How age-old food science could make fake meat taste better (2024)

There were more than 130 companies focused on fermentation for alternative proteins last year, an increase of 12 percent over the number of known companies in 2021, according to an industry report from the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that promotes meat alternatives. Some experts say consumers can expect to see more products made with fermentation on shelves in the next year or two.

“We’ve been using fermentation for millennia to make food products,” said Adam Leman, lead scientist for fermentation at the Good Food Institute. “We’re able to use a lot of the same types of microbes that we’ve been using for a long time, but just using them in better ways to offer up more solutions for protein, for fats, and generally for feeding all the people that we can.”

Fermentation is a natural process that uses live microorganisms to transform raw ingredients into products with improved shelf life and nutrition. Tempeh, yogurt, kimchi and beer are just some examples of popular fermented foods and beverages.

The alternative protein industry uses this traditional process as well as two other types of fermentation: biomass and precision.

Biomass fermentation takes protein-rich microorganisms, such as yeast, filamentous fungi and microalgae, which grow quickly to produce large amounts of protein efficiently, Leman said.

“Many of those products are then minimally processed, say with a heat treatment and then a drying or flash freezing to optimize their texture and shelf life,” he said. “They can often contain beneficial nutrients alongside the protein, like dietary fiber and B vitamins.”

Precision fermentation uses microbes to produce specific ingredients that influence the functionality and taste of foods. The ingredients created through this type of fermentation, which include proteins, vitamins, enzymes, fats and natural pigments, can be used to enhance plant-based goods and lab-grown meat to make foods that more closely resemble traditional animal products.

“One thing that we know about alternative protein products is that it’s really important that we try to reach taste and price parity with conventional animal products,” said Shayna Fertig, a senior adviser at the Good Food Institute. “The aim is really to make these products taste as close to the counterpart that they’re replacing as possible.”

If you are planning to try these products, it’s important to be aware of potential allergies, Leman said. People who are allergic to certain types of mold might also be sensitive to some of the products that use fermented fungi. Specific proteins created through fermentation can also be the same as the ones found in the equivalent animal product, Leman said. For example, if you’re allergic to a protein in traditional milk, you’ll likely be allergic to the version of that protein made from fermenting fungus.

Food components produced through fermentation can make up the bulk of an alternative meat or they can be part of a blend of ingredients. Adding an ingredient created by fermentation to a plant-based patty, for instance, can create a meaty aroma and flavor and even mimic the “bleeding” of a patty.

“One of the cool things that the microbial world gives us is certain types of [protein-rich] fermentation-derived products that could be really savory or umami tasting, or things that can be very neutral that can get added to other foods that people like,” Leman said.

Using fermentation to create alternative meat products also has a host of potential environmental benefits. Aside from being less resource-intensive than traditional animal products, microbes can be fed using a variety of nutrients, many of which could come from agriculture side streams that would otherwise be waste, experts said. The speed and efficiency of growing these microorganisms — which is often done in a bioreactor — could also help keep operational costs down.

“This kind of technology has great potential in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing water use, land use, and reducing natural resource degradation,” said Frank Hu, chair of the department of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “In the meantime, it can produce very nutritious products.”

While experts say protein products made from fermentation hold promise, these foods alone aren’t enough to solve the problem. Beyond scalability and taste preferences, the higher cost of fermentation-based products, which is similar to other alternative meat options, also remains a barrier for many consumers, Hu said.

“It’s a good idea to incorporate more fermented protein products into our diets, but I don’t think it’s going to substantially change global dietary patterns,” he said. “We may have to use multiple options rather than just rely on one type of product.”

Fertig said some companies are working toward combining the benefits of the available alternative proteins. Fermentation, she said, could be key in addressing some of the obstacles facing the industry, including helping to lower cost.

“Given the efficiency of fermentation, the fact that these products have the opportunity to potentially reach cost parity quicker than some of the other alternatives is going to be important,” she said.