Australian-made V2Food is Revolutionising Plant-based "Meat"

This Australian-made, plant-based “meat” caters to the wants of the people – and the needs of the planet.

Why plant-based meat?

“The population on this planet will be 10 billion by 2050,” explains Nick Hazell. “The amount of meat produced needs to double over the next 20 to 30 years but already 70 per cent of our agricultural resources are devoted to growing stockfeed to get meat from animals. When you do the maths, you run out of planet. Plant-based meat needs to happen and our job at v2food is to make it happen really quickly. We have to get people who love meat to love us – we can’t just be for rich vegans.”

Where did the idea come from?

Fast-food mogul Jack Cowin was trying to import Impossible Foods’ burger patties for Hungry Jack’s but, says Hazell, “they famously didn’t answer his emails”. Hazell, a former R&D director for Mars Food and PepsiCo, was consulting to CSIRO and the meat industry, as well as lecturing in innovation at the University of Technology Sydney. Cowin, CSIRO and Main Sequence approached him to found v2food. At the beginning of 2019, “the money arrived” and they were off.

How did you get it off the ground?

“The job was to make a plant-based burger that was as good as the original Hungry Jack’s Whopper,” says Hazell, who adds that CSIRO had already done years of research. “My task was to corral the science and turn it into a food company and products.” Months of “intense product and technology development” ensued. By June 2019, they had reached their 57th prototype, all of which had been tasted (alongside meat) by Cowin and rejected. Then one day, the patty Cowin pronounced as needing more work was meat, not v2food. Cowin told them they could either be ready for launch in October or it would be 2020, “because you don’t launch at Christmas”.

Biggest challenge?

“To go from prototype to full supply chain to covering all of the Hungry Jack’s outlets in Australia in two-and-a-half months was insane but we did it.” At that stage, Hazell and his team were already developing v2food mince and other consumer products. “We’re not going to solve this global problem by making Whoppers, even though it’s a great business for us.” The v2food range started appearing in supermarkets in August 2020. “We’re creating a new industry, with raw materials and an agricultural supply chain to be developed if we are to be a major global player.”

What’s next?

“We want to be number-one in Australia so we can export Australian plant-based meat to the world, to areas where meat consumption is highest,” says Hazell, who aims to work in tandem with the meat industry. “It would be great to give butchers, for example, the opportunity to make money from v2, as well as from their traditional product. We need to be available where people buy their meat and we need to be affordable.”

The company is already exporting to Burger King franchises across Asia, and in 2020 launched plant-based “pork” into China. Further domestic launches are expected, while chef Neil Perry is featuring v2food products at his Sydney restaurant, Margaret. “The developing markets opportunity is also very top of mind,” says Hazell. “One of the advantages of working with a powerhouse like CSIRO and having this sort of mission is that we don’t feel there are any problems we won’t be able to solve.”

Need to know

Founder
Nick Hazell, 57, with investors Jack Cowin and Phil Morle from Main Sequence

Staff
More than 85

Headquarters
Sydney’s CBD, with offices along the Australian east coast

First customer
Hungry Jack’s in 2019

Investors
Born as a collaboration between CSIRO, venture capital firm Main Sequence and Jack Cowin’s Competitive Foods Australia. Key investors since include Huaxing Growth Capital Fund, Astanor Ventures and ABC World Asia

Market valuation
Estimated in excess of $500 million

_{Image credit: Dominic Lorrimer}