Planted - Alternative meat: is Europe late to the party? with Pascal Bieri

In this episode we go deep into Europe's alternative meat space and discuss whether startups will win this race against US companies and food giants like Nestle.

Pascal Bieri is the Co-Founder of Planted, a Zurich-based startup developing meat from alternative proteins. 

They produce alternative chicken, pulled pork, kebab and schnitzel and their products are available at restaurants and retailers across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and the UK.

Listen and Learn

• US vs Europe: comparison of the alternative meat landscapes (2:00)
• Are we too late to the party in Europe? (3:00)
• Animals have a super inefficient way to transform proteins into a texturized product (5:00)
• The Europe meat substitute market is expected to grow to 3.5bn EUR  by 2027 (6:00)
• Who will win between food giants like Nestle and startups like Planted (7:00)
• Why the super unnatural flavor used by mainstream food giants won’t satisfy consumers for long (8:00)
• The factor that drives success in the alternative meat space (8:58)
• How can intend to compete with the monster retailers (10:30)
• The actual technological innovation of Planted (13:00)
• Planted’s glass-house production facility, making it the first transparent meat production open to the public (15:00)
• Where Planted sources the soy, tofu and the flour used come from (18:00)
• Why pea is also great for the soil (19:00)
• Why the Nutriscore (A to F) isn’t really representative of the quality of ingredients (21:00)
• How growth starts with culture (24:40)
• How Planted tries to center the culture around the team and not egos (26:00)
• How they instill the right hunger for growth (27:00)
• Why being a spin-off from ETH Zurich truly helped them at the start (28:30)
• The advantage of leveraging the innovation centers of top universities (31:00)

Show Links

• Planted Foods
• Video of Planted’s extraction process