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This article appears in print in the September 2018 issue. Click here to subscribe.

Bringing affordable plant-based “meat” products to a mass market is the vision of Christie Lagally, chief executive officer of Seattle Food Tech, a Lake City–based company she founded in 2017.

A big reason so much meat is consumed today, says Lagally, a mechanical engineer who previously was a senior scientist at The Good Food Institute, is because it’s less expensive than similar, plant-based products. But producing plant-based food is generally easier on the planet than mass-market meat production. “The philosophy behind our company is that we have to change the food system so that people can make different choices.”

Along with affordability, what sets Seattle Food Tech apart are the markets it is initially targeting. The company plans to place its meatless products—wheat protein-based nuggets are the first—in institutions such as hospitals and universities, believing it can make a bigger impact on these institutions than selling in grocery stores.

If successful, Seattle Food Tech could help change the amount of meat that’s consumed each year in the U.S.—103 billion pounds compared to the 120 million pounds of similar, plant-based products. Company plans call for the first shipment of nuggets to be ready by year’s end. Watch out, McDonald’s.