Investments & Acquisitions

AAK Foodservice Acquires Aquafaba Butter Producer Fora Foods

Leading vegetable oil and fats producer AAK FoodService has acquired Fora Foods. Fora is the company behind ForA:Butter, a plant-based product made with cocoa butter, coconut oil, and coconut cream.

The most significant difference between ForA and other vegan butters is its use of aquafaba (the cooking water from chickpeas) as an emulsifier. The company claims that this unusual formulation makes it one of the only products to be a true 1:1 substitute for dairy butter. AAK already manufactures ForA:Butter, making the acquisition a natural next step.

“The ForA brand is a very good fit to our plant-based expansion”

Fora Foods was founded in 2018 by Andrew McClure and Aidan Altman. The same year, the company raised $1.4 million from investors such as New Crop Capital and Blue Horizon. Currently, the product (previously known as Faba Butter) is most widely available for foodservice, though it is also stocked by a few retailers such as Thrive Market.

ForA:Butter
© Fora Foods

ForA:Butter is free of soy, gluten, and palm oil. It is available in 12lb packages for retail, and both 30 and 50lb packages for commercial kitchens and bakeries.

Plant-based by AAK

In recent years, AAK has been increasingly working on more plant-based products, including a portfolio of solutions tailor-made to be used in plant-based foods. Recent research indicates that the vegan butter market is set to almost double in value to be worth $4.88 billion, making it an optimal time for AAK to enter the category.

“The ForA brand is a very good fit to our plant-based expansion with premium plant butter products and will provide an addition complementary to our GreenOasis plant-based product line,” said Juan Colmenares, vice president of sales and marketing at AAK Foodservice US.

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