Dive Brief:
- The Every Company’s animal-free egg proteins are entering the alcohol category through a partnership with hard juice maker Pulp Culture. The brand Build, which is powered by Every Protein, is part of a new Pulp Culture+ line focused on ultra-functional products.
- Build, which is now available to purchase online and will expand to retail, is the first protein-boosted alcoholic juice. Pulp Culture founders Brendan Brazier and Mark McTavish, who created the beverage as a healthier option for those who want to imbibe but skip the hangover, said in a written statement the highly soluble, tasteless and odorless Every Protein adds another dimension to their better-for-you alcohol.
- The Every Company, which was founded as Clara Foods in 2014, uses precision fermentation to create animal-free proteins, with a focus on those found in egg whites. Every Protein launched last October under the name ClearEgg, and this spring the company debuted Every EggWhite, which has the taste and functionality of chicken egg whites.
Dive Insight:
Alcoholic beverages don’t seem like the type of products to which a manufacturer would want to add protein. However, Pulp Culture is a different kind of alcoholic beverage company.
It launched in 2020 as the maker of clean label, better-for-you alcoholic drinks. The company uses 100% raw juice that ferments for three months, resulting in naturally occurring probiotics, organic acids, vitamins and a 4.9% ABV. At the end, superfruits and adaptogens are added to the mix.
Pulp Culture’s target consumers are likely the type who want protein in their alcoholic beverages.
“This launch further proves Every Protein’s capacity to unlock never-before-seen-or-tasted innovations,” Arturo Elizondo, Every Company’s co-founder and CEO said in a statement. “It’s exciting to continue unveiling new categories for food and beverage brands delivering the bullseye of what today’s consumers want.”
This is the sort of application in which Every Protein can shine. The protein can be undetectably mixed into beverages, the company says, and bring with it a wealth of bioavailable protein. Unlike other proteins that can be added to beverages, it’s not gritty and has no taste of its own. And the actual protein itself is not very plentiful in chicken eggs, meaning the only cost-effective way to produce it is through precision fermentation. Every Protein has also been used in a limited smoothie from Pressed last year.
It’s been a big year for Pulp Culture, which closed a $7 million Series A funding round last month. It landed national distribution deals at Whole Foods Market and Thrive Market, and plans to use some of its new funds to accelerate retail growth. The money also will be used to complete its 13,000-square-foot manufacturing and R&D hub in downtown Los Angeles.
The Pulp Culture launch also continues an eventful year for Every. Last year, the company entered into a partnership with BioBrew, a division of AB InBev’s venture and innovation arm ZX Ventures, to help Every scale its fermentation. In August, through help from BioBrew, Every was able to step up its fermentation capacity, the company said.
Large-scale fermentation of egg protein means that more collaborations between Every and food and drink manufacturers could be on the way.
If Every can create a larger quantity of ingredients, it will become much more available to food and beverage companies and at a lower cost. While Every EggWhite is envisioned as a conventional egg white replacement, precision fermentation-created ingredients like Every Protein, as well as some of the other multitudes of proteins in eggs, could create more completely new product categories.
