Hooray Foods’ plant-based bacon set for US retail launch

Food-tech start-up Hooray Foods has announced that its plant-based bacon product will launch in seven US regions from 1 November 2020.

Hooray Foods’ meat-free bacon is made using a blend of coconut oil, rice flour, tapioca starch, liquid smoke, umami seasoning, maple syrup, salt and beet juice concentrate. The company claims that the meat-free bacon replicates the cooking experience, taste and texture of conventional bacon.

The meat-free bacon also does not feature soy, gluten or dairy, and will be available from Whole Foods stores in seven US regions, which were not announced by the company.

Founded in 2019, San-Francisco based Hooray Foods claims that one of its core objectives is to boost the consumption of sustainable alternatives to meat, both in environmental and animal welfare terms.

The start-up was backed in a seed funding round by private equity firm Stray Dog Capital, and claimed that it would use this funding to increase production capacity and invest in R&D, in preparation for a wider launch.

Hooray Foods founder Sri Artham, said: “People who love bacon, love Hooray. I came at it from a totally different direction and developed it with a novel way to encapsulate fat in a substrate.

“I wanted to do something that would have a positive environmental impact. While I’m not a chef, or a food scientist, I have been in the food industry for many years, so working to make an environmental difference seemed like a good place to start.

“If you want to impact climate change, there’s almost no better way to do so than by changing what you eat.”