Alternative Proteins Require a New Kind of Food Automation

As the food and beverage industry turns towards ethical, more sustainable production, manufacturing facilities are presented with new challenges for existing equipment and control systems. The food production industry at-large is varied, requiring tailored automation solutions that meet the strict regulations of organizations like the FDA and USDA. Alternative protein production adds a new layer to those parameters, bringing with it new challenges for manufacturing automation and systems integration.

E Tech Group’s extensive experience in the industry keeps us poised to help alternative protein clients of all kinds, including:

• Cultivated meats
• Insect-based proteins
• Mushroom-based proteins
• Plant and algae-based proteins

Our capabilities include new integrated automation system standups as well as control system retrofits and upgrades for existing facilities.

Producing Plant-Based Proteins is Different than Traditional Meat

There are significant differences in how meat is processed and packaged versus how plant-based and cell-cultured proteins are produced. One challenge alternative protein manufacturers encounter is the number of ingredients required. Binders, stabilizers and other ingredients that affect texture and taste are necessary to make plant-based proteins taste like meat, which means extra procurement, storage, safety and processing concerns traditional meat production simply doesn’t face.

Along with this, another major difference with alternative protein production is that the process is an assembly, where traditional meat processing is a disassembling process. However, this difference is a key opening for automation to allow the alternative protein industry compete. Where traditional meat processing requires mostly manual labor and deals with irregularly-sized materials of varying quality, alternative protein has control over the consistency of its materials. Automation solutions provide logistical advantages for this growing field:

• Ensure consistent adherence to FDA and USDA regulations, as well as the Food Safety Modernization Act
• Free up skilled labor for development and control tasks
• Further minimize negative environmental impacts of protein production
• Reduce production costs to keep price points competitive with traditional meat
• Scale production without repeated disruptive facility retrofits
• The ability for traditional meat processing plants to expand their capabilities

Regulatory Challenges of Plant Protein & Cultured Meat Production

While the entire food and beverage manufacturing industry requires technology and procedure that firmly adheres to FDA and USDA regulations, alternative protein manufacturers encounter additional challenges. Namely, that the rigorous and specific rules set out for traditional meat production don’t yet exist for plant-based and cultured proteins. Startups will need intuitive integrated control solutions that allow for flexibility and scaling as the industry develops.

Automation creates an opportunity to remove all human error from repetitive tasks like quality control and testing. This will be especially critical as numerous alternative protein producers scale up production, ensuring they remain compliant with any contemporaneous regulations, no matter their production capacity. This also holds true for traditional meat processing facilities who are expanding their capabilities to include plant-based proteins.

E Tech Group: Tailored Automation & Integration for the Alternative Protein Industry

It’s estimated that by 2027, the alternative protein industry will be worth over $27 billion, and will comprise just over 10% of the “meat” market at-large. Couple this with the projected 100% food production increase food scientists are predicted will be required by 2050, the alternative protein industry will continue to grow rapidly.

While automation solutions for this sector of the food and beverage industry are emerging and will no doubt continually change as R&D, regulations and market competition progresses, the alternative protein industry needs creative, effective control systems integration now. With the right strategies and automation products, E Tech helps alternative protein clients seamlessly build or retrofit integrated automation and control systems that allow them to produce consistent, quality, compliant products while retaining the ability to develop, scale and pivot with this ever-changing field.