Jensen Meat expands into plant-based opportunities

Ground beef producer Jensen Meat is expanding its facilities to manage co-packing opportunities for plant-based beef alternatives.

Jensen is a supplier of Walmart’s Great Value brand, Sam’s Choice, the Kroger store brand and other retail and foodservice clients. The Otay Mesa, Calif.-based company is expanding into the plant-based arena, already having broken ground on a new processing plant that enables the company to build new partnerships, test new processes and increase national production of plant-based products. 

Jensen's new plant will include blending, cooking, dry mixing, emulsifying, and hydrating, in addition to bulk and patty forming for food service and retail finished products. "With 60 years' experience, Jensen Meat has perfected how to process and pack quality ground beef," said Abel Olivera, CEO of Jensen Meat. "We now want to leverage our world-class knowledge to create a cost-effective process for producing plant-based products."

Jensen Meat's latest facility will be completed by April 2021 with a goal of making the global food system sustainable. The company's plant-based addition also reflects consumer interest in sustainable meat alternatives.

"We can create, process, and pack plant-based products in ways that are cost-effective and innovative," said Olivera. "We want to help bright minds out there that have the same goal of creating healthy, low-cost foods from alternative sources of protein, which also play a part in reducing world hunger."

Jensen Meat was founded in 1958.