Last week, Swedish Medical Center became the first hospital to serve its patients crispy vegan chicken nuggets made by local startup Seattle Food Tech (SFT). Last year, the company secured $1 million in funding to create its nuggets—made from textured wheat, chicken-less flavoring, cornstarch, oil, and corn breading—using a proprietary processing technique that creates a texture comparable to its animal-derived counterpart. “We’re excited to be the first hospital in the nation to offer Seattle Food Tech’s Crispy Nuggets,” Corporate Executive Chef Zachary Schwab said. “This partnership is perfectly in line with our goal of providing delicious, sustainable options for our guests every day.” SFT was founded by Christie Lagally—the former senior scientist at food-advocacy firm Good Food Institute—whose aim is to develop vegan products for the food-service sector while creating machinery that can be used by other plant-based companies to help scale their production. “Our novel manufacturing technique captures flavor and moisture in our protein-packed plant-based meat that cooks up to a delicious golden brown, resulting in a mouthwatering burst of flavors,” Lagally said. “We’re thrilled to team up with Swedish to bring this product to its guests.” Lagally aims to scale SFT’s own production process to create vegan nuggets and strips at $2 per serving in an effort to displace low-cost chicken products with healthier, cruelty-free alternatives in schools and hospitals nationwide.

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