Creating pork from jackfruit: Whole-plant-based startup taking on Asia’s multibillion dollar meat industry
Jackfruit, as a crop, does not need irrigation, does not need pesticides, does not need herbicides. In fact, jackfruit is so abundant in the region that tons of it go to waste every year.
KAREN GILCHRIST: Karana is the Singapore food start-up positioning itself as Asia’s first whole-plant-based meat brand. Its flagship product — a pulled pork substitute — is made entirely from jackfruit, oil and salt, without processed ingredients or preservatives… Dan Riegler, whose own evolving relationship with meat inspired him to co-found Karana. “I was very much a vegan skeptic, a meat-eater for a lot of my life, and I’ve taken a major turn,” Riegler told CNBC Make It…
Started in 2018 as demand for meat alternatives was growing, Riegler said he saw a gap in the market for meat substitutes designed specifically for Asian cuisines. “We saw a huge need to identify products that had more local applications for APAC,” said Riegler… “Pork is the number one meat that’s consumed in this region and that’s where we didn’t see a lot of products really addressing a need”. Indeed, half of the world’s pork is produced and consumed in Asia, with most of that demand coming from China…
Karana’s invention comes as an appetite for more ethical and sustainable food grows across Asia and beyond… Even before the pandemic, the alternative meat market was estimated to hit $140 billion — or 10% of the global meat industry — within a decade… So Riegler and his co-founder Blair Crichton, formerly of Impossible Foods which also produces plant-based meat alternatives, set to work finding an environmentally-friendly alternative.
It wasn’t long before the pair identified Karana’s first product: a pork substitute made of jackfruit sourced from smallholder farmers in Sri Lanka. Jackfruit has a long history in Southeast Asia cuisines, especially in vegetarian and vegan dishes. Known for its densely packed, fibrous texture and meat-like qualities, the unripe young jackfruit is commonly used in savory foods, while the sweet ripe jackfruit is eaten raw.
“Jackfruit, as a crop, does not need irrigation, does not need pesticides, does not need herbicides. So it’s a very hardy tree, and when it yields fruit, it’s very, very prolific,” said Carsten Carstens, Karana’s chief scientific officer and first hire… In fact, jackfruit is so abundant in the region that tons of it go to waste every year. That is due in part to the complexity of preparing and cooking it… So, the founders set to work adapting the fruit for a mass-market — soon devising a chemical-free, mechanical process at their manufacturing hub in Singapore to transform the fruit into a shredded, meat-like product that’s simple for chefs and consumers to use…
The company’s 2021 debut was in Singapore, where its whole-plant pork is now available at nine restaurants and counting — in dishes from dumplings to “ngoh hiang,” a local pork roll. Next up will be its rollout in Hong Kong, as well as the launch of a line of ready-to-cook retail products. Meantime, investment in a new innovation lab will enable Karana to experiment further with jackfruit and other whole-plant meat substitutes. SOURCE…
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