2021 was supposed to be the year of plant-based chicken: nuggets, strips, patties were all the rage. CEO and Founder of Daring Chicken, Jeff Gendelman, joins CEO of VegTech Invest and host Elysabeth Alfano on The Plantbased Business Hour to take us through the highs and lows of the plant-based chicken trajectory and the chances for success of the category.
Specifically, we discussed
- Europe is having much more success with this category than the US. Let’s take a trip around the world to discuss how plant-based, specifically chicken, is doing in Europe, Asia (if you want) and then the US.
- Are you seeing any signs of things changing in the US? If so, where? Nuggets? Patties? Strips? Meals? Breaded?
- How much of the change is driven by the economy? Sustainability issues? Health concerns or better products?
- What kind of innovation are we seeing in the products at Daring?
- What predications are you making for the space?
Below is a highlight clip and transcription from our long-form conversation.
Elysabeth: CEO and Founder of Daring Chicken, I do have to say it’s one of my very favorite chickens, Jeff Gendelman. Thanks for being with me today.
So I love that you bring up vegan fried chicken because it speaks to how chicken, almost more than anything else, is so versatile. You’ve got a patty, a nugget, strips, fried chicken- I had almost forgotten about fried chicken since I eat it so rarely. You’ve got chicken drumsticks and this kind of thing. Is there any one of the formats that is doing better than others? Would it be nuggets or how is it shaking out within the sector itself? We’ll talk about the U.S. again.
Jeff Gendelman: Yeah, I’m not sure about Europe. Plant-based meat has been down 3% to 5% almost the last consecutive ten to twelve quarters, roughly. Plant-based chicken has also experienced pretty significant decline, but a lot of that is because the old incumbent brands with these cheap TVP products that are breaded ultimately weren’t delivering on the experience. 8% of all plant-based chicken is non-breaded, so 92% is breaded in this space.
Elysabeth: And therefore fried, right? Breaded and fried.
Jeff Gendelman: And therefore fried. Daring has grown 20% to 30% a year because that’s been the gap in the marketplace for non-breaded substrate that creates the versatility that you’re alluding to to be able to do whatever you do with animal chicken, which is how you create a pad thai chicken or tacos that you want to add some chicken to. You don’t get that experience with a breaded product. So the breaded side has been declining around 5% to 7% and then the non-breaded part of the portfolio within the broader category has seen some nice growth.
Elysabeth: Well, you bring up one of the things I wanted to make sure that we were talking about with Daring is that one of the things I love about Daring is its ability to be pulled apart. So it can be chopped or pulled so you can cook with it as opposed to how this product is already made and all I can do is microwave it. You know what I mean?
So I love the versatility of Daring and I just usually end up using it in a patty for a chicken sandwich. I mean, I actually don’t do that much cooking with it but I like that when I bite into it I’m pulling on what kind of looks and feels and acts like a chicken patty.
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