According to CNN, Karen Formanski of the Good Food Institute said that "whole-muscle products are challenging to mimic because of their fibrous textures and integrated pockets of fat."

Juicy Marbles is a Slovenian-based company that might have found a nearly perfect way to replicate steak with its plant-based alternative.

Some of the ingredients that the team uses are soy protein concentrate, beetroot power and sunflower oil.

Company co-founder and chief brand officer Vladimir Mićković explains that making the vegan alternative to steak is done only with heating and cooling.

Founded in 2019, Juicy Marbles was able to raise 4.6 million euros so far and the company was able to release its plant-based filet mignon in Europe and the US at the beginning of the year.

The product is available for online order only, but company officials plan to launch the new vegan alternative in shops located in the EU, the US and the UK from 2023.

Scientists at Juicy Marbles experimented with chicken breast and pork rib alternatives, as well, in the past, but Mićković said that they are now focusing on plant-based beef.

According to him, this is "the most environmentally devastating product with the biggest (carbon) footprint."

This is due to the fact that cattle release large amounts of methane, which compared to CO2, has the potential to warm the planet up as much as 80 times for up to two decades.

Japan's Next Meats and Meati Foods in the US are other companies that offer vegetarian alternative to whole cut meat.

The plant-based industry is currently facing some challenges, as Beyond Meat is one company that experiences a decline compared to the beginning of the year.

This has been attributed partly to the fact that the number of repeated buyers "might have reached a saturation point."

Malte Clausen, co-author of a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group on alternative proteins, said that "the main challenge for the whole cuts subsegment is that volumes are still so low that you aren’t getting economies of scale."

Mićković said that his company's product won't be an "inaccessible premium one", teasing that Juicy Marbles will be releasing a beef tenderloin alternative in November designed to feed the entire family, although a price has not been revealed.

"It’s going to be the strangest piece of plant-meat out there", he concluded.