Thanks to the rapidly increasing number of vegetarians and flexitarians, plant-based substitute products as an alternative to conventional meat products are a flourishing growth segment. These plant-based meat analogues, meat imitations, meat alternatives, vegetarian meat products or fake meat products, as meat substitute pro-ducts are also called, imitate the texture, flavour and appearance of real meat products and are also inspired by their designations.
In addition to classics such as vegan mince, an increasing number of new meat substitute products can be found on the shelves. Vegan formed products, which are meat substitutes in all sorts of shapes, are currently particularly in vogue. The range of formed products is enormous, spanning from red-meat burger patties and white-meat nuggets or sticks to red/white-striped vegan bacon. The technological aspects that need to be paid attention to in the production of these products are as manifold as the products themselves. The wide variety of shapes these products can have is owed to different forming systems that can be used for the production of formed products.
Handtmann offers experienced meat-processing companies as well as start-ups valuable knowledge around processing of meat substitutes in a whitepaper series: current market information, information on optimal process technology and what to pay attention to in the production of these products or how to optimise production processes. Whitepaper no. 1 is on the topic “production of vegan mince” and whitepaper no. 2 on “production of vegan formed products”.