Food Company Creates 3D Printed Plant-Based Pork As ‘Successor Not Alternative’ To Meat

A Spanish food tech company has created a 3D-printed plant-based pork product it describes as a ‘successor’ to meat.

Novameat, which is based in Barcelona, has named the new product ‘pork skewer 2.0’, after its meat-based counterpart.

‘Moving beyond analogues’

Novameat CEO Giuseppe Scionti told FoodNavigator: “The alternative meat industry is moving beyond ground meat analogs.”

He said the name of the product expresses the company’s aim of ‘creating a “successor” of meat, not just a simple analog’.

He added: “We are mimicking the fibrous texture of pork whole-muscle cuts, which is a different level of complexity and is still not available yet on the market. I believe that the alternative meat industry is moving beyond ground meat analogs.”

Omnipork

One of the vegan ground meat alternatives Scionti was talking about was Omnipork, which he described as ‘an alternative to ground pork meat’. Omnipork (known as ‘new pork’ in Chinese) was developed by Green Common founder David Yeung.

In an interview with Plant Based News, Yeung revealed that he spent a long time assembling the right team, and developing the product, saying: “With entrepreneurship, as much as you have a dream or vision, in the end it’s about execution and execution requires a high performance, mission-aligned good team. We are very fortunate to have come across food scientists – the people who are very familiar with consumer tastes and also the Asian palate.”

While Scionti sees the alternative meat sector growing beyond ground meat alternatives, Omnipork has seen some major successes so far this year: in February, Taiwan’s biggest fast-food chain – Bafang Yunji – sold 1,000,000 vegan pork dumplings filled with the product, in just a week.

Last month, Omnipork launched on menus in Starbucks across China, in two dishes: Vietnamese style noodle salad, and a mushroom sauce grain bowl.