Product celebrated at iconic Franklin Barbecue in Austin, now rolling out statewide with H-E-B
ALAMEDA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Eat Just, Inc., the brand applying cutting-edge science and technology to create healthier, more sustainable foods, recently announced Just Meat coming to H-E-B. The plant-based product was featured at an event at the iconic Franklin Barbecue in Austin in late May, and it is now rolling out across all H-E-B stores in Texas.
The product comes after years of research and development in the company’s meat division, and it directly addresses consumer demand for higher quality plant-based products.
“Just Meat Chicken is unlike anything else in the market,” said Joshua Tetrick, CEO and Co-founder of Eat Just Inc. “Every piece is different. It’s tender, juicy, and delicate. It chars on the grill, sizzles in the pan, and falls apart on the fork.”
Just Meat has now won back-to-back sensory tests against not only other plant-based products but also conventional chicken. In the latest taste test, Just Meat outperformed a leading unbreaded conventional chicken strip product across all four categories – taste, texture, appearance, and overall.
The leap in quality is the result of Eat Just’s proprietary precision manufacturing technology which builds tender and juicy meat-like fibers using soy and wheat protein, along with other natural ingredients. The process grew out of earlier research in Eat Just’s cultivated meat division, a program that grows real animal cells in a bioreactor. Eat Just was the first company in the world to sell cultivated meat commercially, and one of two to have sold in the United States. Just Meat is fully plant-based, not cultivated, but utilizes many of the program’s R&D breakthroughs.
Just Meat addresses the greatest obstacle in plant-based chicken adoption – quality. As the Taste of the Industry 2025 report highlights, most plant-based meat products still lag behind their animal-based counterparts. The report called on companies to “increase product quality” to address growth challenges, and it specifically identified the “unbreaded strips and chunks” category as in need of R&D and innovation. Enter: Just Meat.
Eat Just is rolling out statewide with H-E-B, the iconic Texas retailer with 360 locations across the state. Just Meat is available in an 8oz package in the frozen section.
To mark the rollout, Eat Just hosted an unforgettable event at the legendary Franklin Barbecue. The exclusive evening featured Just Meat prepared alongside classic Texas BBQ offerings of brisket, sausage, and other sides. With guests including barbecue pitmaster Aaron Franklin and other Austin tastemakers and innovators, the event showcased the versatility of Just Meat and marked a new era in plant-based cuisine. The celebration included live music from Austin-based singer-songwriter Phil Hollie, cocktails from Desert Door Texas Sotol, and dessert from vegan bakery Zucchini Kill.
Just Meat has no cholesterol and 18g of protein per serving – more protein per ounce than a conventional chicken thigh – and like other plant-based meat brands it uses a fraction of the land, water and CO2 of conventional products.
Just Meat is now available at 240 locations of H-E-B.
About Eat Just, Inc.
Eat Just is a food technology company with a mission to build a healthier, safer and more sustainable food system. The company is best known as the maker of Just Egg, the award-winning, category-defining plant-based egg, which has sold the equivalent of over 500 million eggs and is sold nationally at most major retailers including Whole Foods, Walmart, Kroger, Target and H-E-B. In May 2025, Eat Just expanded its innovative product portfolio with the official rollout of Just Meat, a groundbreaking plant-based chicken designed to deliver the taste, texture, and experience of traditional meat—with all the health and sustainability benefits of plant-based. Eat Just has been recognized globally for its innovation and impact, earning accolades such as Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies,” Entrepreneur’s “100 Brilliant Companies,” CNBC’s “Disruptor 50,” and being named a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer.
Contacts
Josh Tetrick, [email protected]
