Quorn
From Free net encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Quorn (disambiguation).
Quorn is the trademark of a fungus-based food product, sold (largely in Europe) as a meat substitute or imitation meat. It is marketed at the health-conscious as well as to vegetarians, although Vegans note that some Quorn products contain ingredients derived from factory farmed eggs.
On 6th June 2005, it was announced that Premier Foods had completed its acquisition of Marlow Foods (the owner of Quorn) for £172m.
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History
During the 1950s, a shortage of protein-rich foods was predicted by the 1980s. In response to this, many research programmes were undertaken to utilise single-cell biomass as an animal feed. Contrary to the trend, Lord Rank instructed the Rank Hovis McDougall (RHM) Research Centre to investigate converting starch (the waste product of cereal manufacturing undertaken by RHM) into a protein-rich food for human consumption.
Following an extensive screening process, the filamentous fungus Fusarium venenatum was isolated as the best candidate. RHM was given permission to sell myco-protein for human consumption after a ten-year evaluation programme in 1980 - probably making Quorn the most tested food in existence.
The initial retail product was produced in 1985 by Marlow Foods - a joint venture between RHM and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) who provided a fermenter left vacant from their abandoned single-cell feed programme. Although the food sold well in the initial test market of the RHM Staff Canteen, the large supermarket chains were unconvinced until Lord Sainsbury, owner of Sainsburys with a scientific interest in the development of Quorn agreed to stock the novel food.
Although the myco-protein was originally conceived as a protein-rich food supplement for the predicted global famine, the food shortage never materialised. In 1989 a survey revealed almost half of the UK population was reducing their intake of red meats and a fifth of young people were vegetarians. As a result, Marlow Foods decided to sell Quorn as a new healthy meat analogue which was absent of animal fats and cholesterol.
Production
Quorn is made from the soil mold Fusarium venenatum strain PTA-2684 (previously misidentified as the parasitic mold Fusarium graminearum). F. venenatum was discovered in the soil of a farm near the town of Marlow in the UK in the 1960s.
The fungus is grown in continually oxygenated water in large sterile fermentation tanks. During the growth phase glucose is added as a food for the fungus, as are various vitamins and minerals (to improve the food value of the resulting product). The resulting mycoprotein is then extracted and heat-treated to remove excess levels of RNA. Previous attempts at producing such fermented protein foodstuffs were thwarted by excessive levels of DNA or RNA; without the heat treatment, purine, found in nucleic acids, is metabolised producing uric acid, which can lead to gout. [1]
The product is then dried and mixed with chicken egg albumen, which acts as a binder. It is then textured, giving it some of the grained character of meat, and pressed either into a mince (resembling ground beef) or into chunks (resembling diced chicken breast). In this form Quorn has a light brown colour and a mild flavour vaguely akin to a nutty beef, and is suitable for use as a replacement for meat in many dishes, such as stews and casseroles. The final Quorn product is high in vegetable protein, dietary fiber, and is low in saturated fat and salt. The amount of dietary iron it contains is lower than that of most meats.
Production cost
Patents
The patents for the production technology used to produce Quorn are owned by its inventors, Marlow Foods. Marlow was a subsidiary of pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca but is now privately owned. Contrary to some suggestions, Quorn is not genetically modified: the fungus used is still genetically unmodified from the state in which it was discovered. The different tastes and forms of Quorn are results of industrial processing of the raw fungus. Marlow sells Quorn brand mycoprotein in its two ready-to-cook forms, and has recently introduced a range of chilled vegetarian foods based on Quorn.
The fungus was discovered in the 1960s, but remained something of a scientific curiosity until 1975. At that time food economists theorised that the world would soon experience a significant shortage of dietary protein (although this never came to be). Several companies pursued the commercial development of fungal protein products, of which Quorn was the most successful. Quorn was first test-marketed in the UK in 1985 (although the product was not in general nationwide distribution until 1994), and introduced into other parts of Europe in the late 1990s. As of 2004 it is also available in stores in the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland.
Controversy
Its 2002 debut in the United States was more problematic -- the sale of Quorn was contested by The American Mushroom Institute, Gardenburger, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. They filed complaints with advertising and trading-standards watchdogs in Europe and the USA, claiming that the labelling of Quorn as "mushroom based" was deceptive. The CSPI, observing that while a mushroom is a fungus, fusarium is not a mushroom, and they quipped, "Quorn's fungus is as closely related to mushrooms as humans are to jellyfish."
CSPI also expressed concern that some proteins present in Quorn could produce unexpected allergic reactions in some consumers, and continues to lobby for its removal from stores on this basis. But as others counter, milk, peanuts, soy, eggs, and many other foods are common allergens (often fatally), setting a precedent that simply being an allergen for some consumers is not a reasonable cause to remove a product from stores. Calling the product "fungus food", CSPI claimed in 2003 that it "sickens 5% of eaters" [2]. The manufacturer disputes the figure, claiming that only 0.0007% (1 in 146,000) suffers adverse reactions. Defenders of Quorn have alleged CSPI may be influenced by large soybean agribusinesses because Quorn would compete most directly with soy based textured vegetable protein.
Quorn has been criticised by organisations opposed to battery farming, because although it is marketed to vegetarians, some Quorn products contain battery egg, the use of which many vegetarians oppose. For this reason, the Vegetarian Society initially did not approve these products. However, since 2000, all of the Quorn products sold in Europe have been produced using free-range eggs. All Quorn products sold in the UK are now approved by the Vegetarian Society.
Trivia
- The rugby player Will Carling featured in British television advertisements for Quorn in the 1990s.
- The first ever Quorn product was a savoury pie