The plant-based alt-meat sector has experienced significant turmoil in recent years, with many startups failing. In its wake, a more focused, robust industry has evolved, one that listens to consumer feedback and constantly innovates new products to suit the Australian palate.
One of the leaders to emerge from the chaos is V2Food, whose chief science officer, Lisa Ronquest-Ross, is blunt about the need for consolidation in the sector.
“It has really been quite a bloodbath the last 12 to 18 months. But there really did need to be a consolidation and a bit of a cleanup,” she told Amie Larter, CEO of Octomedia, the publisher of Inside FMCG, and Angeline Achariya, Asia Pacific chair of the Food Systems Innovation and Resilience Wing, with the G100 Mission Million, in the latest edition of the podcast series Women Transforming Food.
“There were lots of players in the sector when it was taking off, with lots of investor money behind them. Unfortunately, not everyone’s products were really at the level they should have been. And there were a lot of products out there that really have turned consumers away.”
Taste is a critical factor in repeat purchase for plant-based alt-meat brands, and one of the biggest barriers in the category has been the expectation that it will taste bad, says Ronquest-Ross.
That explains why taste has become a KPI at V2Food, with equal weighting as financial metrics. Consumer sensory testing is carried out every time the company upgrades its products, and all research and insights are packaged and incorporated into the next version of its products, which are then further sensory tested and measured against competitors’ products.
“Now we have a series of data, and can actually track improvements over time. And that shows that the science that we are putting into our products is being recognised by consumers. Our products are getting better. So that is a metric that we have with the board. And we use that metric and those slides as far and wide as we can with key stakeholders, customers, to show that we are investing in product improvements that are recognised by consumers,” she explains.
“When you first experience plant-based meat, and it is really not up to scratch, consumers will simply exit the category. The industry has lost many consumers who were very curious and interested in the hype around the plant-based meat boom, and it takes a huge effort to bring them back.”
Ronquest-Ross says most of the companies that remain on shelves have invested in taste research and created great products.
V2Food has invested “an enormous amount of effort into our research, into understanding how to make great products, but also how to make them cost-effectively”, she says.
“We’ve been able to make our products better and at the same time bring our costs down because we understand the science behind the ingredients, we understand how they interact in the product, and we understand then how to make them and how to make them more efficiently.”
Plant-based alt-meat products are not like a Mars bar with a formulation that has been around for decades; evolution is constant. “We are actively still evolving these formulations, so having a team that is there constantly learning, iterating and improving them – and making them more efficient – is how we have been able to keep up with the category and to scale.”
With a career grounded in international companies like Mars and Unilever, Ronquest-Ross recalls that research and development did not require as much decoding for stakeholders regarding the science or impact, because it was a core part of those companies. Her experience at V2Food was different.
“When you are speaking to a board or an investor base, you have really got to make that science relevant. So I asked for a lot of feedback, and I have had to learn how to really change my communication style for different audiences.
“One of the things that is probably one of the clearest ways we’ve been able to do this decoding of the science is actually through creating a brand name for our science platform called Replitech. So all of our science is about how you mimic meat, but use plants.”
Replitech is based on four pillars: Taste, texture, colour and nutrition. Communicating those strategies to the board, other stakeholders or even internally to V2Food staff had to be linked to commercial outcomes.
“Every time the research had an objective, the purpose was to either increase sales of plant-based meat or improve products that get a higher repeat purchase, so we can drive sales or take costs out because we’ll be able to learn how to produce these products more efficiently or develop new know-how or patents that increase the value of our foodtech company. It needed to be linked to the commercial consequences of the research.”
Embracing people and planet
Ronquest-Ross has never considered herself a traditional food scientist or a foodie. “I’ve always been more interested in how science can solve big challenges like those around people or the planet. The food system is fraught with challenges, so food science can play an important role. From my master’s in food science all those years ago, I was using microbes to treat winery effluent, cleaning it up so it could be released into rivers without polluting them.
“From very early on, I’ve seen the impact that science can have on solving real challenges. That has always been at the core of my passion. My PhD later explored science and technology advances and how those can address food security issues in South Africa.”
That academic experience, together with completing a two-year leadership program at Unilever, where she was introduced to the triple-bottom-line concept of people, planet, and profit, helped shape the expertise that made her a perfect fit for V2Food.
“I have also been exposed to incredible leaders … who have shaped the leader I am today. Working for companies that are science-led and purpose-driven attracts incredible talent who want to work in research and development with you. My role as a leader is often just harnessing these incredible people in the right direction, where they can have the most impact in the business that we’re in.”
She has also tried to foster a culture of “curiosity and collaboration” to bring people together to use their diverse skills and experience to solve challenges.
“Knowledge sitting in a silo is really not useful.”
- Listen to the podcast to hear Ronquest-Ross talk about how having the CEO in the room grounds the research team in the commercial reality of what they do, and how conveying the breakthroughs and innovations within the plant-based sector meant adopting a whole new language to explain them.
