From the Shark Tank to the Big Apple, A post-Oscars nosh, and more morsels

Welcome to Livin' on the Veg, a weekly newsletter that highlights updates from the world of plant-based food (Relax — it’ll be fun!). If you like what you’re reading, make sure to subscribe using the button above. Would love to hear your feedback in the comments below.

Last year Jenny Goldfarb got Shark Mark Cuban to invest $250,000 in her Unreal Deli line of plant-based sandwich meats. That was the easy part. Now she's done the hard: Getting a Jewish New York Deli to serve her alt corned beef. "I was definitely hesitant at first,” Sarge’s Delicatessen & Diner’s fourth-generation owner, Andrew Wengrover, tells Stacy Suaya for New York Magazine. Shark Tank, Schmark Tank — making it NY was the big goal, "But Jewish delis are tough," Goldfarb says. "Many haven’t put anything new on the menu in 100 years." So this is the good news. The baddish news? An Unreal Deli Reuben is $18 at Sarge's. Maybe not such a deal.

Impossible burger. Beyond Burger. Incogmeato? Kelloggs is hoping a makeover will re-fire its Morningstar brand with a clever pun that is almost certain to draw the ire of Big Meat. Somewhat less coherent is the logo: A let's-try-everything approach of a cow sporting a handlebar mustache, monocle, and derby (or is that a WWI Brodie helmet?). What this says is that while the food industry knows it has a breakout product (see the quote of the week below) it still really doesn't know the marketing sweet spot. But kudos to this Fortune 500 company for seeing the future when it bought 45-year-old company two decades ago and grew Morningstar (at least through last year) to the largest plant-based market share in the country.

Factoid [?]

KFC sold one million vegan chicken burgers in the UK last month, coinciding with Veganuary: the equivalent of one every three seconds.

— h/t Anna Starostinetskaya of VegNews

This year's Veganuary caused a "huge uplift" for UK supermarkets, boosting sales of meat substitutes by 14%, Rebecca Smithers reports for The Guardian, and "rocketing sales of vegan takeaway." Some 400,000+ people signed up for Veganuary, a mainly UK annual event sponsored by the eponymous non-profit.

Quote of the Week [?]

“Yes, 2019 was a huge year for plant-based burgers but plant-based is definitely becoming bigger than burgers; probably the fast gaining area was Mexican foods."

— Good Food institute foodservice and supply chain manager Zak Weston, as reported by Elaine Watson for Food Navigator-usa  

Sometimes, you just need a "burger": Evidently the 70% plant-based post-Academy Awards Governor's Ball menu didn't have what Joaquin Phoenix and gf Rooney Mara really craved. Or maybe after that in-your-face acceptance speech, as recounted by Michelle Santiago Cortés in Refinery29 — "The first-time Best Actor winner, who took home the award for his leading role in Joker, remembered his brother, River, but not before sharing a few thoughts on… cows?" — he just needed some air, and a Monty's Good Burger. Anyway, this is the funnest post awards pic since Patton Oswalt took his home his Emmy by way of Arby's.