Do these burgers look familiar? Light Life – a Greenleaf Foods brand under the Maple Leaf umbrella – has just launched what appears to be it’s version of the Beyond Burger. Similar to their competitor, the patties are made of pea protein and are GMO, soy and gluten-free.
We will have to see if they choose to mimic the success of Beyond Meat by merchandising this product in the meat isle along with it’s animal-based counterparts.
Read the full article from The Spoon here.
The launch is in tandem with Lightlife’s upcoming rebrand to mark its 40th anniversary. It’s also just a smart move on Lightlife’s part to try and compete with other meat-like burgers on the market, like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods — especially as Beyond prepares for an IPO and Impossible gears up for its retail launch. Composition-wise, the Lightlife Burger seems closer to the Beyond Burger, which is also pea protein-based and also uses beets for its “bloody” look.
But young upstarts like Beyond and Impossible aren’t Lightlife’s only competitors. Big Food has also been getting into the meat alternative space, releasing products that are more meat-like to capture flexitarians and cash in on the plant-based eating trend. Last month Nestlé released
the Incredible Burger, just a few days after Unilever bought Dutch plant-based meat company The Vegetarian Butcher.