UNLIMEAT Receives Award in Plant-based Contest by Carrefour
UNLIMEAT, the pioneering plant-based alternative meat brand from Korea, was selected as one of the 10 winning brands in the Plant-based Contest hosted by Carrefour, the globally renowned French distributor of food and other sundries.
This event was organized as part of Carrefour’s vision to create opportunities for innovative startups to enter the global market and to introduce more plant-based products to its customers. More than 250 brands from more than 50 countries entered the contest. Among them, 15 teams were selected as finalists, who were then judged in Paris, France on June 9th. Brands directly showcased and pitched their story and products to Carrefour Group CEO Alexandre Bompard, CSR Director Nicolas Dher and other Carrefour executives, along with investors, media and other influencers in the plant-based industry.
Carrefour selected 10 of the finalists as winners. The winning brands include La Vie, a French brand that developed plant-based bacon, LAPP, a vegan ice cream brand, Vly, a plant-based milk made from peas and Väcka, a Spanish startup that makes aged vegan cheese among other products. UNLIMEAT was the only Asian brand selected as a winner.
UNLIMEAT is a Korean food startup that creates products using upcycled ingredients, such as skimmed soybean powder extracted from soybean oil and rice bran from milling brown rice. A Carrefour official remarked, “UNLIMEAT received high marks for practicing a virtuous cycle that supports a healthy ecosystem. The fact that it has its own factory and has product scalability is also one of the reasons why it received a positive evaluation. We hope to be able to see wonderful products from this startup in Carrefour stores around the world soon.”
Most alternative meat brands have similar product lines, such as burger patties, sausages and chicken nuggets. UNLIMEAT, however, offers highly differentiated products, such as ‘Plant-based Korean BBQ’, a versatile plant-based meat that can be grilled the same way meat can be and can be used in a wide variety of dishes depending on the sauce used. Pulled barbecue is another unique and popular UNLIMEAT product and is sold in various flavors with different seasonings, such as Korean BBQ and Texas BBQ. UNLIMEAT also sells plant-based meat dumplings. Their dumplings contain about 30 percent plant-based meat, giving them a texture similar to real meat dumplings, unlike vegan dumplings sold in most grocery stores.
The brand’s plant-based jerky also uses proprietary extrusion technology to create texture just like that of real meat. UNLIMEAT’s plant-based jerky was popular enough that it sold out within a month of launching. UNLIMEAT recently launched a campaign to bring their plant-based jerky to the USA on Kickstarter, an American representative crowdfunding platform, achieving its target funding goal within 3 hours of launch and subsequently achieving more than 470 percent of its target funding within a week.
Carrefour is a large French distribution chain with more than 13,000 stores in more than 30 countries around the world. The 10 winning brands in this contest will have various opportunities, such as collaborating with the Carrefour team and displaying their products in stores in one or more of the nine countries where Carrefour directly manages its operations, such as France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Taiwan.