Making Plant-Based Meat More Accessible
Some of the biggest problems facing the widespread adoption of plant-based meat are cost and scale. In nearly all cases, plant-based meat purveryors are just unable to compete price-wise in commodity-driven meat markets. This is especially so for the cheapest meats, like chicken.
Kristie Middleton, vice president of business development at Seattle-based Rebellyous Foods, stopped by the Business for Good podcast to talk about how her company is aiming to change these facts.
About Rebellyous Foods
An early-stage start-up, Rebellyous Foods develops plant-based chicken products that are “crispy on the outside; juicy on the inside” and aims to make them affordable for everyone. In the beginning, this start-up focused on making “the perfect chicken nugget” raised more than $12 million in venture capital funding. It now has more than a dozen investors and has raised additional rounds of funding for a total of $25 million.
Our dependence on animal agriculture is one of the biggest challenges to our ability to slow climate change and other forms of environmental degradation. Despite this, the demand for meat is soaring and the animal agriculture industry is booming. That’s why Kristie Middleton’s long-time mission of getting plant-based meats into the hands of consumers both individually and institutionally is so vital.
Changing institutional food culture
Before she joined Rebellyous, Middleton worked in the nonprofit world to help major food institutions serve more plant-based meals. Notably, Middleton assisted in establishing “Meatless Mondays” (a campaign that originated with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health) in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school system in the nation. That the initiative was successfully implemented on such a large scale is an excellent example of how even the biggest institutions can change when given the right support. California has since become the first state to provide major support for plant-based meals in schools. In 2022 the state dedicated $700 million to fund the growth of procurement contracts with plant-based food producers.
Plants vs. meats — So far an unequal contest
Her move from nonprofits into the corporate world is just a continuation of Middleton’s life’s work of pointing the food industry in new and healthier directions. This blend of experience is standing her in good stead now, as she focuses on building a company that hopes its alt-chicken products will become cost-competitive with those of the animal meat industry. It’s a lofty goal for any plant-based food company, as they’ve largely not even reached price parity with beef, let alone chicken.
Institutions like universities, schools, hospitals, military installations, and corporate cafeterias, with their enormous bulk purchasing power, are an ideal place to start cutting down on the meat-all-the time mindset.
In her Business for Good podcast, Middleton notes three main areas that plant-based advocates usually cite as reason to make the switch: animal welfare, the environment, and human health. But, more often than not, people and institutions make their food purchasing decisions on taste, price, and convenience. Middleton’s work in both her nonprofit career and now her for-profit career is centered on showing large food buyers how plant-based foods could become better on all three counts.
Pivoting smart
Alongside Rebellyous founder and CEO Christie Lagally, a former aerospace engineer, Middleton began using her relationships with food-purchasing institutions to expand Rebellyous’ reach. Lagally and her engineering team had already realized that the bottleneck keeping the costs of mass supply high in their industry lay more in the manufacturing processes rather than solely in the cost of ingredients.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and large institutions closed down, shutting down Rebellyous’ entire business model. The startup focused on making the best of the situation.
The slow-down allowed the team to focus on refining their manufacturing technology and building out a production line. With many already-established university and sports venue clients, they moved toward retail, thinking this would put them in a good position anyway within three to five years.
They redesigned their nuggets to look more like what retail consumers expect from animal-based chicken nuggets and changed up their packaging and marketing. Within a few months, Rebellyous plant-based chicken products were in several stores in the Seattle region, then all over the Pacific Northwest. Today, they’re nationwide.
“We have to start somewhere”
How soon does Rebellyous expect to compete with animal meat manufacturers selling to the same markets? “We have to start somewhere,” said Middleton. They’re not there yet, but the point is that they’re building for the future, not just waiting for the problems of scale and cost to come down.
You can listen to Middleton’s full interview here! I hope you’ll find her work as inspirational as I do.
