Central Market butcher Mario Sapon weighs bacon at a store in Houston. The H-E-B-owned grocery chain last week launched a new concept for a meat counter — one without meat.

There is no chicken in the chicken wings in the display case. They’re made from tofu, seitan, vegan chicken stock and garlic. There’s no beef in the brisket, either. No lamb in the kabobs. No pork in the chorizo or pepperoni.

H-E-B’s Central Market is one of the first grocery chains in the U.S., if not the first, to feature what it calls a “meatless butcher.” For now, the concept is limited to one of the chain’s 10 upscale stores, in south Austin. It debuted Friday.

In most respects it looks exactly like any other butcher counter: Burgers, briskets and tenders are neatly arranged in a glass case with several hair-netted employees at work behind it. But the new department distinguishes itself in that none of its offerings contain meat.

Central Market is responding to increasing demand for plant-based foods — seen in the popularity of products such as the Impossible Burger — and seeking to maintain its reputation as “a destination for things that you can’t find elsewhere, and especially things that we make,” said Phil Myers, the chain’s director of food service.

“We see it as a great value to us as a differentiator, but also we as Central Market want to be the sort of innovation portal for H-E-B, right?” he said. “Everybody at H-E-B will be looking at this and saying, ‘What do we do with that? Do we bring it into H-E-B at some point? Do we bring it into our own brands?’”

Shoppers are helped at the meat counter at Central Market in Houston. The H-E-B owned chain last week launched a new concept for a meat counter — one without meat.

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“We want to try things and if they don’t work then we’ll try something else,” Myers said. “If it does work, then we’ll hand it on to the mothership and keep on doing stuff.”

The chain has been working on the concept and recipes for the plant-based meats for about two and a half years. The research included sampling products from meat-alternative companies such as Morningstar Farms and visiting restaurants that have “meatless butcher” services, such as Hiltl in Zurich, which calls itself the world’s oldest vegetarian restaurant.

Other companies make and sell plant-based meats. But to his knowledge, Myers said, Central Market is the first grocery chain to offer the meatless butcher concept.

“What we were interested in here was sort of a culinary approach,” he said. “Something that was chef-made, something that you could make in the kitchen with basic ingredients. We found some options out there, not a lot.”

The difficulty was in coming up with what Myers calls a “meatless center of the plate” — in other words, a plant-based recipe that could form the basis of a meal rather than complementing it, like a salad or a side of vegetables.

“We have a terrific recipe developer that has worked for us for many years. When I came to her with this idea, to go on this journey, she was starting from zero,” he said. “It was a journey, and one that was a lot of trial and error. Eventually I think we got some really good products and we’ll continue to refine them.”

The meatless butcher counter also offers fajitas in chicken or beef flavors and marinated chicken breast with flavors such as teriyaki, barbecue and sweet and smoky. There’s also a line of plant-based sauces. Everything is made fresh in the store.

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Myers said the chain has been happy with sales and the attention the concept has received on social media, he said. Expanding it to more stores is a possibility.

“Right now, we’re absolutely still in the learning mode,” he said. “We think that we can, yes, absolutely. Do we want to? I probably want to get more than a week of sales, but we’re excited about the possibility of taking it to other stores.”

Myers pointed out that vegetarians and vegans represent a small fraction of consumers. The meatless butcher is intended also to appeal to “the other 94 percent” who have not forsworn meat but might be trying to reduce it in their diets, he said.

“Maybe I want to get my husband to eat less meat. Or maybe my doctor said … Or maybe I care about the planet, or all those things together,” he said.

Richard Webner is a freelance business writer and former real estate reporter for the Express-News. He earned a graduate degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and an undergraduate degree in History from Northwestern University.