San Diego, CA — Plantible Foods, a biology company developing revolutionary plant-based ingredient solutions, today announced the commercial availability of its first product, Rubi Whisk™. The highly versatile ingredient can be used by commercial producers of breads, donuts, cookies, cakes, pastries, pastas, and more to replace eggs and improve gluten-free products, yielding world-class baked goods that don’t compromise on taste, texture and nutrition.
Through its proprietary technology, Plantible extracts high-quality and native RuBisCO protein from the highly-sustainable Lemna plant, also known as duckweed, which requires 10 times less water per kilogram of protein than soy, and doubles in mass every 48-72 hours. Plantible develops its Rubi Protein™ RuBisCO into a powder that is neutral in taste, odor and color, while maintaining its integrity as a complete protein containing all nine essential amino acids. Its unique properties can mimic and replace animal proteins, and it will serve as the basis for Plantible’s proprietary value-added ingredients, starting with Rubi Whisk™, with more ingredient solutions to be announced in the future.
Sweet Maresa’s, a vegan baking shop, will use Plantible’s protein solutions to enhance their macarons, with the new applications available for customers later this summer in their New York City and upstate New York stores, as well as their online ecommerce shop.
“In over a decade of formulating vegan baked goods, I haven’t found a protein solution that works nearly as well as Plantible’s ingredients do. Not only do their protein ingredients work better than any other plant-based ingredient on the market, but they essentially function just like egg whites in my macarons,” said Maresa Volante, Founder of Sweet Maresa’s. “Plantible is also helping solve a major production problem. Their ingredients are much more pliable to work with, and far more stable, enabling us to increase the quantity of macarons we are able to produce each day, while elevating the standard of taste. The possibilities it can provide our business are endless.”
Plantible operates its own scalable aquafarms at its R&D facility in Vista, California, and its newly opened, 140-acre commercial production facility in Eldorado, Texas, which require no arable land and recycle 95 percent of water inputs. Plantible’s solutions further benefit from a fully transparent, traceable, short supply chain, making its protein a price-stable and reliable ingredient. Plantible will have capacity to produce and ship hundreds of metric tons of Rubi Whisk™ to global customers, with first shipments going out this month.
“For too long, consumers have had to make trade-offs when choosing plant-based or gluten-free foods, compromising on taste and texture and often settling for less delicious and nutritious products,” said Tony Martens Fekini, co-founder and CEO of Plantible Foods. “This is especially true in the baking ingredients and CPG categories, where baked goods that are free from eggs and gluten are often dry, crumbly, and overall less enjoyable to eat. Our ingredient solutions are solving these challenges and more, enabling bakers to produce goods that are more nutritious, delicious, and sustainable for the planet – while enhancing their appeal to consumers.”
When used in baking applications, Rubi Whisk™ provides several benefits, including:
- Fat-binding and oil-holding capacity: Bakers can reduce or even remove saturated fats from their ingredient labels with Rubi Whisk’s™ ability to bind, encapsulate and/or structure unsaturated fats.
- High-foaming capacity and stability: Rubi Whisk™ can be whipped at cold or ambient temperature into stiff peaks within three minutes, and outperforms egg whites in both capacity and stability.
- High solubility: The solution is nearly 100% soluble in water and dissolves in liquids better than whey and other plant-based proteins, preventing gritty, grainy textures.
- Moisture retention: Rubi’s high water-holding capacity creates water-binding capabilities similar to that of an egg, and prevents food from drying out.
- Emulsification: When you mix water, oil, and Rubi Whisk™ at a high speed, Rubi will coat the water droplets and form a stable solution.
In addition to baking, Plantible’s solutions will have a myriad of applications across meat and dairy alternatives, sports and adult nutrition, aiding in the transition to cleaner, greener, and more nutritious food products.
About Plantible Foods
Plantible Foods, founded in 2018, is a natural biology company that is harnessing the power of the Lemna plant and the natural magic of RuBisCO protein to transition the world to a more sustainable food system where positive choices don’t require trade-offs. Plantible’s functional ingredient solutions enable food companies to unleash the potential of plant-forward and allergen-free foods without compromising taste, functionality and nutrition.
