As part of our Sacramento Inno coverage of the startup, technology and innovation economy, the Business Journal has compiled a list of startups to watch in the new year. These startups are poised to make big moves, either in growth, funding, technology or development. We're highlighting 15 startups, generally with fewer than 100 employees, about 5 years old or less and that have raised less than $50 million.
The Better Meat Co. is a 2018 startup that has developed methods to turn vegetable and fungi products into nutritious meat substitutes or meat enhancement products.
It doesn’t sell products under its own brand, rather it is a business-to-business supplier to branded product makers, including Hormel Foods Corp. (NYSE: HRL) and Salisbury, Maryland-based Perdue Farms. The Better Meat Co.’s vegetable blend is the "Plus" in Perdue's Chicken Plus formulations for tots, tenders and dinosaur-shaped dino nuggets.
West Sacramento-based The Better Meat Co. has four patents for products it makes to replace or enhance meat. Its most recent one is for methods of producing and processing Rhiza, a trade name for a mycelium-based meat analog that has the texture of meat, along with a lot of vitamins. The company is currently selling Rhiza as fast as it can make it, said CEO Paul Shapiro.
Right now, the majority of Better Meat’s sales are vegetable and fungi proteins that are used to enhance chicken, pork, turkey, beef or fish in packaged consumer goods, but Shapiro said the zero-animal products are the future.
The company’s Rhiza mycoprotein is allergen-free and neutral-tasting and can have the texture of animal meat. It’s made from a root-like structure of fungi, which the company grows in a nutrient bath overnight. The Better Meat Co. has 22 employees.
