Tyson Foods will offer a plant-based protein in low supply this summer. The company has plans to offer the product on a larger scale by this fall. While Tyson Foods is the largest broiler company in the United States and a major processor of turkey, beef and pork products, in recent years it has been investing in the plant-based protein and cell-cultured food sectors.
Tyson Foods CEO Noel White, speaking during a quarterly earnings call on February 7, said that the company would continue to invest in its traditional meat protein businesses, but it is also “committed to incremental growth in alternative protein.”
During the company’s second-quarter earnings call on May 6, White explained that its plant-based protein would first enter the market “on a fairly limited basis.” He further explained plans to extend product availability by fall.
Tyson Foods is no longer an investor in plant-based protein company Beyond Meat. Rather than investing in another company’s alternative protein products, Tyson Foods has opted to develop its own.
Tyson Foods, through its venture capital arm Tyson Ventures, bought a 5 percent stake in Beyond Meat in 2016 and expanded its investment in 2017.
According to CNN, “Tyson continues to maintain a minority stake in Memphis Meats, which uses cells — rather than animals — to make meat.”
The plant-based meat craze
The industry has been buzzing lately about plant-based protein and how far it would go. “Demand is being fueled by consumers choosing healthier diets and trying to reduce their impact on the environment. By 2023, the US meat-substitute retail market could reach $2.5 billion, according to the research firm Euromonitor International,” CNN reported.
Plant-based proteins or products made from vegetables to imitate or replace meat are gaining steam thanks to improved product variety, taste, and marketing in the recent past.
States respond to plant-based “meat”
Some states have outlawed the labeling of a plant-based protein as meat. False or persuasive marketing claims have been making their way into the meat industry, confusing consumers and creating a demand for specialty products. In response, the State of Oklahoma recently signed a bill into place, “prohibiting persons advertising or selling food plans or carcasses from engaging in certain misleading or deceptive practices,” the bill says.
Dovers reported that “in essence (the bill) prevents cell-cultured or plant-based products from using meat terms.”
The bill outlines meat as, “Meat means any edible portion of livestock, poultry or captive cervid carcass or part thereof.”
Arkansas, which is the second-largest broiler producing state in the nation, was not the first state to write such legislation. Missouri was the first, with that initiative being passed into law in 2018.
It was revealed at the 2019 Annual Meat Conference, held earlier in March in Dallas, Texas, that other state legislatures have, at the least, proposed bills aimed at stopping the marketing of non-meat products as meat. Those states include: Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota, Nebraska, Mississippi, Tennessee, Indiana, and Virginia.
Katie Olthoff, director of communications with the Iowa Cattlemen's Association said that “We've been really active at the national level on fake meat labeling, and explored legislation in Iowa, but discovered that Iowa's code already clearly defines meat.”
