Rival Foods: the meat eating experience without the meat

We spoke to Birgit Dekkers. She founded Rival Foods three years ago alongside associate Ernst Breel. Her goal is to launch a technology on market that she based her PhD research on at Wageningen University. She initially developed shear-cell technology for research purposes, but it also has the potential to revolutionise the meat substitute market.

In a nutshell, the technology is able to produce meat substitutes with almost identical structures as meat and fish, making it very difficult to tell them apart from their meat counterparts. It's special. Plant-based substitutes for whole cuts such as steak and chicken breast do not currently exist. With their current team of 12 people, Rival Foods is working hard to develop the machines and processes to facilitate this. They are also very busy developing the end products themselves, of course.

The meat eating experience

“'Our technology is able to produce large pieces of meat substitutes from dozens of kilos, if necessary,' says Dekkers. It brings opportunities: 'It allows us to offer consumers the meat eating experience. That could be cooking a large piece of meat on the barbecue or carving a turkey at Thanksgiving.”

She explains that that experience is important: 'These days, lots of people are flexitarian. They are prepared (and want) to eat less meat but would rather not compromise on the things they are used to. The meat eating experience is an example of this – they would prefer not to change their habits. We can offer that, without the disadvantages of animal suffering and environmental impact that are associated with meat eating.”

Healthy alternatives

According to Dekkers, Rival Foods' technology could be a gap in the market. In fact, many providers of plant-based meat substitutes (the start-up's potential customers) are looking to expand their product portfolios. They already offer alternatives to processed meat products in the form of burgers, chicken nuggets and shawarma. But what about plant-based alternatives to whole cuts with a similar nutritional value, flavour and texture? Those aren't around yet.

'Those kinds of brands are ready for the next step. They also want to help consumers have a healthy diet, but with plant-based burgers and chicken nuggets, which are often very fatty, that doesn't really work,' Dekkers says. 'A chicken breast, for example, is indeed a lean, healthy piece of meat – it's high in protein but low in fat. They want to be able to offer a plant-based version of that too.'

Large scale, good price

So that's something Rival Foods is working hard to realise. However, it will be a little while before the start-up's plant-based whole cuts actually end up on our plates. 'You have to be able to produce them on a large scale before you can supply them at a good price. We are currently developing the machines to do that. Once we've done that, we can go to the market,' Dekkers said. 'The first consumers will be able to discover our products as soon as next year. We expect to offer our products on a large scale in a few years' time.'

Fastlane programme

Rival Foods participated in Invest-NL's Fastlane programme. During this accelerator, they worked on the next steps in their scale-up process together with other promising start-ups in the protein transition. 'Fastlane has definitely helped us progress,' says Dekkers. 'It was very interesting to participate in the programme with start-ups operating in the same sector. You face the same challenges, which means you learn a lot from each other.'

Rival Foods partly worked on its organisation within their own business operations. 'As a start-up company, you're very flexible. That's great, but structure and organisation can be lacking as a result of that flexibility. We were able to integrate that into our business operations very effectively thanks to Fastlane, and we now pursue our goals with more structure and focus.'