Welcome to Talking Plant Protein. I'm Joey Thurman, and this is what's happening now in the plant-based market. Global fast food chain Burger King has been nurturing a relationship with their plant-based customers since they launched their Impossible Whopper at over 7,000 locations in August of 2019. Now they're expanding their menu even more. The restaurant has offered the original chicken sandwich for years, and they're teaming up with Impossible once again to release a plant-based version of the popular item. The Impossible Chicken Sandwich began market testing at select locations in Cincinnati, Ohio in August.

Community-driven food tech platform FoodHack is accepting applications for their next virtual Demo Days event on October 11th at 5:00 PM, Central European Summertime. Now startups that are active in food tech, agritech, and biotech are currently fundraising in Q3 and Q4 are encouraged to apply by September 18th. A lucky 10 early stage startups will be selected to pitch to accredited investors, VCs, CVCs and business angels in the food tech industry. Any investors interested in getting in on the action can fill out an application on the FoodHack website by October 10th.

The plant-based dairy market continues to grow, but mimicking the creamy mouth feel of traditional dairy products remains a challenge until now. Ex Planted intern Tomas Turner has teamed up with Dimitri Zogg to co-found Cultivated Bioscience, and improve the alternative dairy industry with their clean label, creamy alternative milk fat ingredients. They just announced the results of their $1.5 million pre-seed funding round that included investors like ProVeg International, Wingman Ventures, FoodHack, and several others. They plan to improve the economic viability and scalability in order to have brand partnerships within the next 12 months.

From Talking Plant Protein, I'm Joey Thurman and that's what's happening now in the plant-based market.