Interviews

Patricia Hone, ProVeg Poland

Patricia Hone ©ProVeg Poland

ProVeg Poland: “The Last Decade Has Brought a Real Revolution in the Eating Habits of Poles”

Patricia Homa, President of ProVeg Poland, works along with her team to make plant-based products an increasingly important element of the Polish food system. ProVeg Poland has been awarded the “Golden Paperclip” in 2018 for the best PR project in Poland in the Food Sector category. Since 2019 she has served as an expert in the United Nations Climate Leadership program, working together with business leaders to create a real change in achieving climate neutrality. Tell us about ProVeg Poland and what the organization stands for ProVeg International is a food awareness organization working to transform the global food system by replacing conventional animal-based products with plant-based and cultured alternatives. It’s the first international organization to advocate for plant-based living and conscious nutrition. In Poland, …

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Organisations and Brands:ProVeg Poland
Better Nature co founders

© Better Nature

Better Nature: “In 5 Years, Tempeh Will Be a Mainstream Food Across the UK, Europe, and the US”

We’ve been following the journey of Better Nature over the past three years and it’s wonderful to see the tempeh pioneers achieve mainstream retail success in the UK, with a rollout into more than 400 Tesco stores taking place tomorrow. We had a quick catch-up with CEO and Co-founder Christopher Kong to find out what this milestone represents for the brand, and why tempeh truly deserves a place on the supermarket shelf. Tell us about your business mission. Our mission is to help people live healthier lives with tempeh, the all-natural plant-based food from Indonesia that’s packed with protein and gut-friendly. Congratulations on your new listing with Tesco – what does it signify for Better Nature? Our launch into over 400 Tesco stores on 1st …

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Organisations and Brands:Better Nature
Joe Buonavolanto

Joe Buonavolanto III/ Image supplied by Buona

Buona and Upton’s Naturals: “The Beefless Sandwich Has Created Its Own Category for Us, Resonating with Both Vegans and Non-Vegans Alike”

As far as institutions go, few are as revered and beloved as Chicago’s Buona Italian Beef. Since its founding in 1981, the family-owned and operated restaurant chain has established itself as a top destination for indulging in one of the city’s most popular street foods, Italian beef sandwiches. Having become famous for serving extremely meaty sandwiches, Buona shocked fans everywhere when it released a fully vegan version of its iconic Original Italian Beef, made with Upton’s Naturals seitan, in the spring of 2021. It wasn’t prepared for the response – in less than 24 hours, the Plant-Based Italian Beefless Sandwich sold out 1,800 pounds of seitan at multiple locations due to “overwhelming” customer demand, with fans enthusing the plant-based beef was indistinguishable from the original. …

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Organisations and Brands:BuonaUpton's Naturals
Secretary-General of the Vegetarian Society of Denmark, Rune-Christoffer

Secretary-General of the Vegetarian Society of Denmark, Rune-Christoffer, image supplied

Vegetarian Society of Denmark: “We Believe That Every Plant-Based Meal Makes a Difference”

The Vegetarian Society of Denmark, or Dansk Vegetarisk Forening (DVF) is an association, originally founded by Danish doctors in 1896, that works to help businesses on their plant-based journey, offering advice on NPDs, product labelling, and even operating an incubator program for startups in the space. Secretary-General of the Vegetarian Society of Denmark, Rune-Christoffer, took the time to tell us more about the organization and its important work in Denmark which includes its greenwashing lawsuit against Danish Crown against the company’s “climate-controlled pigs”.  Please tell us about the Vegetarian Society of Denmark and what the organization stands for Our vision is a more sustainable, ethical,, and healthy world, that is better for animals, people, and planet. Our mission is to inform and inspire people, particularly …

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Organisations and Brands:Vegetarian Society of Denmark (DVF)
Ellen Kim, Nasoya

Ellen Kim, image courtesy of Nasoya

Nasoya: “We Really Cracked the Code to Create a Plant-Based Steak That Tastes Great”

We have been following the launches and developments of Nasoya since its parent company Pulmuone entered the plant-based meat category in 2021. The South Korean leader launched the Plantspired line under the Nasoya brand the following year, which has seen huge success (with sales up by an impressive 800% in October of last year) and multiple flavor extensions for the notable Plantspired steak which was featured in our recent roundup of popular plant-based steaks around the world. Nasoya is certainly one to watch, in our humble opinion. Marketing Director Ellen Kim kindly took the time to tell us more about the brand and its plans for the future. Can you please introduce Nasoya? Nasoya is the nation’s leading brand of tofu and Asian-inspired plant-based foods, …

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Organisations and Brands:NasoyaPlantspiredPulmuone
Matt O'Connell of Shin-Etsu

© Shin-Etsu

Shin-Etsu: “Plant-Based Products Are a Crucial Aspect of Our Overall Sales Strategy”

Over the past few years, Japanese materials supplier Shin-Etsu has been increasingly innovating in the area of food ingredients that enhance the texture and mouthfeel of plant-based foods. The company — which has facilities in both Japan and Germany — aims to make it possible to match animal products as closely as possible in terms of taste, nutrition, and texture. In 2020, Shin-Etsu announced that it was developing its first product targeted specifically at the plant-based food market — a binder to improve the texture of meat alternatives. The company said it aimed to supply the ingredient to major producers such as Beyond Meat and Nestlé. Since then, Shin-Etsu has been expanding its range to offer more products for the alt meat industry. We spoke …

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Organisations and Brands:Shin-Etsu
Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, co-founders and co-CEOs

Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, co-founders and co-© Notpla

Notpla: “We Want to Lead the Way in Providing Truly Sustainable Alternative Packaging Solutions Around the World”

Notpla is on a mission to make packaging disappear. Founded in London in 2014, this seaweed pioneer famously won the Earthshot Prize in the category of “Build a Waste-Free World” last December, as revealed by Prince William and announced by David Beckham. Quite an achievement for the company, for seaweed, the packaging industry, and indeed the planet. Pierre Paslier, co-founder and co-CEO of Notpla, kindly took the time to talk about this wonderful company and its aim to make single-use plastics a thing of the past. How did Notpla come to life and what are the core values of your company? At Notpla, our mission is to make packaging disappear by providing sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic packaging. We are a sustainable packaging start-up that …

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Organisations and Brands:Notpla
Violife CMO Brian Orlando

Brian Orlando/ Image supplied by Violife

Violife USA: “Our Goal Has Always Been to Bring Great Taste and Outstanding Performance to the Vegan and Dairy-Free Category”

When Violife entered the US market from Europe in 2015, the dairy-free cheese category was still struggling to win over consumers, who rejected the unappealing taste, texture and performance of most vegan cheese products. Initially starting as a small import business, Violife eventually expanded into thousands of US retail locations and launched a range of innovative dairy-free cheeses, from standard Mozzarella and Cheddar to a Parmesan wedge, cream cheese, Colby Jack and Halloumi-style grilling cheese.  Made with clean-label ingredients, the brand skyrocketed in popularity and began to feature in major food service partnerships with chains like Papa Murphy’s pizza, Caribou Coffee and Peet’s Coffee.  As Violife continues to expand its portfolio and reach, in 2023 the company is replacing its slogan “100% Plant Based” with …

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Organisations and Brands:Violife

Allen Zelden, founder of Boldly, image supplied

Boldly: “It’s Clear That the Future Will Either Be Filled With Fishless Fish or Fishless Oceans”

APAC expert and co-founder of alt-protein accelerator PlantForm, Allen Zelden, revealed his new vegan seafood brand Boldly this January, offering an impressive line of vegan prawns, salmon and tuna sashimi, calamari, shrimp, crab sticks, white fish filets and more. Allen has been keeping details of the brand and future plans under his hat since the launch; it was time we sat down and gave him a vegan seafood grilling. Firstly congratulations on the launch of Boldly! Can you give us your elevator pitch; what was the inspiration behind starting a vegan seafood brand? If I’m being brutally honest, I just felt it was time to disrupt the plant-based sea of sameness with an all-new, positive and fun experience, and what better way to do this …

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Organisations and Brands:Boldly
Anthony Chow, co-founder of Agronomics

Anthony Chow, © Agronomics

Agronomics: “Cell Ag is One of the Only Technologies With the Potential to Decarbonize the World’s Protein Production”

London-based Biotech VC Agronomics boasts an impressive portfolio of venture-stage companies, primarily in the field of cellular agriculture, most of which will be well known to vegconomist, such as Rebellyous Foods (plant-based chicken); Formo (animal-free dairy); Every (egg alternatives); BlueNalu (cultivated seafood); Mosa Meat (cultivated meat); and Liberation Labs (precision fermentation), amongst many more. Co-founder Anthony Chow kindly took the time to chat with us about the current and future positioning of the cellular agriculture space, offering some unique and extremely valuable insights. Please introduce Agronomics, what does the company stand for? Agronomics is the leading listed company, listed on the London Stock Exchange, focused on the field of cellular agriculture and the production of agricultural products directly from cell cultures that have historically been derived …

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Organisations and Brands:Agronomics
Tally Foods Co-Founders

©Tally Foods

Tally Foods: “The Future of Plant-Based Milk is Providing High Nutritional Value and Serving Kids a True Milk Substitute”

In the past decade, the plant-based milk market has expanded far beyond the domain of soymilk to encompass countless new varieties, flavors and formats, which has helped transform the segment into a multi-billion dollar global industry. Despite this massive success, critics have long accused milk alternatives of being nutritionally inferior to dairy milk, and indeed, most non-dairy products currently do not meet the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA’s) nutrition standards for liquid milk substitutes.  According to Tally Foods, a new US startup making milk from chickpeas, this nutrition gap constitutes a huge problem, because one-third of all dairy milk is consumed by children, who are also the most likely to suffer from food allergies. Seeing a significant lack of allergen-friendly, plant-based milks designed to …

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Organisations and Brands:Tally Foods
RESPECTfarms

© RESPECTfarms

RESPECTfarms: “Cultivated Meat is Not Disadvantageous to Agriculture, But Rather a Model for Farms”

RESPECTfarms has the vision of being the first farm in the world to cultivate meat directly from animal cells. The project aims to help all farmers diversify their business models to benefit from the economic, environmental, and social advantages of cultured meat. The idea is to make use of the expertise, networks, and entrepreneurial spirit of farmers, rather than seeking to replace them. This will allow for a fair and just transition to a more sustainable food system. We spoke to RESPECTfarms co-founder Florentine Zieglowski to learn more about this forward-looking project. RESPECTfarms wants to become the first cultivated meat farm in the world. What made you turn to cellular agriculture? RESPECTfarms grew out of the world’s first publicly funded research into cultivated meat, which …

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Organisations and Brands:RESPECTfarms
Planet Based Foods

Braelyn Davis. © Planet Based Foods

Planet Based Foods: “Hemp is Truly the King of Plant-Based Ingredients”

The past 12 months have been highly successful for Planet Based Foods, a US producer of hemp-based alternatives to meat and dairy. The brand made its retail debut just eight months ago, but has already formed partnerships with leading distributors and launched into several retail locations in the US West and Midwest. So far in 2023, Planet Based has expanded its product range with taquitos containing hemp-based meat, and has made its first foray into alt dairy with the launch of hemp milk ice cream. Now, the company has formed a UK subsidiary with the aim of entering the European market. We spoke to CEO and co-founder Braelyn Davis to find out more about Planet Based’s progress and plans for the future. How and why …

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Organisations and Brands:Planet Based Foods
The ISH Company

Christie Fleming ©The ISH Company

The ISH Company: “More Than 25 Products in the Works That Have the Same Taste & Texture of Animal Products”

The ISH Company is a US startup taking a unique approach to producing “deliciously disruptive” plant-based seafood. ISH stands for Innovative, Healthy and Sustainable, and the company says it is devoted to creating superior seafood alternatives that don’t compromise on taste or ingredients. Founded by sustainability veteran Bernard David, ISH’s portfolio includes an extensive range of future offerings, from plant-based cod and salmon to lobster and crab. The startup’s flagship product, the ultra realistic Shrimpish, is now available at select US food service locations. We spoke with ISH President and COO Christie Fleming about this impressive startup and its ambitious goals to transform the alt-seafood category. Please tell our readers more about The ISH Company – how did it begin and what kind of products …

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Organisations and Brands:The ISH Company
Ohly

Kristina Vervoorst. © Ohly

Ohly: “Creating State-of-the-Art Ingredients That Contribute to Sustainable Lifestyles”

Ohly is a world-leading provider of specialty yeast products and extracts. These vegan-friendly ingredients can be used to enhance flavors, reduce salt content, mask off-notes, and more. Last year, Ohly launched a native yeast protein concentrate with a gelling function that can replace eggs in numerous applications, such as desserts, bakery products, and sauces. The ingredient can also act as an emulsifier, foaming agent, and more. Ohly has recently added to its extensive range by developing its first carbon-neutral yeast extracts. We spoke to Nancy Zacca, director of global sales, and Kristina Vervoorst, product and marketing manager, to find out more about the company and its products. Ohly offers a range of plant protein ingredients. What solutions do you bring to food producers? How do …

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Organisations and Brands:Ohly
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