New School Food Swims Against the Current in Its Way to Get Some Protein
In business, brave entrepreneurs move when others move. In the world of other plant-based proteins, Chris Bryson, CEO and founder of New School Foods, decided to enter a new direction, introducing a new patented freezing process to make the perfect cut of salmon.
New School Foods, based in Toronto, is emerging from strategic and ambitious mode fueled by research, investment capital, and purpose. As Bryson told The Spoon in a recent interview, companies in the plant-based protein space are focusing on smaller cuts like nuggets and burgers using a process that uses heat in extrusion, which cooks the food first.
Bryson explained how the New School differs from both of these figures.
“We’ve always aimed to be a company that focuses on what we call perfect cuts.” We see that as kind of the next frontier for a different protein. “Burgers and nuggets are good, but there is a huge opportunity, and I wanted to work on that. With other proteins, if you can create the equivalent of a Tesla of food, it makes people happy to change and feel like there is no compromise, and we can create a real impact.”
Bryson said that before he got into the company’s way of finding other proteins, he funded a lot of research, many of which produced inconclusive results. One, however, hit the jackpot. “One of those projects came up with this extrusion variant. And it doesn’t use heat to create the texture, and it uses cold or ice to create the texture.” And it is because of the cold that the New School can easily produce perfect cuts and provide healthy fats.
High humidity extraction, Bryson said, is used in products like the Beyond Burger. Therefore, the food is pre-cooked and often “using color tricks” to make the transformation more similar to an aminal product like a hamburger.
Another distinguishing feature of the New School is its construction.
“We create a mold with hollow spaces – thousands of these little vertical channels that we fill, and we turn those vertical channels into protein fibers because it’s a mold. It gives us the flexibility to work with different proteins. And based on the animal we’re trying to mimic, we can choose proteins that change or cook at the same temperature as the animal protein”.
Bryson continued that the company’s focus is to create a salmon that looks and tastes like a fish that swims against the current and provides “the right mouth feel.”
“We have spent countless months, if not years, focusing on how to regenerate what is not feeling. And that comes down to regenerating the muscle fibers. Therefore, our technology allows us to adjust the width of the muscle fiber, the length of the muscle fiber, and the resistance of the muscle fiber,” he said. It also provides a platform that can be used for other types of fish, seafood, and other proteins in general.
The New School aims to have a product ready for sale by 2024, first for restaurants and then for consumers. Armed with $13 million in funding from Lever VC, Hatch, Good Startup, Blue Horizon Ventures, Clear Current Capital, Alwyn Capital, Basecamp Ventures, and Climate Capital, Bryson said the funds will be used to build an airport in the Toronto area.
