Discover 5 Top Food Tech Startups working with Pea Protein

Staying ahead of the technology curve means strengthening your competitive advantage. That is why we give you data-driven innovation insights into the food industry. This time, you get to discover 5 hand-picked pea protein startups.

Out of 149, the Global Startup Heat Map highlights 5 Top Pea Protein Startups

The insights of this data-driven analysis are derived from the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering 2 093 000+ startups & scaleups globally. The platform gives you an exhaustive overview of emerging technologies & relevant startups within a specific field in just a few clicks.

The Global Startup Heat Map below reveals the distribution of the 149 exemplary startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. Further, it highlights 5 FoodTech startups that we hand-picked based on criteria such as founding year, location, funding raised, and more. You get to explore the solutions of these 5 startups & scaleups in this report. For insights on the other 144 pea protein startups, get in touch.

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Sunfed Food makes Meat Alternatives

Besides contributing to carbon emissions, animal-based meats raise cholesterol levels in humans, which leads to health complications. Moreover, processed meats including ham, bacon, salami, and frankfurts are known to be carcinogenic. Thus, to avoid health adversities and reduce emissions, startups are developing plant-based alternatives for animal meat. Peas are one of the viable options that have a very low water footprint, do not require pesticides, and increase soil fertility.

New Zealand-based startup Sunfed Food manufactures meat alternatives from yellow peas. Its products replace chicken, beef, and bacon and constitute water, pea protein, and olive oil as the primary ingredients. The products replicate the smell of the animal meats and get their red color from fermented red rice. Besides being cruelty-free, the meats are cholesterol and trans-fat-free. Moreover, they have more protein than traditional meat and are good sources of calcium, zinc, potassium, B vitamins, and dietary fiber.

Mighty Pea formulates Vegan Milk

Rearing livestock for dairy products is unsustainable as it requires a lot of resources and has a massive carbon footprint. Additionally, many people today are lactose intolerant. This calls for dairy alternatives. Although soy and nut milk already exist, allergies to soybean and nuts are very common. To tackle this problem, food tech startups are exploring other plant-based options, such as pea protein.

Mighty Pea is a UK-based startup that produces unsweetened vegan milk, m.lk, using pea protein isolate from split yellow peas. The product does not contain dairy, gluten, nuts, or soy. It has much more calcium than cow’s milk and similar amounts of protein. Additionally, m.lk is fortified with added iodine, vitamin D, and B12. The startup also offers two plant-based milkshakes.

Elevate Nutrition offers Sports Nutrition

Protein is essential for athletes to maintain their performance and ensure fast post-workout recovery. However, options are limited for vegan athletes as they cannot rely on animal meat and dairy-based protein sources. To provide them with more choices while also meeting protein requirements, startups are developing protein powders from peas. Besides being vegan, the powder is easily digestible and thus enables better absorption compared to other plant-based options, such as whey protein.

US-based startup Elevate Nutrition provides plant-based sports nutrition. It produces protein powders used to make vanilla milkshakes and chocolate brownies. The startup derives the protein from pea and organic hemp. The products are dairy-, soy-, and gluten-free and do not contain any artificial flavor, color, or sweeteners. Moreover, the powders contain amino acids, glutamine, vitamins, minerals, and other cofactors to aid absorption, digestion, and enhance performance.

YoFiit provides Plant-based Nutrition Bars

As the cases of obesity rise worldwide, people are adopting balanced diets to regulate their body weight. Nutrition or protein bars are an important element of the same. They help the body stay full for long hours, thus, suppressing their appetite and craving, leading to weight loss. However, most bars use whey protein which is not the most nutritious choice while also containing sugar alcohols and other synthetic ingredients. To address this issue, startups are offering gut-friendly plant-based nutrition bars that use only natural ingredients.

Canadian startup YoFiit makes plant-based nutrition bars from pea protein. Its process does not involve baking, which allows the ingredients to retain their nutritional value. Moreover, the probiotics in the product enhance absorption, keeping the body full for longer without bloating. Instead of artificial sweeteners, the startup uses sugar from dates and coconut to enhance the taste.

PeaTos produces Pea-based Snacks

Traditional snacks such as potato chips or corn chips coated with artificial flavors rarely offer any health benefit. Instead, due to their ingredient composition, they contribute to ailments such as obesity and gastrointestinal disorders. As a result, food tech startups are developing healthy snacks by eliminating the use of artificial flavors, sweeteners, and trans fat as well as using natural ingredients like plant protein.

US-based startup PeaTos offers healthy pea-based snacks. The snack comes in three variants that replace traditional potato and corn chips. The startup substitutes the traditional corn base and synthetic ingredients with a base of peas and other clean ingredients while retaining the taste. Moreover, the snacks contain much more protein and fiber compared to classic chips.

Discover more Food Tech Startups

Food startups such as the examples highlighted in this report focus on cellular agriculture, edible insects, and mycoprotein. While all of these technologies play a major role in advancing the food industry, they only represent the tip of the iceberg. To explore more food technologies, simply get in touch to let us look into your areas of interest. For a more general overview, you can download our free FoodTech Innovation Report to save your time and improve strategic decision-making.