![]() ![]() Tucker Bunch, culinary innovation and development chef at Sweet Earth, prepares food in the office's test kitchen. The products will be sold in a dedicated, branded deli counter as well as on shelves. And through Sweet Earth, Nestlé is also launching a line of plant-based deli meats, including turkey, ham, salami and sausage, this spring. McDonald’s, for its part, has said that it is still deciding whether to serve a meatless (but meatlike) burger in the United States. Nestlé is already partnering with McDonald’s on vegan patties in Europe - if that relationship extends to the United States, the Awesome Burger could be in the biggest burger chain in America. ![]() Its relationships and its broad product platform mean that Nestlé can ensure the Awesome Burger will, in some form or another, be everywhere - in restaurants, on grocery shelves and incorporated into frozen meals. Nestlé is a master of supply chains and a profit machine, unlike its younger competitors. Sweet Earth has already benefited from that scale: While under Nestlé’s umbrella, it has rolled out frozen pizzas, empanadas and new entrees. Its breathtaking scale dwarfs Impossible and Beyond: The Swiss company employs 308,000 people, rakes in tens of billions of dollars in annual sales, has offices in countries around the world and owns a wide variety of well-established brands, including Dreyer’s and Häagen-Dazs ice cream, Toll House chocolate chips and cookie dough, Gerber baby food, DiGiorno frozen pizza, Lean Cuisine, Stouffer’s and more. It has about 140 years on Beyond and Impossible. Nestlé, on the other hand, is the largest food company in the world, according to Forbes. The Awesome Burger is designed to look, cook and taste like real meat. Impossible is private and doesn’t disclose financial information. Beyond had a wildly successful IPO and has since held a secondary offering, but its losses remain steep, and experts fear the inflated stock price may be a sign of a bubble. Impossible faced shortages, reassigning employees from its corporate office to its refrigerated warehouse to help meet demand (the shortages, it says, are over). Like many young companies, Beyond and Impossible have struggled, as well. The buzzy startups have been growing rapidly, with orders pouring in from Burger King, Dunkin’, Subway and Sodexo, which counts university and corporate cafeterias among its customers. Impossible Foods has been around since 2011, Beyond Meat since 2009. And like Impossible and Beyond Meat’s products, a bite of the Awesome Burger patty, when topped with condiments, lettuce, tomato and onions and served in a moist bun, is a satisfying approximation of a real beef burger.īut the Awesome Burger is a big deal because it marks a turning point for fake meat. Like Impossible and Beyond’s version, the plant-based burger is designed to cook, look and taste like real meat. The product, currently rolling out to retailers including Fred Meyer, Hy-Vee, Ralphs, Safeway, Stop & Shop and others, is hardly a breakthrough. Sweet Earth is located in Monterey County, California, home of the "salad bowl of the world." Christie Hemm Klok for CNN Construction is underway, and soon employees will start making a slew of new products, including the Awesome Burger, Nestlé’s answer to the Impossible and Beyond Meat burgers. Nestlé is spending more than $5 million to renovate the facility, adding new equipment, more freezer capacity, “meat” smokers and more. But these days, it’s turning into something else - Nestlé’s Plant-Based Protein Center of Excellence, the beating heart of the massive food company’s recent foray into fake meat.Īt the Moss Landing facility, where factory workers crank out the wheat-gluten-based Benevolent Bacon responsible for the scent, changes are afoot. It’s been Sweet Earth’s home for years, well before Nestlé acquired the then 350-person company in 2017. Home of the Salinas Valley, the so-called “salad bowl of the world,” it’s one of the most productive agricultural areas on the planet, growing more than 150 crops including lettuce - lots of lettuce. Monterey County, where Moss Landing is situated, is the perfect place for a vegetarian business. It’s surprising, because this exit leads to the headquarters of the vegetarian meal company Sweet Earth, where bacon - at least the kind made from pigs - is absolutely not on the menu. If you turn off Highway 1 at just the right spot in Moss Landing, California, past fruit stands, roadside cafes and artichoke farms, you may catch a sudden whiff of bacon.
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