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The boss of veggie brand Quorn has revealed the company is working on developing its own vegan ‘bleeding’ burger – and has invested $7 million on a research and development facility.
Quorn Chief Executive, Kevin Brennan told The Guardian the company is developing more vegan food in a bid to meet growing consumer demand – targeting the burgeoning flexitarian market, as well as vegetarians and vegans.
He said: “All over the world we have seen a real step-change in the way people are eating. Young consumers are really starting to have concerns around meat from a health and sustainability point of view. It’s not that younger consumers are all turning vegan or vegetarian but they are eating substantially less meat.”
Growth
Quorn has seen its sales rocket in recent times, with UK sales increasing by 12 percent over the first six months of 2018. International interest has also increased. Brennan said: “We are already seeing amazing growth internationally: Australian sales are up 50 percent and US sales are up 23 percent.
“In the US supermarket giant Kroger, we now have the fastest selling product in the [meat alternative] category. With continued investment we believe we can continue this level of performance.”
Quorn’s new ‘bleeding’ vegan burger would compete with the likes of Beyond Meat.Subscribe to Plant Based News’ YouTube Channel here
Meat alternatives
While Quorn remains one of the largest meat-free brands on the market, it is facing competition from the increasingly innovative products reaching UK supermarkets.
Plant tech startup Beyond Meat will launch its flagship Beyond Burger in the meat aisle and freezer section of 400 Tesco stores next month. The product is already outselling beef in some US outlets Rival supermarket Sainsbury’s launched a plant-based mince product and burger by Naturli’ Foods in its own meat aisle in June.
But Brennan is confident the scale of his company means it is best-place to meet the demands of meat-free diners, telling The Guardian: “Nobody can yet produce the array of products available at such high quality and we want to keep that advantage.”
