News & Trends
A Chicken Without The Chicken Please
planted.chicken: Food for Future. A chicken without the chicken please.
Consumption of beef and pork is decreasing slightly – but people in Switzerland are developing an increasing appetite for chicken. The reasons for this are open to speculation. Is it down to chicken’s healthy reputation? Or are there already better meat-free alternatives to beef etc., such as Beyond Meat? A Swiss start-up is tackling this issue and serving chicken that doesn’t actually contain any chicken.
Chicken is the only meat that is eaten by the followers of all religions. It has a fibrous consistency, it’s low-fat and protein-rich, and it inspires global cuisine to create unbelievably tasty dishes. On the other hand, pea protein, rapeseed oil and water don’t exactly sound like a treat for the taste buds. But these are precisely the ingredients for the “fake chicken” that is produced by the newly founded company, Planted Foods AG. The young entrepreneurs started working on “planted chicken” two years ago.
At ETH Zürich they researched, stirred, kneaded, added spices, and above all carried out testing. No less a personality than Rolf Hiltl, a professional chef and high priest of veggie cuisine, tested planted.chicken in terms of its consistency, its cooking and roasting properties, and of course its taste. Apart from its amazing similarity to chicken meat, the new plant-based product outdoes the meat version in terms of its protein and roughage content.
„If we want to feed ten billion people by 2050 then we can’t go on consuming as much animal protein as we do at the moment.“
A real social change rather than a fad
Just recently Lukas Böni, the food technologist and co-founder of Planted Foods AG, appeared on the evening news programme of Germany’s ZDF TV channel and explained why this change is necessary: “If we want to feed ten billion people by 2050 then we can’t go on consuming as much animal protein as we do at the moment.” The start-up with its constantly increasing number of employees is about to move into the historic building where the spice pioneer Julius Maggi used to work. Then they’ll be able to produce more meat-free chicken. Feeling hungry? Coop has already stocked up its food supplies.
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«planted.chicken» – a brief overview:
Umweltfreundlich
- Cuts greenhouse gas emissions by ⅔
- Cuts agricultural land use by ⅔
- Only requires half the energy that’s needed to produce chicken
Transparent
- 100 percent plantbased
- 0 percent animal suffering
- Added ingredients from Europe and Switzerland, produced in Zurich
Gesund
- High protein and roughage content
- Contains essential amino acids
- No cholesterol, hormones, additives, antibiotics, gluten, or genetic engineering
