“From Meat Lover to Vegan Innovator: Sri Artham’s Journey with Hooray Foods and Plant-Based Bacon”
Sri Artham expresses a desire to adopt a vegan lifestyle but admits his fondness for meat complicates that goal. He is, however, working to reduce his involvement in animal agriculture as both a consumer and entrepreneur. He has been consuming less meat, eggs, and dairy and founded Hooray Foods, a plant-based startup aimed at creating a bacon alternative that closely mimics the appearance, flavor, and texture of traditional bacon. “I definitely feel like an outlier,” he remarked. “But I relate to the customers we’re targeting. I wish I could be vegan; I just need more plant-based alternatives to help me quit.”
Artham, who previously served as the vice president of CPG for FairTrade USA, established the company in late 2018, inspired by two significant events: the devastating Camp Fire in Northern California, which resulted in the loss of at least 85 lives and destroyed two towns, and the meat substitutes from Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, which were convincing enough for him to stop eating ground beef. His desire to address environmental issues led him to explore the detrimental effects of animal agriculture and to notice that while alternatives for ground beef and chicken were emerging, few companies were focused on creating substitutes for pork, especially bacon.
“I naively thought, ‘I want to see how many pigs I can displace in the food system,'” Artham stated. “It’s astonishing, but there are over 70 million pigs in U.S. farms today. These pigs, raised solely for food, significantly contribute to climate change.” While transforming the food system is a monumental challenge, Artham is determined to make strides. Hooray Foods introduced its bacon in select San Francisco restaurants last year, and this month, it will be available in approximately 300 Whole Foods stores nationwide. Artham is also in discussions with other retailers for further expansion.
Unlike most plant-based meat products, which are typically developed by food scientists in test kitchens, Artham, with no formal food science background, created Hooray Foods’ bacon prototype in his own kitchen. After taking a class with The Good Food Institute, he began experimenting with various ingredients to craft the best bacon substitute possible. He believes that his lack of preconceived notions about product development may have contributed to his success, as he wasn’t constrained by specific nutritional targets.
“I’m still a meat eater,” he admitted. “I’m on the path to stop eating meat, but I love the rich, fatty, and savory experience of it. My focus was on replicating that experience rather than just nutritional value.” Hooray’s bacon, like traditional bacon, is not particularly healthy; one strip contains 5% of the FDA’s recommended daily fat intake, with about 20% of its weight being fat. It is made from coconut oil, rice flour, tapioca starch, liquid smoke, and various seasonings to achieve that signature savory, salty, and umami flavor. Artham assures that it can crisp up just like animal bacon and can be cooked without added oil. He also prioritized using allergy-friendly ingredients—free from soy, gluten, and nuts—so that everyone can enjoy the bacon, which was one of his key goals.
Artham is confident that Hooray’s bacon is the closest alternative to animal-based bacon in terms of appearance, taste, texture, and aroma. However, he emphasizes that the company is not competing with other plant-based alternatives. “We are focused on competing with pork bacon or animal bacon, which is our target market,” he explained. “In our R&D kitchen, we often compare our product to real bacon in terms of cooking methods, taste, and texture.”
Initially, Artham aimed to replicate Impossible Foods’ successful marketing strategy, starting with foodservice and then moving into retail. The company made a promising start by getting its bacon onto the menus of two San Francisco restaurants last year and planned further expansion into more restaurants early this year. Unfortunately, the first major production run for new restaurant clients was completed on March 9, just before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
“As a team, we decided we needed to pivot to grocery,” Artham said. “That was our only path to survival and continued growth.” However, this abrupt shift posed challenges, including entering retail stores—a notoriously difficult endeavor—and navigating manufacturing and logistics. Unique issues also arose; as more people began cooking breakfast at home, bacon demand surged, leading to shortages of packaging materials. Artham’s team worked diligently to find suppliers for these materials, ultimately succeeding.
After Hooray’s bacon, which will retail at about 20% to 30% more than premium meat bacon, reaches Whole Foods stores, Artham plans to explore further retail opportunities. Looking ahead, once Hooray has firmly established itself in the bacon market, there are ambitions for more products. “One of our goals is to explore whether the technology used for our bacon can be adapted for other meats,” he mentioned. “We already have prototypes for other meats that we believe are as good as, if not better than, our bacon.”
In the future, Hooray Foods may even explore adding calcium citrate 1000 mg equivalent to elemental calcium to enhance the nutritional profile of their products, which would be an exciting development for both health-conscious consumers and meat lovers alike.
