The Holy Grail of Veggie Meat Substitute making has been to come up with a way to create Plant-Based meat products that look, cut and chew like the Real Deal. Now, a start-up appears to have beaten the established Plant-Protein guys to the punch with the first manufactured, Plant-based Filet Mignon…
A Juicy Marbles ‘Beef’ Tenderloin: being sliced into
ultra-realistic Plant Protein Filet Mignons…
You’d have thought that somebody like Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods would have been the the one to deliver the first real-looking, real chewing Plant-Based Meat substitutes that actually mimic the real deal in all respects. Instead, it’s a start-up called Juicy Marbles, which unveiled its first-gen Beef-sub last week.
What is it?
It’s a chunk of Veggie Protein that looks, cuts smells tastes and chews just like the real Animal-Protein deal. What’s the big deal? Until now, all Veggie-Protein Meat Substitutes have looked like ground meat, because manufacturers have not broken the ‘code’ of ho to make them look like real meat cuts with long straight tissue grain and natural-looking marbling. Now, Juicy Marbles has rolled out the first of which is planned to be a broad line-up of realistic-looking Veggie-Meat ‘cuts’ – the aforementioned Filet…
“”The biggest challenge was getting the right fiber alignment and intramuscular fat structure – the marbling. The most expensive steaks in the world are known for their lush marbling. It takes a lot of energy and a rare breed of cow to attain that. With plant meat, we control it and, thus, over time, can scale up our steak production and bring down the price. Eventually, we’ll be able to make the most premium meats attainable for everyone,” explains Juicy Marbles (JM) co-founder Luka Sincek.
How do they do it?
They’ve invented a patent-pending proprietary machine they call the Meat-o-Matic Reverse Grinder™ 9000 which aligns the Soy fibres they start with, and layers them to mimic real-meat tissues. It also helps simulate real-looking ‘marbelling’.
Another ‘feature’ of JM’s new plant-based Meat Substitutes is the fact that it comes boneless ‘naturally’. So, when you (eventually) buy JM products, you’ll be getting an all-usable product, without any loss or waste to trimmings like skin, bone or thick surface-Fat caps. And, if the initial price for JM products is steep – which I assume it will be, given the costs of product development the new company will have to recover – you’ll at least get 1oo percent value for your bucks.
Not to mention that the product’s uniformity will be a boon for restaurateurs and commercial kitchen operators.
Want to taste-test it for yourself?
For a limited time, you can order samples of the Filet Mignon from the Juicy Marbles website, for delivery throughout the lower 48 states and Europe – for a limited time. My guess is, JM wants to hear from potential customers about their take on the product before scaling up the process for mass marketing.
What’s next?
Based on the language they’re using in media communications and on their website, I’m assuming JM is planning to eventually use their process to simulate other popular meats such as Pork, Chicken and certain Seafoods which are traditionally popular, and the real-deal version of which is premium-priced and not particularly sustainable to raise the traditional way.
JM appears to be telling us – without using the actual words and infringing the trademarks or touchy feelings of specialty farmers – that they’ve already got a competitor for premium cuts such as Kobe steaks nailed, and they’ll be quick to move on to other cuts and meats once their test market program is over, and any adjustments needed to the manufacturing process are ironed out.
My take
Think the photo (centre, above) is tummy-looking? Take a gander at the JM website. No one expected a breakthrough like JM’s process for simulating real meat grain and marbelling would come so soon. But now, I think we’ll be hearing a lot more about Plant-based Meat Substitutes very soon. And that will, among other things, help encourage the skeptical – including older folks who may be ultra-suspicious of anything new – to try the Juicy Marbles products…
~ Maggie J.