Meati Foods steak

©Meati Foods

Fungi, Mushrooms & Mycelium

Meati to Launch Mycelium-Based Whole-Cut Steaks for DTC 

Meati, the mycelium-based meat specialist from Colorado, is to introduce its Meati Steak Filet for direct consumer purchase. As of next Monday, May 23, Meati will be expanding its superfood protein lineup by launching the Meati Steak Filet with national shipment via its website. Meati’s Steak Filet is a whole-food, whole-cut beef alternative made with mycelium – the root network of mushrooms. The Boulder-based company claims each 4 oz. steak serving is rich in umami flavor and comes ready to season and prepare like a conventional piece of steak. A single serving is zero cholesterol and complete with 14g of protein, as well as a host of micronutrients such as Riboflavin, Niacin, Folate, Vitamin B12, Zinc, and Copper. The company recently launched its Meati Cutlets …

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Planting Hope RightRice paella

©The Planting Hope Co

Delivery Services

The Planting Hope Company Partners With Leading Meal Delivery Service Freshly

The Planting Hope Company Inc., a female-led company based in Canada which became publicly listed last November, announces a partnership with Freshly, America’s leading meal subscription service. Planting Hope operates Hope and Sesame, the world’s first commercial sesame milk, winner of Best Milk Alternative at Plant-Based World New York. The company acquired RightRice for US$7 million in early 2022. RightRice Veggie Rice will now feature in Freshly’s latest offering – Spanish-Style RightRice with Green Olives, Fennel & Roasted Almonds – a vegan twist on Spanish paella. Says Julia Stamberger, CEO and Co-founder of Planting Hope: “We are thrilled to be Freshly’s first branded ingredient partner and to have RightRice® highlighted in this plant-powered twist on Spanish paella.” “Since the acquisition of the RightRice® brand, we …

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Mexican-Peacadillo-Taco-Kit-Plated-Small

©SOMOS

Products & Launches

Former KIND Snacks Execs Launch SOMOS Mexican Meal Kits

In another seemingly “accidentally vegan” Mexican product launch following yesterday’s US rollout of Chocke-Obleas, new brand SOMOS launches DTC meal kits today saying: ” fluorescent molded hard-shell yellow corn tortillas… don’t actually exist in Mexico”. SOMOS is produced entirely in Mexico and the brand says it sources the majority of its ingredients from local Mexican family farms. The products are not specifically marketed as vegan but the FAQ page confirms that the products are 100% vegan friendly. Co-founded by former KIND Snacks executives Daniel Lubetzky, Miguel Leal and Rodrigo Zuloaga, the freshly launched DTC kits supply consumers with the core ingredients necessary to make meals such as tacos, tostadas, nachos, or chilaquiles. The product range includes shelf-stable, slow-cooked rices, beans, “Unusually Thick & Crunchy” tortilla …

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VEats logo with laptop and mobile

©VEats

Products & Launches

Australia: VEats Launches as One-Stop Platform for Vegan Delivery, Take-Out & Reservations

Sydney-based co-founders Lara Young and Susan McCarthy announce the launch of VEats, described as a first-of-its-kind plant-based platform where consumers can find businesses in their area offering vegan options, order food online for delivery or collection, and even book a table reservations. Young and McCarthy have a combined experience of over 30 years in business and marketing and have a personal understanding of the vegan industry.  The platform already includes more than 600 listings throughout Sydney CBD, inner west, eastern suburbs and northern beaches, entailing fully plant-based businesses and those that offer three or more plant-based options. VEats reports that it intends to to have over 50 listings with booking and delivery facilities by the end of this month. With the help of impact-driven alternative …

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Plant Infusion

©Plant Infusion

Food & Beverage

Delivery Service Plant Infusion Expands Across UK After Initial Launch Drives National Demand

Plant-based meal delivery service Plant Infusion announces it will now deliver its ready meals throughout the UK, just four months after its initial successful launch in Crawley, Horsham, and Brighton. Founded in July this year, Plant Infusion is a DTC family firm providing plant-based, Indian-fused ready meals. Customers can choose to build their meal plan from a diverse menu or select from signature offerings for 2 – 8 people. Plant Infusion’s General Manager, Sarah James, credits the startup’s rapid growth to its unique approach to vegan ready meals; the meals are preservative-free and delivered chilled – never frozen – in order to preserve taste and nutrients. Regarding the company’s approach to vegan meals, Sarah said: “Our dishes are inspired by recipes that are thousands of …

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Kory Zelickson Vejii

Kory Zelickson ©Vejii

Interviews

Vejii Goes Public: “We Think This is Very Exciting & Indicative Of the Larger Potential Of the Market As a Whole”

Vejii, the largest sustainability-focused online marketplace in North America, announces it has become publicly listed on the CSE under the ticker VEJI. The platform, which delivers to 48 states, today becomes one of the few plant-based companies in the world to go public. Vegconomist sits down with CEO Kory Zelickson to hear more about the company’s big news. Why did you decide to go public? First of all, thanks for interviewing me, vegconomist.  I love and appreciate your coverage in the vegan business space.  My Co-Founder Darren Gill and I decided to take Vejii public to have more efficient access to and deployment of growth capital.  In addition, we wanted to have the ability to execute M&A strategies, which also offer interested investors in the …

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Satvinder Bains & Matthew Glover Veg Capital Shicken

Satvinder Bains & Matthew Glover ©Veg Capital

Investments & Finance

Veg Capital Invests in Plant Alternative, Pioneer of Frozen Indian “Shicken” Curries

Veg Capital, the UK vegan investment fund, has invested in plant-based frozen meal service Plant Alternative. Producers of the highly realistic “Shicken”, Plant Alternative creates vegan alternatives to a wide range of Indian food favorites and offers a DTC service.  “We think there is a real opportunity for frozen Indian meals in the curry-loving UK market and beyond” – Matthew Glover, Veg Capital Founded by head chef Satvinder Bains, Plant Alternative will be teaming up with Veg Capital to strategize scale-up through food service, retail, and export. A deal with a major UK retailer is expected to be made soon.  After discovering the Shicken products and being highly impressed by the quality, Veg Capital’s Managing Director Matthew Glover knew the fund had to invest in …

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Jonathan Petrides, Founder of allplants

Founder Jonathan Petrides ©allplants

Investments & Finance

allplants Secures $52M in Largest Ever Series B For a European Plant-Based Brand

After three consecutive years of triple-digit revenue growth, UK ‘chef-to-customer’ service allplants has finalized a record-breaking £38 million Series B funding round. The raise marks the biggest ever Series B round for a European plant-based food business. “In the five years that we have been cooking, we’ve seen the demand for plant-based food explode” Following allplants’ record-breaking crowdfunding as well as Series A round, the fresh £38 million round included new investors such as purpose-driven CPG fund The Craftory, and former England international footballers Chris Smalling and Kieran Gibbs. Allplants puts its continued growth down to its serving of the rapidly growing ‘plant-curious’, or flexitarian market, a sector it has specifically targeted with its ‘We’re allplants. You don’t have to be’ marketing campaign. The brand …

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Above Foods

©Above Foods

Company News

Above Food Launches “Seed to Fork” DTC Platform to Bring Traceable Plant-Based Food to the Masses

After spending the last year acquiring brands in the plant-based sector, Above Food is now ready to launch its new direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform. With its “Seed to Fork” model, the Above Food plant-based platform offers unparalleled traceability and qualifiable sustainability. Having onboarded brands across many plant-based segments, including oats, dairy-free alternatives, and pantry staples, the vertically integrated Above Food platform will give consumers across North America the opportunity to enjoy more than forty products with home delivery. Above Food’s e-commerce platform focuses on nutrient-dense, regenerative organic, and regenerative natural foods, with brands including Eat Up! by Above Food – its in-house organic brand, as well as Farmer Direct Organic, Only Oats, and Culcherd – producer of organic plant-based dairy products. “Now more than ever, consumers …

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©Imperfect Foods

Food & Beverage

Hooray Foods’ Vegan Bacon Will Be Available at Imperfect Foods From September

From 2nd of September, Hooray Foods, the mission-driven, plant-based meat company known for its plant-based bacon – will be available via Imperfect Foods –  the leading online grocer at the forefront of building a less wasteful food system. Based in San Francisco, Hooray Foods launched its bacon to the US market on World Vegan Day last November, and has closed a $2 million seed financing round this June to scale production capacity to meet immediate demand from leading national retail and grocery chains. Imperfect Foods strives to eliminate food waste by working directly with farmers and producers to rescue and redistribute goods that might otherwise be thrown away across multiple grocery categories. Imperfect Foods delivers these goods directly to doorsteps through a customizable subscription service …

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Meatless Farm burgers

© Meatless Farm Co

Food & Beverage

Canada: Meatless Farm Burger Added to Menu of Meal Kit Service Chef’s Plate

Meatless Farm today announced the launch of its burger patties as a plant-based protein option on the Chef’s Plate menu. Effective today, consumers across Canada are able to select the Meatless Farm patty as a recipe option with Chefs Plate, marking the first time the meal kit company has offered plant-based substitutions on its weekly menu. Meatless Farm launched in the UK in 2018 and has since expanded into Europe, the US, Canada and the UAE. A new factory was recently opened in Canada, and its subsidiary Lovingly Made Ingredients, announced this March the beginning of plant-based protein production at its new 33,000-square-foot facility in Calgary. Expansion into Israel is also imminent as well as further expansion within the US market in 2021. In Canada, …

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© Insane Meals

Gastronomy & Food Service

Singapore’s Newest Plant-Based Meal Service INSANE MEALS Serves Huge Array of Impossible Foods Dishes

INSANE MEALS, Singapore’s newest DTC service, offers a large array of dishes with Impossible Foods meat as well as other vegan bands as part of a brand new weekly vegan meal subscription service, targeted at the two in five Singaporeans whose flexitarian diet is mostly plant-based with meats and animal products in moderation. New variations on Impossible Foods meat The Insane Meals’ take on the Impossible Burger – this week voted as the 4th best vegan burger in the world – is served with fresh veggies and plant-based bacon finished with tangy mustard, while the Impossible Great Balls of Flavour is a plant-based take on spaghetti and meatballs. Also on the menu are the Impossible Chili Con Carne, Impossible Lasagne and Asian favourites like  Impossible …

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Blue Tribe founders Sandeep Singh, Niki Arora Singh

Blue Tribe founders Sandeep Singh & Niki Arora Singh, image supplied

Products & Launches

India’s BlueTribe Launches Vegan Dishes in the Cities Famous For Chicken Tikka, Butter Chicken & Mutton Champ

India’s BlueTribe is set to launch plant-based Chicken Keema and Chicken Nuggets in Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali, the cities renowned for the famous Indian dishes Chicken Tikka, Butter Chicken and Mutton Champ. After the current launch, the company is due to launch pea protein-based Chicken & Pork Sausages. Co-founders Sandeep Singh and Nikki Arora Singh set out to offer an alternative for meat in India’s food supply chain, with the shared mission of revolutionising how India eats its meat. The company’s team is committed to research and innovation to create plant-based meat products which resemble animal meat, while also positively impacting the planet. Blue Tribe reports that it has already made a difference amongst non-vegetarian consumers wanting to make a lifestyle change in Delhi, Mumbai, …

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Beyond Meat Pork

©Beyond Meat

Products & Launches

Beyond Meat Unleashes Beyond Pork in China with New DTC E-Commerce Site

Following the launch of its new Beyond Chicken Tenders, Beyond Meat has announced the launch of its first DTC e-commerce site for the Chinese market, aiming to make its famous plant-based meat products more accessible to consumers throughout China. Now to be available on JD.com – one of the country’s leading technology-driven e-commerce companies – the store opening marks the first time that consumers can directly purchase the specially developed Beyond Pork, its first innovation created specifically for the Chinese market. Beyond Beef and Beyond Burger products will also be available. The store is now operational for the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, with future plans to expand to 300 more cities in the country in motion. Beyond Meat’s retail presence in China …

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Planteneers Plant-based lasagne

©Planteneers

Food & Beverage

Planteneers Says That “New Work” is Driving Demand for Plant-Based Convenience Foods

In recent months takeout and delivery models have experienced a tremendous boom. The operative term is “new work,” and home office and mobile working call for need-oriented solutions, and as we recently reported, vegan convenience food is a category currently trending and seeing high investor interest since the pandemic. Vegan alternatives to pepperoni or tuna Planteneers GmbH, headquartered in Ahrensburg, Germany, develops and produces custom system solutions for plant-based alternatives to meat, sausage and fish products, as well as cheese, dairy products and deli foods. With the company’s compounds, manufacturers can offer an entire range of pizzas with purely plant-based ingredients, and so address the rising demand for plant-based convenience foods. The functional systems in the fiildMeat S range, for example, are ideal for making …

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Beau's_Product_Shoot

©Beau's

Investments & Finance

Beau’s Secures £400,000 to Create State of the Art Vegan Ice Cream Facility in North East UK

Beau’s – a UK producer of vegan gelato which says it is the UK’s first vegan ice cream subscription service – announces it has secured £400,000 in funding from investors including prolific vegan investor Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni’s VC firm Dismatrix, to expand the company and to create a 100% vegan, state-of-the-art ice cream manufacturing facility in the North East of England. The brand reports it has received multiple Great Taste Awards for its gelato which contains only natural, whole-food ingredients (such as cashews and fresh lemon juice) with no artificial flavours, and contains up to 40% of the core flavour ingredient (as opposed to the industry standard of roughly 10%). Flavours include Raspberry and Ice Cream Cupcake. The DTC boxes arrive frozen on your doorstep …

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Products & Launches

Online Vegan Marketplace Vejii Launches in Canada to Serve Growing Canadian Demand for Plant-Based

Vejii Holdings Ltd announces the launch of its new Canadian platform, making available the largest online vegan marketplace to the estimated 2.3 million vegetarians and 850,000 vegans in Canada. The launch follows the success of the US platform which was only launched in November of last year and which has been scaling rapidly, recently launching its Vejii Express service which offers guaranteed shipping within two business-days.

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©The VeganKind

Investments & Finance

The VeganKind Secures £3.5M in Largest Ever Funding Round For UK Vegan Retail

The UK’s biggest online vegan supermarket and subscription business, TheVeganKind (TVK) announces it has secured £3.5m in Series A funding from Literacy Capital Plc in the biggest funding round ever for a vegan retail company in the UK. TVK offers the widest range of vegan products in the UK and has the largest social media following than any other vegan-only retailer. The funds will be used to support additional retail and consumer experience to help the existing team take the business forward.

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Mike and Joe OPP

©One Planet Pizza

Marketing & Media

One Planet Pizza: We Launched Our First Ever Full-Size Billboard… It’s Definitely Bold

Says Joe from One Planet Pizza: I’m sure I’m not the only one to be glad to see the end of 2020. This year is already looking bigger and brighter, with spring bringing us more colour, sunshine, and longer days. We need the longer days here at One Planet as we’re gearing up for a huge year of rapid growth and exciting innovation.

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