Planty, a hugely popular vegan frozen food innovator from the UK, has closed its seed funding with Matthew Glover’s Veg Capital leading the round with an investment of £150K. Planty’s founders say that the new funds will help to “execute our production roadmap, alongside accelerating the growth of our social and environmental mission.”
Founders Andrea, Ali and Joe, created Planty in 2019 to re-think the frozen-meals, with a mission to lead the way in frozen meals that are both vegan and nutritional. The young brand’s initial focus was on London and after the success of the initial launch, the DTC service was rolled out across the rest of the UK. Following this week’s news, the team says that their portfolio will be expanded in the near future and that there will be “some exciting partnerships along the way.”
Speaking of the investment from vegan investment fund Veg Capital, Andrea enthused: “We are delighted to have Veg Capital onboard, a VC firm that strongly shares our values and vision. With their support, we will be able to aggressively execute our production roadmap, alongside accelerating the growth of our social and environmental mission. We’ve had an exciting start in our venture and look forward to seeing what the future holds with Veg Capital championing us along the way.”
Veg Capital’s founder Matthew Glover said of the seed round, “We’re delighted to be investing in Planty as we see huge potential for D2C frozen plant-based ready meals, with the growth of online grocery shopping, and people needing a quick, healthy meal while working from home or returning to the commuting lifestyle. We’ve tried the meals and think they’re extremely tasty. We were impressed by the ambition, enthusiasm and broad skillset of the Founders. They’re a great team!”
Head Development Chef, Joe, after working at some top London restaurants including the Michelin starred restaurant Petrus, is now fully part of the Planty team. Some of the dishes he has created include Mac ‘no’ Cheese, Yaki-Miso Udon Noodles, BBQ Banana Blossom Burrito Shepherd-less Pie, Red Thai Sweet Potato, Garden Pea & Mint Risotto (above), and Harissa Carrot Tagine.
We asked Co-Founder Andrea why now is the right time for Planty. “For consumers, the plant-based market has been absolutely booming in the last few years, with more and more of us wanting to make the switch and eat more plants and less meat and dairy. This, along with the fact that we are all super busy, often too short of time to cook ourselves, make chef-prepared, plant-based ready meals a great solution. There is certainly more choice out there now than there was even a few years ago, but there needs to be even greater choice in order to really make plant-based food a viable option for the masses.
“For Earth, there is not much time left to prevent runaway climate change and the damage that will come with it, so the right time for defending against this is now. Reducing your meat & dairy intake is one of the most powerful things an individual can do to reduce their impact on the planet, in terms of energy required, land usage, water usage, and greenhouse gas emissions, so this is another reason why we need more plant-based brands out there championing the way forward to a more plant-based lifestyle.”
Speaking of Planty’s plans for the future, he added, “We believe that there are plenty of great opportunities to expand. We initially started our operations in London, and then expanded to the rest of the UK, which will be a major driving force in our growth plan for the next year. We believe that Europe would be an exciting market to move in to further down the line. Epic things are happening there in the plant-based space right now (and predicted to continue), with Germany being the first port of call in our European journey.”
