. The CEO of Nestle, Mark Schneider said that they want a plant-based alternative of every animal protein and are hence heavily investing in small companies to help them achieve this. Nestle is also testing cultured meat in an Israeli cell based start-up called Future Meat Technology Ltd.
Sundial was created in 2019 when its two co-founders Jessica Schwabach and Siwen Deng met each other in a Alternative Meats Program in The California Berkeley’s. They talked about how they can improve the texture of plant based meat alternative.
Schwabach said that people liked the experience mainly because of the plant based skin because it added to the texture of the meat and they were also impressed to see high protein contents in a plant based alternative. Their meat alternative is chickpea based and has 8 more ingredients. The skin in a lipid-protein film that helps intact the moisture. The bones are carved out of bamboo stalks. Although the alternative meat industry has shown a slowdown recently, there are still signs of hopes.
