Nona Vegan Foods founder Kailey Gilchrist, photographed at a distributor based in Burnaby, B.C., incorporates cashew and oat cream into plant-based Italian-style sauces.Amy Romer
Is it possible to make a plant-based product that looks, tastes and cooks just like real fish? Or a vegan fettuccine alfredo that tastes as rich and creamy as the real thing?
Over the past decade, the demand for plant-based food alternatives has surged. In 2019, the National Research Council of Canada funded a market analysis which concluded that more than 40 per cent of the population is actively trying to incorporate plant-based foods into their diet.
This growing demand has prompted a corresponding surge in entrepreneurs seeking to create products that will convert the most diehard meat- and dairy-lover, with Canadian companies at the forefront of the plant-based revolution.
Doug McNish, co-founder, director of development and chef at Halifax-based Profillet, is hoping to make his mark on the plant-based industry with one of the first “whole-cut” plant-based seafood alternatives.
“Most products on the market are what are referred to as ‘ground and formed’ [like] nuggets or burgers, but ours is [replicating] the entire fillet or the entire muscle from the side of the fish,” he says.
Plant-based seafood is a hot space: According to a global market research report by Facts and Factors, the market was valued at $84-million in 2022 and is forecast to swell to $1.3-billion by 2030.
“It is both exciting and scary because when you’re doing stuff that no one has done before, there’s no blueprint,” Mr. McNish says.
Profillet is part of a global, multi-year competition called XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion, which offers a first prize of $7-million for the team able to produce the best chicken breast or fish fillet alternative. Though he can’t reveal the secrets of their product before the contest ends this fall, Mr. McNish says they use a Canadian ingredient, microalgae, to provide a “marine” flavour and proprietary technology to create structural layers and a fish-like “flake.”
He says one of the most challenging aspects of the XPRIZE competition is that the rules dictated that the product had to match every macronutrient of its target animal, catfish. “We had to work backwards and make a match, one for one,” he says.
It’s a challenge that makes sense though, he notes. A big criticism of plant-based foods is that the ingredients are not “clean,” and today’s plant-based consumer is demanding more from the products they buy.
“In order to sway people over to eating more like this, you can’t just have it tasting good,” he says. “Companies like ours are getting closer and closer to replicating not only the textures and flavours, but that nutritional component that the customer is looking for.”
Flash-frozen sushi and poke bowls
Konscious Foods products include plant-based sushi rolls, onigiri and poke bowls.Konscious Foods/Supplied
Yves Potvin is no stranger to plant-based innovation. The founder of plant-based lines Yves Veggie Cuisine and Gardein agrees that one of the big problems with the plant-based industry is that consumers rarely know what goes into the products they eat. “Vegan does not mean it is necessarily good for you,” he says.
Mr. Potvin’s current venture is Konscious Foods, a food company based in Richmond, B.C., that makes flash-frozen plant-based sushi rolls, poke bowls and onigiri (Japanese rice balls). When it comes to creating a good plant-based alternative, simpler is better, Mr. Potvin says.
“We have four chefs in our department, plus myself, and we looked at it like this: How can we take this ingredient and keep it as simple as possible?” he says.
Like Profillet, algae played a role in product development at Konscious. Products are made with seaweed oil – also called algal oil – derived from marine algae that is rich in omega-3 fatty acids and gives the product a seaweed/fishy taste. Ingredients in the plant-based “fish” include tomatoes (for tuna) and carrots (for salmon) combined with pea hull fibre and konjac, a root vegetable popular in Asia, Mr. Potvin says.
The frozen products can be thawed or microwaved before eating. Mr. Potvin says they put vinegar in the sushi to control pH levels and water activity, making it safe to eat for hours after thawing, unlike traditional seafood. And while it might seem unusual to customers to eat sushi that’s previously been in the freezer, it’s about educating the customer, Mr. Potvin says.
“It’s flash frozen, which means it’s frozen within an hour of being produced, whereas with fresh products, you don’t know how long it’s been [sitting] on the shelf.”
Creamy sauces, hold the dairy
Fettucine alfredo with Nona Vegan Alfredo Style sauce.Nona Vegan Foods
Kailey Gilchrist, founder of Vancouver-based Nona Vegan Foods, wants to give customers the experience of a creamy Italian pasta sauce without the meat and dairy.
Nona makes plant-based versions of traditional sauces including alfredo, carbonara, rosée and Bolognese. Ms. Gilchrist says the recipes, which were created as a tribute to her late mother, took months of trial and error to develop.
“If you take something out, you replace it with something [else], right?” she says. “So, if you remove the traditional cheese or meat, you have to add something with a similar fat content or mouthfeel.”
A sauce’s distinctive taste is often easier to replicate, says Ms. Gilchrist, because herbs, spices, oils and flavourings such as natural hickory smoke, black pepper, garlic and onion can be used to mimic the taste of meat and fat.
Gnocchi with Nona Vegan Rosée Style sauce.Nona Vegan Foods
“Texture and mouthfeel are more difficult to replicate,” she says, because animal products like dairy and butter have a specific fattiness and creaminess to them. The right kind of blending at the manufacturing stage is key. “Cashews, when properly processed, create a similar richness and mouthfeel, with a slight natural sweetness mimicking that of animal dairy.”
Another innovation Ms. Gilchrist discovered is using oat cream in some of her sauces, which she says they tried because some customers couldn’t consume cashews.
“Oats don’t have nearly as high of a fat content when compared to cashews or animal dairy, so initial trials felt a bit thin,” she says. “However, cooking the oat cream brought out a more gelatinous texture that once emulsified with oil and starch, formed a satisfying creamy texture that added richness to the sauces.”
Ms. Gilchrist says she’s been able to persuade dairy and meat eaters to try her products through in-store sampling, and to change their preconceived notions of what a plant-based meal can be.
As a long-time vegan, she says it’s been gratifying to see such rapid change and growth in the plant-based space.
“The scientific innovation in the industry over recent years has been unbelievable to witness.”