Rebellyous Foods, the Seattle startup working to make plant-based chicken affordable by developing novel manufacturing equipment, announced yesterday that Puvin Pichai, previously of Beyond Meat, has joined the company as Director of Equipment Research and Development.
Puvin is a chemical engineer with experience in food and fine chemical process and equipment design, development, pilot scaleup, and technology transfer for commercial manufacturing. Most recently as Director of Process Research at Beyond Meat, Puvin led the Innovation Engineering and Pilot teams where they designed and manufactured novel components, as well as conducted trials to optimize process conditions and produce prototype samples.
He previously held a senior management position in directed research and engineering teams at Novus International. He holds a BA magna cum laude in Chemistry from Harvard College, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.
Puvin joins Rebellyous as the company expands its retail and foodservice growth. Founded in late 2017, the plant-based food production and manufacturing technology company is gaining momentum. Its products are now available in more than 200 Safeway stores, as well as Haggen, Metropolitan Market, and dozens of independent grocers in the Northwest. As well, its nuggets that meet USDA child nutrition standards are being rolled out this fall on menus at Dublin Unified School District, Pleasanton Unified School District, and Newark Unified School District in Northern California.
“We are thrilled to welcome Puvin to the team as he shares our vision of fundamentally changing production methods to create a more efficient, affordable and scalable solution for plant-based meat through the use of manufacturing technology,” said Christie Lagally, Founder and CEO of Rebellyous.