Spanish plant-based food startup Heura has announced that its turnover reached €38.3 million in 2023, while international sales rose by a huge 63%.
In France, growth was particularly significant at 88%. A partnership with supermarket chain Waitrose allowed Heura to increase its presence in the UK, and the brand saw double-digit growth in all the other European markets where it has a presence.
The announcement comes after Heura raised €40 million in Series B funding, in what was claimed to be the largest plant-based funding round of 2023. Among the investors was Upfield, which will work with Heura on a food tech collaboration. All the investors in the round will also join a board that aims to accelerate the transition to a sustainable food system.
Heura achieved a milestone in 2023 by patenting a technology for producing clean-label, plant-based foods that are high in protein and low in fat. The technology was then used to develop the brand’s additive-free York-style plant-based ham slices, which launched in October of last year. Within three months, the ham was the top-selling product in the Spanish plant-based deli category.
“Category developer leader”
Over the past year, Heura has more than doubled the size of its R&D team and has presented a B2B licensing division to make its “breakthrough technology” accessible to the food industry.
Heura says it is now transitioning from a “hypergrowth approach” to a more sustainable growth strategy, with the aim of achieving financial autonomy in 2025. Over the past year, the company has formed food service partnerships with Vueling, Hilton, and Royal Caribbean, and gained retail listings at Intermarche (France), Auchan (Portugal), Pam (Italy), Colruyt (Belgium), and Waitrose (UK). In Spain, a partnership with Serunion has allowed Heura to launch on school menus.
“In a pivotal year of transformation for the plant-based sector, we emerged as a category developer leader, enabling other companies to accelerate the protein transition by introducing a licensing B2B division aimed at extending its impact to a global scale via breakthrough technologies,” said Heura CEO and co-founder Marc Coloma.