The hybrid minced meat takes its place on store shelves

Mixing minced meat with vegetables has become a hit. The new hybrid minced meat is cheaper, healthier and more climate-friendly.

– It’s great fun, because it’s so hard to find the right one with this type of product, says Ellinor Puerto at Dagab.

At the production facility outside Jönköping, the meat grinder rattles more than usual. It is filled with frozen cauliflower and carrots, which are shredded before being mixed with ground beef in the next step.

Every day, 2,000 Garantpacks – one ton – of the new hybrid minced meat roll out of the factory, a product that has managed to grab market share in the country’s Hemköp and Willys stores. Nowadays, every 20th package of minced meat sold in stores is so-called hybrid minced meat.

Since frozen vegetables are cheaper than meat, the end product is also cheaper. In addition to the price, Ellinor Puerto, range development manager at Dagab, points to the fact that it looks like mince, tastes like mince and is placed in the fridge next to other mince as additional success factors.

– When it’s too complicated products – which you don’t understand how to use – which are more expensive and more complicated, then you don’t buy it. It has to be simple, you have to understand it immediately and what to do with it. And it has to taste good.

An “inflation product”

ICA has a similar product where ground beef is mixed with 30 percent ground peas. It was developed as an “inflation product”, intended primarily to be a cheaper alternative.

– But during the course of the process, we also discovered that here we can make a product that adds value in a different way by helping the consumer to eat a little more green, says Mats Heljestrand, meat manager at Ica.

ICA also sells about a ton a day, a few percent of the total volume.

– But it is actually one of our biggest news in terms of volume that we have released for a long time.

Both Ica and Axfood launched other hybrid products in the past that failed.

– Eight years ago, we launched a ground beef with 30 percent vegetables. It didn’t work at all then. We learned from that and that’s why we also chose to go this way now where we instead launched a product that doesn’t deviate very much either in appearance, taste or texture, says Heljestrand.

Best to aim for ground beef

Ellinor Puerto says that Axfood launched hybrid sausages earlier. But they sold poorly, and disappeared. Maybe the time wasn’t right, or they weren’t good enough.

– When it’s not good, no one wants to buy it, she notes.

Now there are more products, in addition to minced meat, also hamburgers in the store. Axfood, together with the foundation Axfoundation, has produced frozen fish cakes, consisting of by-catch bream and broad beans, as well as a herring burger, consisting of minced herring and broad beans.

– There are many proteins that can be mixed with something plant-based. It can be vegetables, legumes or grains. But ground beef is the protein that has the highest climate impact, so from that perspective it is most beneficial to mix the ground beef, says Puerto.

According to Axfood, the 650 tons of hybrid mince that the company has sold so far have reduced emissions by 9,100 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, roughly the same amount as the company’s transport emissions over the course of a year.

Elin Röös, who researches sustainable food systems at the Swedish University of Agriculture, has a positive view of the hybrid products.

– It’s a great way to reduce meat consumption. It is quite difficult otherwise to get people to eat differently – we are very much guided by habits. If you can quite easily cook your usual favorite dishes using a raw material with a significantly lower climate impact, that is very positive, she says.

“Can mix yourself”

Critics could highlight that the hybrid minced meat provides an alibi to continue eating meat as usual. But Elin Röös points out that “not everyone can start cooking chickpea stews”, and that beef can contribute to biodiversity if the cows graze on natural pastures.

– It is not the case that all beef must be removed. In a sustainable diet, there can be a certain amount of beef if it comes from a good production, she says.

So she thinks that as a customer you can buy the hybrid products with a clear conscience.

– In a way, it’s funny that these products exist at all. You can buy ordinary ground beef and grate carrots and mix it yourself, says Elin Röös and adds:

– But we are quite lazy when we cook – myself included – so I understand that this product exists and works.

FACT Some examples of hybrid products

Read moreFACTSMeat and the environment

Read more