One of the biggest new food trends
became a mass movement thanks to social media.
Veganism. Now, there's a trend that's come right out of the blue.
A year ago, being a vegan wouldn't have had mainstream appeal.
Today, it's everywhere.
Whether it's for ethical reasons,
to save money or simply to be healthier,
swapping animal products for plants is a rocketing trend -
a trend now worth almost £600 million a year.
Tesco are taking the trend so seriously
that they have just hired a head of plant-based innovation -
top American vegan chef Derek Sarno.
Why do Tesco feel they need a head of this department?
Well, I helped convince them that they did
because it's not only a trend, but it's here to stay.
And if we're going to look to the future of food,
we really need to incorporate more plants in our diet.
This growth can't have come about by purely vegans, can it?
No, I don't think so.
And I don't think that's how it's going to move forward.
It's the meat-eaters that want to eat more vegetables
and incorporate more vegetables in their life.
That's what's going to make it grow. That's me.
That's you, exactly. That's me. That's what we want.
That's what I want to attract - you to eat the food that I'm making.
Yeah. I don't want to give up meat completely.
I just want to be healthier and eat more veg. Exactly.
Any reason to eat more veg is a good reason.
To try and boost vegan sales amongst even the meat-eaters,
Derek is going after one of their favourite pieces of flesh -
the grilled steak.
But surely he can't replicate the succulent meatiness of steak
without a good piece of beef,
or can he?
Derek believes there is one vegan ingredient
that will satisfy meat-eaters more than any other.
Hey! These look like a load of yule logs.
Hidden in the darkness of a huge, damp warehouse near Liverpool
is Derek's secret weapon - mushrooms.
Grown on hardwood logs that mimic their natural environment,
these fleshy fungi are what Derek is pinning his hopes on.
How many of these logs have you got in here?
We've got 15,000 logs.
What is it about mushrooms that's meaty?
It's just that chewiness.
I can't find anything that's all natural
that reminds me of meat more than mushrooms.
A mushroom's meaty taste comes from a chemical called glutamate.
Glutamate gives food a rich, savoury flavour.
It's what makes a dry-aged steak taste so good,
and mushrooms are full of it.
But the joy of steak isn't just its meaty flavour.
For his mushroom to work,
Derek needs a meaty texture, as well,
and for that, he's relying on one very special type of mushroom.
These are the brown oyster mushrooms.
They have the steak qualities that we're looking for
because these petals right here, these are going to be the layers.
So, they're going to help create this marbling
that we're going to do like you would have in a normal steak.
It certainly doesn't look much like a steak yet,
but Derek has a new cooking technique
he thinks will change that.
Show me how you are going to turn
that mushroom into a steak, please. OK.
Why compress it like that? What is that doing?
It is making it super dense.
By squashing a mushroom, you can make it into a meaty texture? Yes.
This isn't cooking it. No. This is changing the texture.
Yes, very much so.
It takes ten minutes of constant pressure
to transform the mushroom.
Whoa! To me, right now, that doesn't look like a steak.
That looks like some ribs. That's crazy, though, right? Yeah!
This is the three stages here, right?
Un-pressed, mid-pressed, impressed. DEREK LAUGHS
I'm not sure whether it's going to taste like meat,
but it looks like something I really want to get stuck into.
Yeah, it's delicious.
But does it taste as meaty as it looks?
That tastes like meat.
That tastes like crispy, well-seasoned fat
with meat underneath. Thank you.
That tastes like a piece of meat. Thank you. I know.
No, I'm telling myself. I can't believe it.
And that crispy edge is, like... All of it, it just brings it alive.
Look, I have a certain reputation to uphold,
but I love that. OK. I love that.
As clever as you are, I know there is a world of difference
between you and I and a barbecue and commercial viability.
Can you gear this up? I know I can get it on the shelf.
How I'm going to do it, I'm not sure.
BOTH LAUGH
That's honest. Right? That's honest. Right?
But this is your mission, right? This is the mission.
With the new meat-free market now worth
over half a billion and rising, the stakes are high.
But can Derek turn this beautiful barbecue feast
into a production-line ready meal?
The mushroom steak, as amazing as it is,
it's a little too pricey and a little bit complicated
to scale up at the moment. It's one thing to cook at home,
but it is such a different story to cook for 2,000 people.
Derek's discovered there is no factory machine out there
that can compress his mushrooms.
You can see how that might be a little bit difficult
in a commercial kitchen,
unless I have 100 guys on the lines doing it.
So, now he's experimenting with an alternative
and slightly easier-to-produce mushroom meal.
I have been working on another solution,
which is an Asian-style pulled, like, pork.
Like, I used to eat pulled ribs, pulled pork.
I'm taking that concept and putting that also into a dish.
It's a spicy, Asian-style pulled mushroom barbecue,
which Derek hopes still delivers a meaty punch.
Derek now has to get his new mushroom dish
ready for the shelves.
Thankfully, he finds a supplier
who can make his mushroom dish on a production line,
and he is able to fast-track this product.
And now, four months after we first looked at mushrooms in a dark shed,
Derek's new vegan ready meal has become a reality.
I'm here at the supplier's head office to get a sneak preview.
Here we go.
That's proper bang-on.
The texture is great. Some mushrooms go a little bit slippery.
This isn't. Yeah. This is firm.
I don't find this as remarkable as the steak. No?
Because there, the mushrooms felt like steak. Yeah, yeah.
Here, this is about the quality of the flavour.
It's clear Derek is on a steep learning curve,
but that's what happens when a hippie vegan chef
joins a massive supermarket.
It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with next.