Gold & Green: ‘We want oats to be the #1 ingredient in plant-based meat’
Oats, rapidly emerging as star players in the plant-based milk category, have not made any real impact in meat alternatives … until now: "We want oats to be the #1 ingredient [in plant-based meat],” says Maija Itkonen, co-founder at Finnish startup Gold & Green, which has developed a proprietary mechanical manufacturing process enabling it to create fibrous plant-based meat products with oats as the primary ingredient – an industry first.
"Our Pulled Oats only have five ingredients [oats, pea protein, faba bean protein, rapeseed oil, salt] and no methyl cellulose, additives, binders or fillers.”
Pulled Oats launched in Helsinki, Finland, in 2015, where they were an instant hit. Moves into the retail market in The Netherlands came next, followed by foodservice launches in multiple European countries. A move into the US market via a partnership with Sysco (via its Cutting Edge Solutions program) came this year, with a US retail launch planned further down the line, says Itkonen. “We’re also developing our industrial portfolio [to sell ingredients to CPG companies].”
