The American startup Beyond Meat enters the Ukrainian market: customers will be offered products in the form of burger cutlets and vegetable meat sausages. The distributor of the products is West Mills, a company of Stanislav Lutskovych and Oleksandr Korzun, as reported to AIN.UA by representatives of the company.
First, vegetable meat will appear in ZHZL (ЖЗЛ), Queen, The Burger, Not only Fish, Avalon, Mocco, Normal, Havana, Fabius, Villa Riviera, Maiak, Bassano, Champion Hall, Star Burger chain, and the restaurants of Dmytro Borysov.
According to the restaurateur Dmytro Borysov, trial sales of burgers with such meat have been carried out in his restaurants since July this year. They imported meat to Ukraine themselves, and the price of the burger did not differ from the standard one: 198 UAH. “As far as I know, we are the first to offer this in Ukraine,” he said. His restaurant chain is currently negotiating with “West Mills” regarding volumes and prices.
Later, such meat will be offered on the menu of students at Midgard school, in IZONE coworking, and in catering companies and food delivery services. Over time, the company plans to sell it in supermarkets. The editors of AIN.UA requested comments from the company regarding product prices.
According to representatives of Beyond Meat, this meat is made up of plants, is free of gluten, soy, and GMO. The main ingredients of the products are peas, rice, water, potato starch, rapeseed oil. The red color of the cutlet is achieved with the help of beetroot juice.
The startup Beyond Meat was founded by Ethan Brown in 2009. Its products are sold by TGI Friday’s, Hardee’s, Subway, Dunkin’, Black Bear Diner. In the spring, a plant meat producer held an IPO and raised $241 million. The startup investors are Microsoft founder Bill Gates, actor Leonardo DiCaprio, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC, Obvious Ventures, and others.
