I am biting into a drumstick that took three years to make. It is a piece of plant-based protein, fashioned into the likeness of a chicken leg, complete with a faux bone (edible), and glazed with something wet and brown. The bone is brittle and strangely sweet, the flesh a little chewy and rubbery.
But the glaze has an unmistakably creamy, mouth-coating texture, just like chicken fat. It is remarkably familiar. Boringly predictable. It tastes, as they say, like chicken. I signed a waiver for this?
For James Petrie, it’s a coup. The chief executive of Nourish Ingredients, an Australian-based food technology company, has just walked off stage after unveiling his company’s latest product at SXSW Sydney. Tastilux, he says, is a world-first in a specific type of animal-free fat. It mimics the mouthfeel of animal fat but is derived from a fungal strain found in Australian soil. It can be added to alternative plant-based meats to make them taste meatier and more delicious.
Plant-based alt-protein is – or was – big money, depending on where you look. Research from 2022 estimates the global industry was worth more than US$10bn (about A$15.6bn) but there are signs the market is fizzling out. In 2020 Food Frontier estimated that Australia’s $185m industry could grow to $2.9bn by 2030. And while plant-based alternatives can play a critical role in tackling global warming, they are expensive and are not commonly celebrated for their flavour.
“Plant-based meat products have made significant strides in mimicking real meat … However, there are significant hurdles for it to compete with meat,” says Dr Ken Ng, a senior lecturer in food chemistry at the University of Melbourne. Consumers, he says, can detect differences in texture, appearance and, most of all, flavour – in which fat plays a prominent role.
When it comes to the world of flavoursome animal fats, omega-6 fatty acids are high-profile stars. To make Tastilux, Petrie went searching for these potent, fat-flavoursome molecules in non-animal sources – in particular, fungi. “We sent our chief scientist off with a shovel … He went out and dug some up, and we tested and found probably a dozen different strains which had this type of fat in it.”
The fungal species is used in baby formula. Nourish uses precision fermentation – a process Petrie likens to beer-brewing – to grow its animal-like lipids. The fats undergo a “cooking reaction” to kickstart the Maillard reaction, which is responsible for the complex, distinctive charred flavour of grilled meat. The resulting liquid-y fat product – Tastilux – can then be added to uncooked plant-based products. When they’re cooked, this completes the Maillard reaction, giving meatiness without the meat. “We add in the pre-flavour at the beginning, let that reaction do its job and then, at the end, you’ve got this truly authentic taste,” Petrie says.
Tastilux is not available in shops. Its immediate future is as a business-to-business product; a “pre-flavour” other alternative protein companies can add to their products.
It is, according to the SXSW website, one of two “breakthrough science and technologies leading the way to a plant-based future”. Tastilux’s public debut, on Wednesday, was part of a joint showcase where, after Petrie, V2 Food’s chief executive, Tim York, showcased his company’s latest development, Replihue, an algae-based technology that allows faux hamburgers to change from pink to brown as they cook, just like the real thing.
The SXSW showcase combined the suits-with-sneakers aspirations of a tech product launch with the endearing clumsiness of an under-rehearsed cooking demo. Resident chefs from both companies quietly barbecued their faux chicken and patties in the background, while the MC quizzed the two chief executives. Audience members looked under their seats for a “golden ticket” to taste the plant-based innovations (mine was handed to me by a PR).
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My fellow Tastilux tester, as it happens, works for Cauldron, the precision fermentation company used by Nourish Ingredients to brew Tastilux. After multiple celebrity appearances – by Miguel Maestre (celebrity chef, television presenter); Neil Perry (restaurateur, V2 Food investor); and Rove McManus (comedian) – over an awkward hour, I have my chicken, or rather, “chicken”.
I take the half-eaten drumstick outside. It is a sunny afternoon and, as I round the corner, a coterie of dancers are practising their moves in the so-called “dancers’ alley”. They take no notice of me, nor the world-first drumstick in my hand (the same cannot be said of a passing corgi).
As I nibble through the remaining flesh and savour its chicken-ness, I am reminded of a story Petrie told me. A few years ago his then-12-year-old son sampled Tastilux for the first time. A budding baker, he was sceptical about the fat-glazed mock chicken. “But he tasted it and he looked really shocked,” Petrie says. “He said, ‘Oh, that’s really good … You could sell that!’”
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This story was amended on Friday 20 October to show the current and projected value of Australia’s plant-based meat sector according to research by Food Frontier.
