The meat industry is in a transition. Many companies face the question: Do we continue to focus entirely on meat products, or do we expand our range with plant-based alternatives? The answer isn’t easy, since worldwide meat consumption will continue to grow. On the other hand, in the western industrialised countries plant-based alternatives are increasingly in demand. Hydrosol and Planteneers, sister companies within the Stern-Wywiol Gruppe, support the meat industry with exciting product concepts that open up new potential in many different markets. Whether all-meat, less meat or all-plant, these concepts let manufacturers react to current challenges, trends and consumer wishes.

Hydrosol: Meat meets vegetables

Reducing the meat content in burger patties, nuggets or sausages, and replacing it with vegetables, legumes and fibre, results in products that are a perfect match with the ongoing consumer demand for healthy indulgence. The new PLUSmulson series stabilising system compensates for the function of the missing meat proteins. It’s suitable for making many different products, and is simple to use and easy to integrate into existing production processes. “Free from” is another major trend. In the meat category, that primarily means less salt and less phosphate. Here again, Hydrosol has developed new concepts, for example for making phosphate-free sausages. Likewise new are clean label solutions for meat products that use natural ingredients for effective freshness preservation, appealing colour and phosphate-free brine substitutes.

At the companies’ joint booth Hydrosol is presenting economical solutions for a variety of applications, like meat, ham, convenience products and sausage products. Economical production calls for solutions to counter rising raw material prices; with the drastic price increases for some ingredients, replacing raw materials is currently a hot topic, and one the Hydrosol R&D team is continuously developing new solutions for. The objective of raw material substitution is to maintain the consistent quality of the final product within its existing price category.

Planteneers: Discovering new possibilities

At the IFFA Planteneers is showing new possibilities that meat and convenience manufacturers have in addition to their core business. With the company’s systems, vendors can extend their product lines with a broad spectrum of plant-based alternatives. Planteneers assists its customers throughout the entire process, from the initial idea to upscaling for large scale production. The resulting plant-based products can be made on existing machines, reducing the need to invest in new equipment.

Among the new product ideas that Planteneers is showing at the IFFA are alternatives to chicken strips, kebab and steaks. For creative variety and additional sales boosts there are cheese alternatives, for example as filling in vegan sausages, or in plant-based convenience products like cordon bleu. A plant-based burger sauce and vegan dressings for deli salads produced cold add to the possibilities. Plant-based fish and seafoods can also open up interesting new market opportunities for meat producers. From raw fish alternatives to filets and fish fingers to calamari, Planteneers has a broad selection.

The new hybrid concepts are a special highlight, and close the gap between flexitarians and meat eaters. For this category Planteneers has developed a stabilising system that already contains the plant protein component. This gives meat producers a simple way to significantly reduce the animal component of their final products, without adversely affecting the desired meat flavour. With Planteneers’ compounds meat manufacturers can implement new ideas alongside their core business, and enter new market segments. Depending on the recipe, protein-rich pulses like lentils or chickpeas are used, along with vegetables with the right flavour. With their new product concepts Hydrosol and Planteneers are addressing the issues of the future – international trends, food safety and sustainability.