Tastes just like chicken or beef but it's really soya

- Published: 04 August, 2006

An American soya company has unveiled a new fake-meat manufacturing process that uses a blend of soya and meat protein to make faux beef and chicken.

The Solae Company has launched SoleCina, which it claims makes a "nutritious" product, with "virtually the same [appearance] taste and texture of traditional beef or chicken", including "beef strips, chunks, patties or steak".

The firm has used the technology to develop a burger which it claimed contains two-thirds the calories and half the fat and saturated fat of a regular burger, but retains the taste. A US Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) note said SoleCina was "a unique structuring technology" which enables manufacturers to make profits by making attractive products using "lower-valued meat".

Solae said SoleCina would be retailed in the US this year.