Popular Spanish plant-based meat brand launches a burger with 85% less saturated fat than beef. Thanks to an innovative fat analogue that transforms extra virgin olive oil into a solid fat.
● Heura’s innovative fat analogue goes beyond meat substitutes to create the world’s most realistic meat successor
● The fat analogue brings the sensorial experience of meat, helps reduce the environmental impact of livestock consumption, and improves cardiovascular health
● Heura’s R&D team formulated a solid fat analogue to give the texture and bite of beef from extra virgin olive oil, which is healthier and more sustainable than coconut oil
Barcelona, 22 October 2020: Heura, the Spanish plant-based meat brand, today launched a burger which is set to be the healthiest on the market, containing 64.25% less fat than a traditional beef burger[1]. The burger also contains 85.6% less saturated fat than beef, and has 11.3% more protein per calorie.
The biggest challenge facing the plant-based industry was creating a burger with the juiciness of beef without using high amounts of fat. To achieve this, Heura developed the first fat analogue made of extra virgin olive oil to create the Heura Burger 2.0.
With a growth of 460% in the last year, Heura is the fastest-growing 100% plant-based meat company in Europe. The brand aims to accelerate the protein transition by providing healthy, clean, and accessible products for those who want an ethical and sustainable alternative to meat.
Heura has a presence in ten countries, including Spain, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong, Chile and most recently the UK.
Heura’s Mediterranian heritage is reflected in its ingredients – the burger is the first and only plant-based burger made with extra virgin olive oil, which is rich in monounsaturated fats. Studies show that eating foods rich in monounsaturated fatty acids instead of saturated fats improves blood cholesterol levels, which can decrease your risk of heart disease and may also help to decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes. In addition, olive oil is more sustainable than coconut or palm oil. The burger also contains sustainable pea protein concentrate and vegetable fibre. The brand prides itself on its clean label, which contains 40% fewer ingredients than the market average.
The uniqueness of Heura’s burger stems from its innovative fat analogue. Until now, the only way to obtain the juiciness of an animal burger in plant-based options was to use high amounts of fat from oils. This meant that many plant-based burgers focused only on delivering the sensorial experience of meat, while containing almost the same amount of fat as an animal burger. This solved the problem of the environmental impact of beef, but not the health issues posed by high intakes of saturated fat. Therefore, the global challenge of the plant-based industry was developing a burger that preserved the juiciness of meat while reducing the amount of fat from oils. The Heura R&D team found the solution to this problem after over 1,000 trials, and the new burger achieves the perfect balance of ingredients and ambiental factors to offer the meaty and juicy experience of an animal burger with only 6.5 grams of fat.
Marc Coloma, co-founder and CEO of Heura, said:
“Accelerating the protein transition is my passion and it is in technology where I find solutions. Pioneers in the plant-based industry have always been our inspiration and we hope that this innovation boosts the plant-based meat category worldwide and leaves livestock obsolete.”
Lorena Salcedo, New Product Development Manager at Heura, explained:
“When we visualize the fat from a burger or the coconut oil in the supermarket, they are solid. This is because they both have high contents of saturated fat. We had to reproduce that with an oil that is liquid (monounsaturated) and minimise its use to reduce the amount of fat on the burger. We have analyzed both structures separately, the beef burger one and extra virgin olive oil to get the experience of one from the nutritional values of the other. When you see the essence of what you really need it’s easy to see the most efficient way to get there.”
PRESS NOTES:
1. More about the fat analogue development process
Knowing that the next big biggest next challenge in the plant-based industry was for the category to further boost the protein transition, Marc Coloma, activist and co-founder of Heura looked for the most experienced researcher in oils structures and hired Lorena Salcedo, currently the New Product Development Manager at Heura. She had two goals: reducing the amount of fat in a burger and using the best quality type of fat. Lorena knew then conceptually that we had to create a fat analogue and that she had to do it with the healthiest oil on earth, the extra virgin olive oil.
Marc Coloma asked her to move towards the solution applying the first principle theory by Aristotle, using all her knowledge and background on oil structures to go to the essence of them and find the best way to hack it following the 10x growth theory by Frederick Brooks.
2. About Heura
Heura is a 100% plant-based meat start-up. Its mission is to create solutions that make the current food system obsolete and accelerate the transition to a world in which animals are out of the protein production equation. Its roots and culinary tradition from the Mediterranean are reflected in its products: clean label, high nutritional values, and flavour. Founded by food activists Marc Colona and Bernat Añaños, Heura was born in April 2017 and is currently present in 3,000 points of sale in Spain, Andorra, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong, Chile, and the United Kingdom.
3. Media information
Photos for the media of the burger and Heura’s innovative fat analogue can be found here.
For media requests please contact:
Apollo Strategic Communications
Alex Jungwirth: alex.jungwirth@
Tel. + 44 (0) 207 871 0587
