Swiss company launches plant-based steak: Convinced meat eaters in focus

It is the Pièce de Résistance for meat lovers: the steak, traditionally made from beef. Juicy, tender and prepared to perfection, this is how the precious piece should be served on the plate.

What sounds banal is actually a fine art of cooking in which the quality of the meat is crucial. Planted’s product developers also had to discover how complex it is to recreate this showpiece with plants. The fast-growing company from Kemptthal, known for its pea chicken alternative, has been working on a plant-based steak since the company was founded almost five years ago.

“The biggest challenge was to develop a product that was juicy enough – even if you baked it a few minutes too long,” says Christoph Jenny, co-founder of Planted. After years of working on the steak alternative, a team of around 65 people will be ready from next Tuesday in selected restaurants throughout Europe. In Switzerland it has even put the noble Zurich Kronenhalle on the map.

And how does it taste? Christoph Jenny chooses the word ‘Umami’, the Japanese term for a full taste that goes beyond sweet, sour, bitter and salty. He emphasizes that the planted steak is not a copy of its meat counterpart. “It’s something unique, both in taste and texture.”

Still, it should appeal to customers who swear by the benefits of a traditional steak. Planted especially wants to reach people who have hardly come into contact with meat alternatives. So, for example, the enthusiastic meat eater who puts a good piece on the grill on a summer evening. “This customer group needs a visual stimulus to make them say, ‘That’s exciting, I want to try that,’” says Jenny. Therefore, the planted steak must convince both visually and in terms of taste.

The steak from the Planted kitchen consists of soy protein, bean and rice flour and rapeseed oil. It goes through the longest and most complex fermentation process of any planted product to date. The starting point of the product is still extrusion. Then it goes into fermentation. The base is then fermented like bread dough with a specially developed mixture of microbes.

The end product is a piece of muscle weighing 2 to 4 kilograms, from which ‘meat’ can be cut. According to Planted co-founder Jenny, this new technology offers countless possibilities. He mentions ham or biscuits as possible products based on fermentation.

Jenny describes the supply of plant-based proteins from Switzerland as a ‘bottleneck’. There are many farmers who would like to deliver. But there is a lack of infrastructure for processing. There is still no specialized feed factory in Switzerland. “State subsidies are needed here so that Switzerland does not lag behind as a production location,” demands Jenny.

Planted itself has already benefited from such help. The company received 2 million francs from the ‘Swiss Accellerator’ program for basic research into steak. The federal government uses these resources to compensate for the loss of EU funds from the Horizon Europe research program.

It will take some time before the umami-flavored steak finds its way into the home kitchen. Normally, sales at major distributors start a few months after the launch in the catering industry. Can plant-based steak compete with animal competition in terms of price? “Absolutely,” Christoph promises Jenny. “Our steak will be cheaper than its meat counterpart.”