Page 26 - Food&Drink Nov-Dec 2020

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Vowing to make a difference
There is more to the alternative protein category than the plant-based patties taking over burger joint menus and supermarket aisles.
One tub at a time
With its creamy range, Denada proves it doesn’t need sugar to be classified as ice cream.
SYDNEY-BASED start-up Vow Food, founded by George Peppou and Tim Noakesmith, is leading the Australian contingent of developing cell-based meat alternatives – growing animal cells for the future of food.
There are seven species in Vow’s cell library so far. Noakesmith says even if certain animals could be domesticated, producing it on a mass scale without decimating the population, hasn’t been possible.
“We’re looking at ways we can remove the animals from the process, by using a certain type of stem cell, taking a harmless part of an animal, say a feather, and reprogramming that to express the cells available in
meat, such as muscle, fat, or connective tissue,” says Noakesmith.
In the pursuit of new culinary products, Vow combines its science with a variety of custom-built technology. The team has its own software, hardware and robotics to enhance work efficiency of
both the stem-cells and the food scientists.
“The current global food system we have is not scalable for a future of ten billion people, or at least, not scalable in the sense where we end up with an earth that survives and flourishes while we continue to grow as a population,” Noakesmith says.
Vow is in communication with “kindred
pioneers”, to experience, taste and create meals from cultivated meat.
Peppou says: “This is really our life’s work now – how to link the biology of animal cells to the quality of food and the finished product, so we become the artists of the meat of the future.” ✷
THERE is an ice cream in the freezer aisle with Spanish manners, calling out “you’re welcome” each time one of its six sugar-free flavours makes its way to a new home: Denada.
The ice creamery was founded in Perth in 2017 by three friends and entrepreneurs – pastry chef Charlotte Haygarth; ex-Hockeyroos player Jayde Taylor; and branding expert Sophie Lawrence – all with the mindset that no one needs to be consuming sugar, but everyone deserves a dessert.
While many of its competitors in the low sugar space usually fall into the frozen dessert category, the Denada team was adamant throughout the process to enter the freezer aisles with a creamy classification, based on guidelines from FSANZ.
But to take out sugar from an ice cream recipe is no simple feat. For Denada, its replacement is the natural sweetener Xylitol, found in birch
bark and corn cob, which is combined with pure ingredients before being churned into smooth ice cream.
“If you take sugar out of ice cream, it’s rock solid. Sugar acts as an anti-freeze, if you take it out, you have to replace it with something else, and in our case, something natural, which is really hard to do,” says Haygarth.
Denada has grown from 800 tubs with a small Sydney producer to 60,000 tubs of ice cream a month at a “one-stop- shop” contract manufacturer in Melbourne, to meet the growing demand to be stocked in 1300 independent retailers and Coles stores nationally.
Lawrence says: “With Denada, we want to be the healthier, better-for-you brand without all the typical ‘health’ cues. We believe in our product so much that we would rather look delicious than cue health, so in some ways, we’re going against the grain of what’s
out there.” ✷
26 | Food&Drink business | November-December 2020 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au