This New Vegan Jerky Uses Science to Convince Your Brain That You’re Eating Meat

This fall, plant-based flavoring technology startup ELECTRIC Snack Brands Inc. will launch Version 1.0 of its plant-based ELECTRIC Jerky. To create the vegan meat product, ELECTRIC conducted months of beta testing and research in an effort to mimic the physiological and mental responses that people experience when eating animal meat. ELECTRIC Jerky uses the company’s proprietary natural and non-GMO vegan beef flavor to elicit the same brain response as animal-derived meat products. The soy-based, protein-packed jerky comes in four flavors: Sriracha, Sesame Teriyaki, Texas Smokey BBQ, and Original.

ELECTRIC Snack Brands was started by a group of friends and researchers from the biotech and food technology startup industry, including main co-founders Danielle Capri and Danica Whitfield. Their initial goal was to develop a natural flavor additive that would elicit a brain response similar to meat, but they decided to take it a step further and bring the flavor they developed to an alternative meat product. They chose to create beef jerky because it was a snack the creators missed and one of the few meat products that is eaten as meat alone—unlike a burger, which is typically eaten with condiments and a bun. “There are a lot of great plant-based products out there, but to truly win over meat eaters, we need to appeal to them on a more ‘primal brain’ level,” Capri told VegNews.

Starting in late fall, ELECTRIC Jerky will be available on Amazon and the company’s website. ELECTRIC is taking a direct-to-consumer approach so it can use consumer feedback when creating future versions of the product.