Plonts Emerges from Stealth Using $12M to Bring “Plant-Based Cheese That Stinks” to US Restaurants
California’s Plonts (formerly Tezza Foods) emerges from stealth, claiming it is “creating a new category of cheese”, and launching its debut product — an aged plant-based cheddar — at selected restaurants in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. Plonts describes itself as a “public benefit corporation that discovers and designs microbial communities to transform inexpensive plants into new categories of sustainable fermented foods.” Nathaniel Chu and Josh Moser founded the company in 2019 to create a new type of nutritious, “stinky,” and sustainable plant-based cheese using an old biotechnology tool: fermentation. After years of working in stealth mode to develop an initial product, Plonts now announces an inaugural pilot plant in Oakland following a raise of $12 million. Lowercarbon Capital led the …
