We were thrilled to attend the IFT FIRST annual exposition in July. A few of our team members traveled to Chicago, Illinois, to join the action. They dove deep into the world of regulatory codex, plant protein functionality and the fermentation revolution. 

A regulatory codex 

Janet Collins, head of Regulatory Government and Industry Affairs with Motif, has attended IFT events since 1976, so it holds a very special place in her heart. She has served in numerous leadership positions with IFT, including serving as President from 2013-2014.  

This year, she moderated the Codex Alimentarius Panel Discussion, which discussed setting global food standards for safety, nutrition, health and trade.  

Codex Alimentarius has developed global regulatory standards, procedures and guidance to enable the implementation of common regulations for food safety and global trade for 60 years, 30 of which IFT has been involved in.   

“The first time IFT brought a panel together to discuss Codex topics was not successful. We forgot how boring it seems to the audience,” Janet said. “But this one wasn’t, it was highly successful because people are finally recognizing the importance of Codex.”   

There are a million different standards that would fuel great conversation, but Janet and her co-moderator, Martin Slayne, vice president of Global Regulatory Affairs for Ingredion Incorporated, focused on what they believed were the most difficult issues, such as safety and true risk assessment, biotech labeling and nutrition.  

Plant protein functionality 

Dilek Uzunalioglu, director of Food Applications with Motif, has also attended IFT events for quite some time. She serves as the IFT protein division leader and is responsible for developing content and nominating speakers for the event.  

 “It was amazing seeing people after so many years apart due to COVID,” said Dilek. I cannot tell you how often I stopped walking on the expo floor to say ‘hi’ to someone and catch up.”  

Motif had a great presence at the panel on plant protein functionality, which was hosted by Dilek and joined by Philippe Prochasson, Motif’s vice president of Bioscience and Analytics. The audience packed into the room and quickly filled the seats, leaving other attendees standing.  

During the panel, there was a great emphasis on the challenges of coloration within plant-based foods.  

“The panelists were also enthralled by the discussion regarding the means of gaining FDA approval for plant-based products,” said Philippe. “All panelists were on similar pages with similar mindsets, allowing a seamless conversation.” 

The fermentation revolution 

Proceeding the panel, Philippe Prochasson hosted a poster session, “A 21st Century Revolution: Cell-based Production of Alternative Proteins Through Precision Fermentation.”  

He talked the audience through the journey of producing Motif’s first commercial alternative protein, HEMAMI™, from microbial design to scale-up fermentation.  

“Using precision fermentation, we can produce an animal protein without the animal and still be able to capture the functionality of said protein,” Philippe explained. “With the help of Ginkgo Bioworks vast database, we identified bovine myoglobin through sequencing through databases of desired animal protein genomes and mimicked it without the animal.” 

Motif moves past mimicry by creating new food experiences by improving bovine myoglobin’s productivity and production. Motif made a three-fold improvement from generation one to generation four in bovine myoglobin relative expression. 

“While right now we are focused animal replacement protein,” Philippe said, “we can dream of finding a novel protein that will further enhance the functionality of plant-based foods.”  

We were thrilled to attend the IFT FIRST annual exposition in July. A few of our team members traveled to Chicago, Illinois, to join the action. They dove deep into the world of regulatory codex, plant protein functionality and the fermentation revolution. 

A regulatory codex 

Janet Collins, head of Regulatory Government and Industry Affairs with Motif, has attended IFT events since 1976, so it holds a very special place in her heart. She has served in numerous leadership positions with IFT, including serving as President from 2013-2014.  

This year, she moderated the Codex Alimentarius Panel Discussion, which discussed setting global food standards for safety, nutrition, health and trade.  

Codex Alimentarius has developed global regulatory standards, procedures and guidance to enable the implementation of common regulations for food safety and global trade for 60 years, 30 of which IFT has been involved in.   

“The first time IFT brought a panel together to discuss Codex topics was not successful. We forgot how boring it seems to the audience,” Janet said. “But this one wasn’t, it was highly successful because people are finally recognizing the importance of Codex.”   

There are a million different standards that would fuel great conversation, but Janet and her co-moderator, Martin Slayne, vice president of Global Regulatory Affairs for Ingredion Incorporated, focused on what they believed were the most difficult issues, such as safety and true risk assessment, biotech labeling and nutrition.  

Plant protein functionality 

Dilek Uzunalioglu, director of Food Applications with Motif, has also attended IFT events for quite some time. She serves as the IFT protein division leader and is responsible for developing content and nominating speakers for the event.  

 “It was amazing seeing people after so many years apart due to COVID,” said Dilek. I cannot tell you how often I stopped walking on the expo floor to say ‘hi’ to someone and catch up.”  

Motif had a great presence at the panel on plant protein functionality, which was hosted by Dilek and joined by Philippe Prochasson, Motif’s vice president of Bioscience and Analytics. The audience packed into the room and quickly filled the seats, leaving other attendees standing.  

During the panel, there was a great emphasis on the challenges of coloration within plant-based foods.  

“The panelists were also enthralled by the discussion regarding the means of gaining FDA approval for plant-based products,” said Philippe. “All panelists were on similar pages with similar mindsets, allowing a seamless conversation.” 

The fermentation revolution 

Proceeding the panel, Philippe Prochasson hosted a poster session, “A 21st Century Revolution: Cell-based Production of Alternative Proteins Through Precision Fermentation.”  

He talked the audience through the journey of producing Motif’s first commercial alternative protein, HEMAMI™, from microbial design to scale-up fermentation.  

“Using precision fermentation, we can produce an animal protein without the animal and still be able to capture the functionality of said protein,” Philippe explained. “With the help of Ginkgo Bioworks vast database, we identified bovine myoglobin through sequencing through databases of desired animal protein genomes and mimicked it without the animal.” 

Motif moves past mimicry by creating new food experiences by improving bovine myoglobin’s productivity and production. Motif made a three-fold improvement from generation one to generation four in bovine myoglobin relative expression. 

“While right now we are focused animal replacement protein,” Philippe said, “we can dream of finding a novel protein that will further enhance the functionality of plant-based foods.”  

“This is the best plant-based product I’ve tried during the whole show!” 

“I’m normally a meat eater, but I really like this!” 

“I am bringing my friends to try to burger, and I’ll be here for it tomorrow too.” 

 “The texture on this is really unique, much better than the competitors.” 

“I stopped by the Motif booth because word is going around that it’s the best plant-based burger at the show.” 

We had a fantastic time showing everyone what’s been cooking at Motif. Check out our social feeds for more highlights of the event.  

SXSW brings industries together to showcase breakthroughs and cutting-edge ideas through exhibitions, panel discussions, keynote speakers and workshops. The city of Austin becomes grounds for the best and brightest to converge, share and learn from each other.

From crunchy first bites to silky smooth sips that delight our taste buds, texture is a big part of why we enjoy eating. Texture can turn a simple sustenance into an exquisite sensory experience and enhance the flavor of food. That said, texture is a very individual experience; what pleases the palate is a unique mix of preferences that can vary greatly by person.

That means we have to use our scientific lenses to uncover what makes texture “better” when it comes to improving plant-based meat. That “better” texture all depends on what you are trying to recreate, whether it’s the tenderness of chicken, the flakiness of a fish, or the springiness and chew of a burger patty. There’s a spectrum of texture attributes, which are even more nuanced when it comes to plant-based meat. The question is, can the experience of texture be measured? And how do we design unique combinations that improve food experiences for everyone? At Motif, we believe we’re doing just that for plant-based foods through our innovative plant-based technology: APPETEX™.

Why texture matters

Meat has a highly unique texture due to its complex structure. That springy feel when chewing comes down to a combination of proteins that comprise muscle and connective tissues in meat, along with elements of cartilage and even bone. While plant-based proteins like texturized soy or pea protein can mimic the fibrous structure of meat, these substances literally fall flat when it comes to the springy chewdown sensation of meat.

Innovating outside the box

Armed with this knowledge, Dr. Uzunalioglu and Dr. Stefan Baier, Motif’s head of food science, engaged an outside network of innovators and multidisciplinary experts across diverse fields like physics and aerodynamics to biotech and materials science to come up with a viable solution to our tricky texture troubles. 

Recipe for success

Development of this technology was just the first step. The biggest challenge lay in coming up with the right formulation to test it in—a task made more challenging by the pandemic and office and lab closures. At the start of the pandemic, Dr. Uzunalioglu recalls turning her kitchen into a food science lab and using a high-quality mixer and scale to test out the early formulations and methods for adding APPETEX™ into plant-based meat.

“The first APPETEX™ sample I received was also my first at-home kitchen sample! We had to do a lot of baseline formulation to get the size and composition of APPETEX™ just right,” says Dr. Uzunalioglu.

APPETEX™ is produced in the form of small, dried pellets which expand when hydrated. Dr. Uzunalioglu believes this is another major benefit of the technology, that it can be easily incorporated into existing methods of plant-based meat formulation.

“Selling the dry material and incorporating it into a commercial partner’s current process makes perfect sense from the perspective of shelf life and the logistics of preparing the final product,” says Dr. Uzunalioglu, whose team helps food developers formulate their foods with the optimal balance of this texture technology.

The results from consumers taste testing APPETEX™ in a showcase burger were overwhelmingly positive in Motif’s focus groups. “It tastes so much like meat: the juiciness, the texture, the color,” said one satisfied consumer. “The texture is almost identical to a hamburger!” declared another, echoing what many of the pleasantly surprised consumers had to say, along with many comments about how “it’s not just one uniform texture.”

How do you recreate the taste, texture and overall experience of biting into a juicy plant-based burger? Believe it or not, the science behind the physical properties of food and how it leads to different sensory experiences does not currently exist. That’s why we’re partnering with the University of Queensland (UQ) to answer this question.

This culinary quest is part of a three-year Australian Research Council project to better understand the sensory experience around the taste and texture of plant-based foods. While previous approaches relied on trial and error to measure these sensory inputs, this project will develop new sciences that uncover novel insights for measuring the physics, physiology and sensory experiences of eating food.

Ultimately, UQ’s work will help the bridge knowledge-gap in what happens to food at the material level—from the first bite of a burger to how it breaks down and dissolves in the mouth. Professor Jason Stokes and Associate Professor Heather Smyth are leading this work at the university, and will bring their expertise in chemical engineering and nutritional food science to the project. They are also working alongside Professor Louw Hoffman, Professor of Meat Science, who has a deep understanding of the material properties of meat.

I spoke to them about their hopes and goals for this project⁠—and here’s what they had to say.

Motif Team (MT): Congratulations on winning a grant to dive deeper into this important research. Recreating the taste, texture and experience of biting into a juicy beef burger using plant-based proteins is the Holy Grail of 21st century food science. Motif FoodWorks and UQ have worked together in this area before, so it’s great that we can cement our relationship by partnering to tackle big industry challenges around plant-based foods.

Jason Stokes (JS): It’s exciting to work with Motif, especially since your team includes a bevy of academics from around the world. We started this adventure when I was in the industry about 15 years ago and it continued when I joined UQ. We wrote influential pieces about how food is transformed during the eating process⁠—this is something that no one really focused on before and now we’re uncovering new techniques to examine that. Collaborating with Heather Smyth is really the step change because we can bring in a more sensory angle.

Heather Smyth (HS): We’ve been doing a lot of work to understand how functional ingredients can change and how we can modify them to create a more pleasurable eating experience for consumers. We have a unique offering here, with both a fundamental understanding of human oral physiology and sensory science, as well as the chemical engineering, structural or physical properties of food.

MT: Consumer demand for plant-based food is rising steadily, but the food industry has struggled in providing a plant-based experience that emulates the overall taste, texture, and aroma of meat. Why is this so challenging for plant-based proteins?

HS: Well, they’re not meat proteins to start with! They don’t functionally behave the same way that meat proteins do. So, they don’t release juiciness like a beef burger does or break down in the same way. And they don’t have that elastic quality when you’re eating a meat burger. We need to understand why they’re different, how they’re different and what consumers are really looking for from meat alternative products.

MT: How will this grant help uncover the differences between plant-based proteins and meat, especially in how they behave in foods we love to enjoy like burgers?

JS: As we eat food, we chew it, it interacts with saliva, it breaks down and that food is transformed quite dramatically. My research tries to understand that process in a mechanical sense and how that links to our sensory perception of the food, both in texture and taste. What is it that’s different about the structure in the product that leads to a difference in perception? If we can get a better handle on that, then we can deliver a seamless sensory experience and emulate as many features as possible with plant-based meat.

MT: In many ways this research grant is quite timely as consumer demand for plant-based foods has been rising steadily for the past few years, as has the global population and awareness of the global climate crisis. Why do you think people are adopting more meat alternatives into their diet and will consumers’ desires help drive it forward?

HS: Certainly, there’s a strong consumer drive for food products that are more sustainable and allow us to make choices that are better for the environment. Let’s say there’s a protein shortage in the future if our population doubles as is predicted, we still need to feed all those people and they’ll want to eat something that’s both sustainable and delicious.

JS: This grant is exciting because it’s focused on plant-based foods. One of the biggest challenges in research is that consumers are driving this desire to be more focused around sustainability. This project is aimed at the most commonly eaten foods and trying to understand what makes meat products so interesting. What is in the structure of meat that leads to a different sensory presence and why are we attracted to it? We want to keep a similar eating experience but with alternative proteins.

MT: This is a three-year research project, where do you hope to be by the end of it?

JS: I expect that the knowledge and insights we generate will be used by Motif to make better plant-based foods. We will generate new knowledge that’s not been previously available and expanding that knowledge base into the sector is really important. We also want to train the next generation to think creatively and make a step change for companies in the food sector.

HS: In the short term, I really hope that we’re able to make some real breakthroughs in understanding how to modify and change plant proteins in a way that makes them just as good as meat. It’s going to take some breakthroughs in understanding how to make plant proteins as delicious as their animal counterparts. Together, UQ and Motif are working hard to develop a plant protein a sustainable option that meets high consumer standards.

Read more about Motif’s work with the University of Queensland team.

Plant-based foods are going mainstream.

Thanks to growing awareness of the health benefits of plant-based diets, and of the climate impacts of animal agriculture, more consumers are seeking out plant-based foods for the first time. The plant-based industry is a $25 billion market that’s growing four times faster than animal-based markets.^[1] In 2020 alone, the plant-based dairy market grew 12% year-over-year, compared to 3% for its animal-based counterparts, while plant-based meat grew 25% compared to animal-based meat’s 9%.^[1]

While the plant-based industry is growing, it’s important to note that there are still gaps in consumer acceptance. Our research at Motif FoodWorks and others’^[2] reveal that the biggest need and opportunity to gain wider acceptance is in improving taste and the sensory experience. In fact, two out of three Americans (67 percent) say they would be willing to eat more plant-based foods instead of meat if plant-based options tasted better than they do today.^[3]

So how can we get more consumers to adopt plant-based foods? Beyond tastier products, the key is understanding who the plant-based consumer is – and what they want.

Who is the plant-based consumer?

Based on our research with more than two thousand plant-based consumers, the average plant-based consumer is female, millennial, and politically leans liberal. Of the plant-based consumers surveyed, 69% were female, 29% male and 2% not identifying as male or female. Millennials made up 55% of the market, with Gen X coming in at 24%. Previous generations such as Boomers are slower in plant-based adoption, making up just 12% of the category.

What are they looking for?

The plant-based consumer is looking for more than what’s currently on the market, and are disappointed by the taste, texture and versatility of plant-based products when compared to the real thing. They expect plant-based products to easily integrate into traditional meals that use animal-based counterparts such as ground meats and shreds. And they want to incorporate plant-based into their lives through simple at-home preparation and substitute it into comfort foods such as pizza or chicken nuggets.

Where offerings fall short – and how to fix it

This surge in consumer demand is a major opportunity for the food industry, but it also presents its biggest challenge: making plant-based options that consumers want to buy again and again.

Consumers who are particularly conscious of health, animal welfare and sustainability no longer need to be convinced of the value of plant-based foods, but most consumers are still skeptical about how they actually taste. Some of these consumers even told us that today’s offerings feel limited. They want to move beyond animal mimics, and are increasingly interested in new, innovative plant-based food forms.

Understanding consumers’ needs and filling those gaps is essential to growing the plant-based category. That’s why at Motif FoodWorks we’re constantly talking with them – and why we believe that you shouldn’t compromise taste and experience when it comes to plant-based foods.

That no compromise approach is behind our recent food-tech breakthroughs that create the rich meaty taste, appearance and texture in plant-based meat. In fact, when we tested these products in a burger designed with our food tech, 73% of core plant-based consumers preferred our showcase burger to an 80/20 beef burger. We’re also hard at work on creating new, plant-based food forms that have the capability to stand on their own and occupy the center of consumers’ plates.

Ultimately, our mission is to make plant-based foods better tasting, more nutritious, and so desirable that people crave them. These consumer insights show that there’s a huge opportunity to do just that. Visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter to keep up-to-date on our progress and what’s new in the world of plant-based foods.

This blog was originally published on Women in Agribusiness.

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^[1] Nielsen & Euromonitor 2020.

^[2] Accelerating Consumer Adoption of Plant-Based Meat: An Evidence-Based Guide for Effective Practice. The Good Food Institute 2020.

^[3] Climate change and the American diet. Yale University and Earth Day Network 2020.

We’re on a mission to make plant-based foods better tasting and so desirable that you crave them. That’s why we partnered with Coolgreens to provide consumers an exceptionally better plant-based burger made with Motif’s innovative food tech. 

This is the first time we’ve tested our food tech in a restaurant, so I sat down with Coolgreens President & COO, Todd Madlener, to dive deeper into our partnership and how their customers responded.

Motif Team (MT): Right off the bat, let’s talk about burgers! Though you don’t normally have them on your menu, you know a thing or two about them.

Todd Madlener (TM): I do. I spent quite a bit of time in my career at Red Robin, and helped design many of their signature burgers. So I know a thing or two about them!  I’ve always wanted to do a burger like that at Coolgreens, but something healthier that would fit with our client base but still tastes great. Your burger actually fits right in with that type of product, like something you’d find at one of the local burger joints. Only with these burgers, you got the bite, you got the chew, and all the things you’d expect when you’re eating a fantastic meat-based burger – only it was animal-free, with all of the plant-based health benefits. 

MT: We featured Motif’s innovative ingredients in this showcase plant-based burger, designed to demonstrate our food technologies that elevate meaty taste, texture, aroma and appearance. What did your customers have to say?

TM: We had many guests try it and insist it wasn’t plant-based. Multiple times during this limited-time trial, we actually had to show them the ingredients list to prove it, because they didn’t believe we were giving them a meat alternative product. To them, it stood levels above the competition. 

MT: That was one of my favorite feedback points. But you still had to do the work of styling those patties to integrate with your customers’ expectations of a Coolgreens meal experience, because as you said earlier, you’re not a burger-forward chain. Was that a challenge for you and your team? 

TM: To think that we were adding a burger to the menu was a bit of a reach for us as a company, but we did so because the product is amazing and we knew our customers would be open to trying it. So, we turned it into two absolute home run items, the Spicy & Feisty Burger with dairy-free cheddar cheese product, fresh jalapeños, salsa, tomatoes and greenleaf, and the Bold Balsamic Burger, a little more savory with feta cheese, fresh roasted tomatoes, spring greens, and a balsamic dressing, each served on a wheat ciabatta bun. I love the balsamic.

MT: They were delicious, and the feedback data you gave us backed that up. Ninety three percent of your customers said they would eat your plant-based offerings regularly, and sixty two percent of respondents said they would purchase the burger again. Those burgers ended up being competitive with some of the permanent options on your menu during the trial. Was that a surprise?

TM: We were pleased, and pleasantly surprised. Advancements have come along so far for meat alternatives, so we knew that our customers would be more willing to try and experiment. Those are our flexitarians or plant-based customers who would be open to an alternative form of protein. We always try to give them choices but we make sure those choices are exceptional. So for us, it’s taken a while to find a product that we feel meets the quality standards and flavor profile, texture, and taste that we’re looking for. This one hit the nail on the head. 

Thank you to all who stopped by and tried the limited time offer! We’re always looking for new ways to test our food-tech and make sure they perform well with consumers who purchase our customers’ products. And don’t worry if you didn’t get a chance to come down to Coolgreens, we’ll have more opportunities to try our craveworthy food-tech in the future. Make sure to follow us on social media for the latest updates. 

An international conference in Italy led to a chance encounter between three unlikely friends: an automotive engineer, an oral biologist, and a food scientist. And the rest, as they say, is history. That is, part of Motif’s innovative food science and technology history, and the foundation for a bold partnership between Motif FoodWorks, King’s College London, and Imperial College London.

In northern Italy, the fifth World Tribology Congress brought together world-class experts obsessed with tribology, the study of how surfaces in relative motion interact with one another. Most of the researchers and industry heavyweights in attendance are not food scientists, but engineers and physicists furthering the field of mechanical lubrication, friction, and wear and tear.

But that didn’t stop Dr. Stefan Baier, now Motif FoodWorks’ Head of Food Science, from flying halfway around the world to listen to what these experts had to say. As a food scientist, he certainly stuck out. Yet at that conference he began sowing the seeds for an interesting partnership with implications for how we measure and perceive food.

In food, tribology comes into play when attempting to manage and mitigate astringency, a dry, puckering mouthfeel that’s often associated with substances like coffee, tea, wine, and some types of unripened fruit. Astringency has been a particular, long-standing challenge for plant-based food product researchers. Plant-based products are meant to mimic their animal-based counterparts in a myriad of ways, but an astringent sensation – often present in plant-based products – is not part of the oral experience of animal-based products.  

“What puzzles me in the food space is that most of the experience that we are trying to sell happens in your mouth,” said Dr. Baier. “But we don’t know how texture develops throughout the full experience of oral processing. So I became focused on the intricate rheology, the science of flow and deformation, and the tribology of these experiences. They’re key to understanding the rules that create these very specific positive and negative effects in the mouth.”

Dr. Baier’s astringency solution was to find the biggest gathering of international researchers who could show him, chemically and mechanically, how to harness the power of tribology to solve this challenge. Sitting at a bar in Torino after the conference, Dr. Baier struck up a conversation with Dr. Thomas Reddyhoff, a senior lecturer within the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London. Dr. Reddyhoff was surprised to learn Dr. Baier was a conference attendee, and was curious about why a lone food scientist was 4,000 miles away from home just to hear a bunch of mechanical wear and tear experts talk about mostly industrial and automotive solutions.  

Naturally, even bar food came into play; “Regarding texture, you don’t say ‘I had a particularly crunchy chip today’ but you can tell when it’s soggy and stale,” said Dr. Baier. The two talked at length about this and other fascinating intersections of their respective fields, and walked away from that conference with a plan to solve plant food science’s most perplexing challenges.

“Our mission in our partnership with Motif has been trying to understand what drives the mouth perception of taste and feel,” said Dr. Reddyhoff. “By exploring the basic science behind what makes eating enjoyable, we’re helping Motif’s customers better formulate their plant-based products to make them more palatable, passing along health benefits and aiding in consumer adoption of more sustainable options.”

One of the food industry’s research blind spots is the impact of saliva lubrication on how we perceive taste and texture, which is also a factor in removing the astringent sensation. To take his collaboration with Imperial’s efforts a step further, Dr. Baier put out a call to his colleagues for an oral biology expert, which led to a three way partnership with Professor Guy Carpenter and his department in the Faculty of Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences at King’s College London.

“So much about the impact of saliva on taste is still unknown, largely because it’s a challenging substance to study in an experimental setting,” said Professor Carpenter. “We realized that to make significant progress in this space we needed to bring people together from different disciplines. This partnership is an exceptional opportunity in that regard, especially because we have the freedom to take an investigative approach.”

Pairing oral biology and dental experts with automotive and mechanical engineers, and a food scientist means that each member group tackles a unique part of the solution: Imperial’s experts focus on the mechanical and lubrication physics of Motif’s ingredients, and the King’s team focuses on the physics of what happens in the mouth during chewing. Between the two, they’ve already developed a new way to measure astringency in the mouth. This has helped Motif’s Food Science team uncover new data-driven insights that are already helping formulate better tasting plant-based food.

• 

• 

The three-way partnership is supported by both a London Interdisciplinary Doctoral program (LIDo) grant and an Imperial SME grant. This effort joins Motif’s growing network of scientific collaborators working together to unleash the promise of plant-based food, and comes on the heels of an exclusive licensing agreement with the University of Guelph and Coasun, Inc. to improve the texture of plant-based meat and cheese alternatives, as well as ongoing research partnerships with University of Illinois, University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Queensland. 

The proof of the plant-based burger is in the eating. Okay, so maybe an update to that old saying won’t catch on, but eating plant-based meat is. While plant-based options are more sustainable to produce and better for the environment, they fail to mimic the all-important taste and texture of the real thing and are often accused of being flavorless and mushy. That’s keeping more consumers from adopting them into their diets. 

At Motif, we set out to fix that. We’re using our unique scientific approach and new food-tech—HEMAMI™ and APPETEX™—to revolutionize taste and texture in plant-based meat. Our food-design experts included our new food-technologies in a plant-based burger to test their performance with consumers. This kind of testing is an essential step in developing better technologies for our customers. 

Of course, testing with consumers during Covid is not without its challenges. So, how did we safely deliver our burgers to the brave gastronauts testing our food-tech?

Much like every other meeting that couldn’t be held in person over the past year, we took our focus group to Zoom! Plant-based burgers showcasing our technology were served to individuals who could share their experience while sitting safely by themselves in cozy Ohio conference rooms.

For our next focus group (and to escape the captivating conference rooms of Ohio), we built a ‘50s style Car Hop drive-in dining experience that would put even Grease to shame. Consumers could enjoy their food and share their thoughts on our technology from the comfort of their cars.

Lastly, we wanted to see how well our food-tech behaved in the wild. So we sent our showcase burger directly to consumers’ homes. In what can only be described as consumers pretending to be mukbang Youtube stars, they recorded their whole process of cooking and devouring our burger. (We sent all the fixings too, don’t worry.) 

How do you think our brave gastronauts fared exploring the road less-traveled of plant-based burgers? Well, the results are in. In the focus group, our showcase burger was well-liked and scored high in those important factors like flavor, juiciness, appearance, and burger-like texture. 

• 73% of core plant-based consumers preferred our showcase burger to 80/20 beef burger
• 63% said they preferred our showcase burger over a leading plant-based retail brand 
• One in three participants preferred our showcase burger over an 80/20 beef burger

I guess the proof of the plant-based burger really is in the eating.