The Better Meat Co. is the winner in the Food and Agriculture category of the Sacramento Region Innovation Awards. MyFloraDNA Inc. is the runner-up.
The Better Meat Co. is working to create plant-based proteins that meat and non-meat eaters alike can embrace.
The company was founded in 2018. After writing a book that spotlighted innovators working on growing meat that doesn’t require animals, co-founder and CEO Paul Shapiro was inspired to enter the meat-free protein space.
Better Meat is a business-to-business food ingredient maker that produces animal-free protein enhancements for food companies to incorporate into their own food — either to be sold as vegan or vegetarian products, or to blend into meat products to boost nutrition and lower costs. Its first-generation products were custom-blended for food manufacturers.
Poultry giant Perdue Farms approached Better Meat early on to create a custom blend that mixes with Perdue’s chicken nuggets. Perdue marketed them as “Chicken Plus” tenders and nuggets, and advertised their improved nutritional profile.
Better Meat raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding after it started up in 2018, and another $8.25 million in seed funding in 2020.
It launched its next-generation product and new food innovation this summer when it introduced Rhiza, a whole-food mycoprotein ingredient.
“It’s a true superfood. It is a really special kind of fermentation that we’re running here,” Shapiro told the Business Journal in June when the product launched. “It is more sustainable and more delicious than anything that is out on the market today.”
Rhiza is made by fermenting common ingredients like potatoes and sorghum.
The result is a product that’s high in protein, iron, fiber and potassium, cheaper than beef, and, the company says, has a meatier texture than previous plant-based protein products.
“Nearly all of the animal-free meats that are made today are made from soy, wheat or peas,” Shapiro told the Business Journal in October. “When you’re using plants, it’s harder to make plants taste like animals.”
Most plant protein products are made by processing an ingredient, like peas or soy, to separate out and concentrate the protein into a powder. Then the powder must be extruded to create a meat-like texture.
The company’s new mycoprotein has a naturally meaty texture with no extra processing required. Its harvest cycle takes hours, instead of months, and it’s a dry, shelf-stable ingredient that can be transported without needing a cold chain.
But Rhiza is not yet on the market. It takes major food companies time to formulate new products — and research and development has been especially sluggish during the pandemic.
In October, Hormel Foods Corp.’s venture unit 199 Ventures entered into an exclusive partnership with Better Meat Co. to develop new food products using Rhiza, to ensure it could get consistent access to the ingredient while it developed new products.
Better Meat opened its 14,000-square-foot facility to research and produce Rhiza in June. Companies have been clamoring for it ever since, and the new facility is not able to meet the demand, Shapiro said.
“The plant that we built here in West Sacramento, the demand is already far outstripping the supply,” he told the Business Journal in October.
The company is already eyeing an expansion — it’s scouting locations for a new production facility, one that is 10 times larger than its current site.
The Essentials
The Better Meat Co.
What it does: Develops plant-based meat additives
CEO: Paul Shapiro
Headquarters: West Sacramento
Employees: 16
Founded: 2018
Revenue: Not disclosed
Runner-up: MyFloraDNA Inc.
Innovation: Genetic testing of plants to help growers and breeders produce more with less input, to make agriculture more sustainable and efficient.
Headquarters: Woodland at the The Lab@AgStart agriculture and food business accelerator
Top executives: Angel Fernandez i Marti, CEO and co-founder; Javier Buendia Solis, chief operating officer and co-founder
Revenue: $45,000 in 2020, $180,000 in 2021
Employees: Six total, including three in the Sacramento area.
