Early mass-market attempts at plant-based meats — those mealy, easy-to-burn Gardenburgers and cartoonish, oddly bendy Morningstar bacon strips quickly come to mind — made it easy for meat-eaters to continue making fun of their vegetarian friends.
“Those were made for vegetarians,” explains Jody Boyman, cofounder of the fast-growing plant-based meat empire Hungry Planet. “We didn’t care about vegans and vegetarians,” said the Santa Barbara resident of that persistently small subsect of eaters. “We decided we needed to make meat directly from plants that would satisfy even the most carnivorous meat-eating guy.”
With 18 items for sale in restaurants and 17 products on retail shelves across the country, Hungry Planet is targeting the much larger category of flexitarians, those folks who aim to eat healthy and conscientiously but still love a good chunk of meat on occasion. With textured soy protein as a common base, the company’s line includes nine different meats — beef, chicken, pork, lamb, turkey, crab, chorizo, Italian sausage, and breakfast sausage — that come in an array of forms, from ground to cutlets to entire meals, like chicken piccata, Salisbury steak, and penne pasta with sausage.