All PFN ARTICLES

US-based innovators like Wild Earth and Jiminy’s are using artificial intelligence to formulate plant-based dog food, tailored, traceable, and totally alt-protein. From plant-based blends to insect-derived kibble, the future of pet nutrition is being cooked up in a lab, not a slaughterhouse.

Contrary to clickbait claims and global meat industry 'spin' that Alt meat has collapsed, new market projections show the plant-based meat market is not just stable, it’s scaling.

Forget cautious targets, Lidl GB has blown past its 400% goal for plant-based sales with a staggering 694% surge since 2020. What’s driving it? Not just the meat-free burgers and sausages, but an appetite for whole-food staples like pulses, grains, tofu, and falafels that outperformed meat substitutes by nearly 20%.

Something unusual happened on UK's Ocado this August. Redefine Meat, the Israeli alt-meat brand built on chef-grade cred, surged +248% in searches week-on-week. That’s not just a blip in a vegan niche, that’s a mainstream summer signal. The reason? It was BBQ season in the UK, and shoppers wanted burgers and koftas looking, cooking, and searing like the real thing, but without the cow.

Australia’s mushroom meat darling Fable Food Co. has scored another big win in the fast-casual space. Its smoky, rich pulled shiitake has just landed in Zambrero’s Signature Burrito, rolled out across nearly 300 restaurants nationwide. Paired with the chain’s limited-time Truffelo Sauce, the burrito is loaded with mushrooms, veggies, corn, pepitas, and serious flavour.

Shandi Global is no longer a kitchen experiment but a $30 million food-tech contender. Their chickpea, mung bean, soy, and pea-based proteins are already feeding schools, hospitals, and workplaces across Asia and beyond. Their mission? Nothing less than fixing global protein deficiency while making meatless burgers taste like the real deal.

Grill’d has signed a national partnership with Beyond to launch the Beyond Burger IV - the fourth-gen patty now boasting avocado oil, 20 grams of plant protein, and a clean label free of soy, gluten, and GMOs. For Beyond, whose share price has been battered globally, the deal is more than just another menu slot, it’s a potential lifeline. Grill'd has 173 burger outlets Australia wide.

US Based, The Mushroom Meat Co. has dropped four bold, pre-seasoned flavours in the form of Carne Asada Bites, Korean BBQ Bites, Pulled Carnitas, and Southern BBQ Pulled, all crafted for chefs who need speed without compromising flavour.

Oscar Mayer has just dropped the “EveryBun Pack,” a dual box set of old-school pork wieners and its Not Hot Dogs, plant-based cousins born out of the Kraft Heinz x NotCo partnership. No blending, no meat-plant mashups, just side-by-side dogs in one pack, each wrapped separately like awkward cousins at a Labor Day cookout.

New Zealand’s latest migration settings are colliding with its food ambitions. Net migration has collapsed to just +13,700 (YE June 2025), while a 13-year-high 71,800 citizens packed up and left, most young, skilled, and irreplaceable. Those empty lab benches and processing plants aren’t abstract,

From now on, PlanetFood.News isn’t just reporting news, it’s delivering trend intelligence with an opinion, powered by our sister platform TRENOS.ai. Every PFN story will now run in two layers:

In a move that could become a blueprint for surviving New Zealand’s tightening plant-based market, Grater Goods has officially taken Green Dinner Table under its wing. The two Christchurch-born pioneers have been running parallel tracks for years - Grater Goods with its artisan plant-based deli and products, Green Dinner Table with its chef-designed weekly meal boxes.