Meat + Poultry - March 2006 - 33

Meat analogs

Manufacturer brand sales of meat substitutes in the U.S. (2002 and 2004)
Company

Brand

2002 Market
$ million share %

Kellogg Co.

Morningstar Farms

Kraft Foods, Inc.

Boca Burgers

Other

2004 Market
% change
$ million share % 2002-2004

142

44.9

147

45.5

3.5

69

21.8

63

9.5

-8.7

105

33.2

113

35

7.6

Source: Mintel International Group Ltd.

cooking the item and freezing it. Examples of end products include a vegetarian
item formed to look like a half chicken,
which can be cooked whole, put in stew,
cooked as a stir-fry or even deep-fried.
In Japan, processors are selling vegetarian hams using this technology.
"The product has no flavor, because
it is not made with soy flour," says Dr.
Mian Riaz, a researcher in the Food
Protein R&D Center at Texas A&M
Univ., College Station. "Flour has sugar and carbohydrates that can leave the
beany flavor. This process uses concentrate, which has a very bland taste and
takes up other flavors very well."
The newest wave of meatless products is made with high-moisture meat
analogs. The end products have a layered, fibrous structure and a meat-like
composition that is 60 percent to 70
percent water; 2 percent to 5 percent oil;
and 10 percent to 15 percent protein.
The raw materials for H.M.M.A. are
soy concentrate, soy isolate, vital wheat
gluten, starch and oil. The upside of
H.M.M.A. is the end product looks and
feels like real meat. The downside is the
end product must be handled like real
meat, requiring it to be retort packaged
or frozen, which can pose problems for
smaller processors who have limited
cooler space. The H.M.M.A. process
requires some extra processing steps
as well, including processing through
a specific type of extruder.
"High-moisture extrusion is the
newest piece for now," says Kerry's
Gieseke. "There are a lot of new applications being developed - newer
spins on older technology. I guess the
key piece is the analog has been able to
reinvent itself. Some of the newer areas
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in the market where there is growth are
convenience, weight loss and ethnic.
The core ingredient may be the same,
but the application and the way it works
can be different."
The technology behind many of the
advancements in the development of
newer meat analogs is the twin-screw
extrusion process. The technology is
not new - it's been around for close
to five decades - but new applications
continue to be developed. A twin-screw
extruder is made up of two co-rotating,
co-penetrating screws. The screws are
supported by bearings and rotate in a
fixed casing called the barrel.
To adapt the equipment to various
applications, the screws, which carry
out most of the work of transport, mixing, compression, blending, shearing
or pressure reduction of the materials,
have been designed in a fully modular
way. Their composition, based on elements assembled on a shaft, can be
modified in a short time depending on
the products to be processed and the
end product required.
For meatless products, a key quality attribute for the end product is its
texture, whether it is ground, shredded,
chunked or designed to mimic whole
muscle. At Kerry Ingredients, Zeien is
working on products that can mimic
ground, emulsified, pulled or whole
muscle. She describes the process as
proprietary but says the texture develops once the product is hydrated.
"In Specialty Ingredients we have an
analog that is a soy and wheat combination," she says. "It is specifically made
to maintain that shred-type texture."
According to Gieseke, Nutriant's analog product is different in the sense that

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it is 100 percent soy. "One of the results
is the nutritional profile is quite high,"
she says. "The protein content is comparable to meat, milk and egg, and it
works in schools as a meat alternative."
Defining the meatless market
The vegetarian food market is forecast to grow to more than $1.7 billion
in sales in the next five years, according to data provided by Mintel International Group Limited, Chicago. The
forecast figure represents an increase
of 19 percent at constant 2005 prices
from 2005 to 2010.
By comparison, from 2000 to 2005,
total U.S. sales of vegetarian food increased by 45 percent at constant 2005
prices. Mintel analysts note market
growth could be different than the forecast if there are unforeseen shifts regarding dietary trends or popular opinion
about the ethics of eating animals.
Sales of meat substitutes increased 8
percent between 2000 and 2005. Segment sales declined in 2004 and 2005,
in part because of the emergence of
the trend toward avoiding high-carbohydrate products. Meat substitutes saw
sales decline and market share drop because of consumers' justification that
the "real thing" was not so bad, according to Mintel.
Another driver behind the growth of
the meat alternative market has been
apprehension about the quality of the
meat supply in the United States. As
organic and kosher meats are becoming easier to find in the mainstream
supermarket, it is likely consumers are
beginning to replace their alternative
burgers and crumbles with real meat
products.
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