Defaults for missing properties in play 2 JSON formats

I have an equivalent of the following model in play scala :

case class Foo(id:Int,value:String)
object Foo{
  import play.api.libs.json.Json
  implicit val fooFormats = Json.format[Foo]
}

For the following Foo instance

Foo(1, "foo")

I would get the following JSON document:

{"id":1, "value": "foo"}

This JSON is persisted and read from a datastore. Now my requirements have changed and I need to add a property to Foo. The property has a default value :

case class Foo(id:String,value:String, status:String="pending")

Writing to JSON is not a problem :

{"id":1, "value": "foo", "status":"pending"}

Reading from it however yields a JsError for missing the "/status" path.

How can I provide a default with the least possible noise ?

(ps: I have an answer which I will post below but I am not really satisfied with it and would upvote and accept any better option)