The world has moved on quite a bit since the Coca Cola and KFC coating recipes took the food and drink markets by storm. And, although it was, in theory, possible (at least in some countries) to patent a novel recipe (under certain conditions), both companies decided at that time to keep their recipes as trade secrets, rather than to secure so-called foodtech patents. The urban myths surrounding the conditions under which the secrecy of the recipes was kept within the respective companies are still recounted and embellished today.
However, in the modern age, it is increasingly difficult to keep a recipe for a food or drink product a secret. The strict laws in many countries that state that manufacturers must disclose precisely what is in a food/drink product, coupled with vastly improved chemical analysis techniques, has made reverse engineering of a food/drink product increasingly easy for those that choose to do so, and foodtech developers and manufacturers have, therefore, been returning to the patent system to protect their innovative foodtech products and processes. As a result, the foodtech patent landscape is expanding rapidly and becoming ever more complex. And, with the focus now on plat-based, meet-free and dairy-free alternatives, it seems like a good time to be shining a light on foodtech patents in that arena.
Foodtech patents for plant-based alternatives
One of the fastest-growing foodtech industries has arisen from a global increase in awareness of our impact on the planet, as well as health and wellbeing, and a resultant increase in demand for plant-based meet-free and dairy-free alternative food products. So, in this blog, we will take a brief look at some of the bigger players in that arena.
Impossible Foods
In 2016, Impossible Foods, Inc. brought their Impossible Burger to market, claiming that it uses 96% less land, 87% less water and emits 89% less greenhouse gases in its production than its meat-based alternative. The Impossible Burger was met with widespread success and, since then, Impossible Foods has created one of the largest patent portfolios in the meat-free alternative products industry, with more than 200 global patent applications and over 100 granted patents worldwide, covering food products containing a heme-protein, as well as processes and other products used to make the final food product.
But some of the other big players have achieved global success with much smaller patent portfolios.
Just Eat
Just Eat, Inc. was founded in 2011 and has a patent portfolio focused around making meat-like food products using mung bean and adzuki bean protein compositions, as well as AI-based systems for identifying plant proteins for food applications.
Beyond Meat
Beyond Meat’s patents cover meat-like products which use cellwall material to form protein networks that can mimic the texture of animal products.
NotCo
NotCo is a Chilean company and is one of South America’s fastest-growing foodtech companies. It has several granted US patents for an AI system configured to use a prediction model to source plant-based ingredients that can be used to match an animal-based food item. It is quite interesting to note that its patents and applications claim methods for generating formulas and recipes, rather than the formulas and recipes themselves. I am only guessing, but this might be with a longer-term view of licensing the technology to other food producers, rather than focusing on producing the relevant food products themselves…?
Others
Of course, plant-based meat- and dairy-free alternatives are big business, and many smaller businesses and start-ups are also entering the arena. And many of them are also leveraging patents to protect their core technologies, add value to their business (to make them more attractive to investors, for example), and offer licensing opportunities to larger manufacturing companies. This field of research and technology seems likely to continue to grow in the coming years, and IP, especially patents, will become more and more important to protect the interests of the companies investing in research and development in the field of plant-based, meat- and dairy-free products (as well as similar other food products).
This space seems set to become increasingly fascinating, and I, for one, will continue to watch it with keen interest.
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