alternative protein

What’s going on with demand for plant-based meat? If you take a look at Barcelona-based Heura the picture seems rosy — with the alt-protein startup claiming “non-stop” momentum and a near doubling of revenue from sales of its faux chicken, beef and pork products in the first half of 2022. Mid-year, the 2017-founded startup reports that it had reached €14.7 million in turnover, up from €7.6M during the same period last year, after clocking up its most successful first half of the year in its five-year history and bagging a number of major retailers to stock its plant-based foodstuffs (including Ocado in the UK, Migros in Switzerland, Carrefour in Italy, E.Leclerc, Intermarché and Super U in France). More new partnerships with “major” European retailers are slated as incoming this year, and it’s touting “triple digit growth” of more than 100% YoY. It’s also had some visible success in its home market by persuading restauranteurs to add its products (and brand name) to their menus — as plant-based ingredients, enabling them to offer vegan alternatives to meat dishes, from tacos and bocadillos to curries, poke bowls and more. And Heura is taking credit for 80% of local plant-based category growth (although it should be noted that Spain remains one of Europe’s biggest consumers of animal-based meat so growth of alt-proteins is starting from a low base). It adds that it expects to end the year with 30% local market share as it fires up its efforts to expand in Europe. It’s also teasing a Series B round coming next year — which it anticipates being one of 2023’s largest B rounds in Europe in the alternative proteins industry (for some context, another European startup, Planted, raised a $72M Series B round earlier this fall). And today it’s announcing a new €20M bridging funding round, ahead of the expected (beefier) B. It notes that this (pre-) Series B funding includes the issuance of convertible notes which will lead to equity next year in the full Series B round so a bunch of investors are clearly bought into its sales growth pitch. Heura says the bridging round includes contributions from NBA star Ricky Rubio, football players Sergi Busquets and Sergi Roberto, comedian David Broncano, as well as Unovis Capital. A chunk of the funding was raised earlier this year when it nabbed more than €4M in 12 hours through its crowdfunding Equity for Good Rebels campaign — pulling in support from more than 5,000 individual backers. The round will help it as it continues to scale in the region — with its eye on deepening its presence in key markets like France, Italy and the UK, and adding new European regions, including Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and more, over the coming years. “With new funding in hand, a primary focus for Heura will be positioning itself as the European plant-based leader by 2027,” it notes in a press release. Squarely on its 2023 menu: New products in “new segments”, following the filing of its first patents in November 2022 — though what exactly it’s cooking up isn’t clear. Its PR says its focus will be on delivering new foods next year that are “nature-positive, nutrient-dense and achieve culinary excellence”. So far so tasty-sounding, if we can put it that way. But the plant-based meat category has been deflating somewhat of late after earlier heavy hype. Which may explain why Heura is banging the pan about this bridging round and teasing bigger bucks to come next year. Continued momentum isn’t necessarily a given. To wit: US giant Beyond Meat disclosed it was slashing its workforce by almost a fifth earlier this month, citing declining sales. While Bloomberg reported on cooling demand hitting the plant-based category last month, citing a Deloitte report which postulated that “stagnating” demand could be down to factors such as the addressable market being more limited than originally thought (including as a result of “cultural resistance”, perhaps attached to rising political polarization across many societies); to inflation (and high food price inflation specifically) eating into consumers’ appetite to pay a price premium to eat plant-based meat alternatives (which still typically cost more than non-premium meat options); and to changes to consumers’ perceptions of how healthy plant-based proteins are. Some of these suggestions may indicate the meat lobby has had success with negative publicity campaigns targeting plant-based alternatives in a bid to block the kind of wholesale transformation of the food system that’s sorely needed if humanity is to reduce carbon emissions in line with climate goals. The meat industry has, for example, been splashing money on ad campaigns which seek to paint plant-based products as ‘frankenfoods’ — while framing animal-based meat as a simple, honest and (comparatively) healthy option. Such as this US attack ad campaign (reported by ZME Science last year) — which attacks plant-based proteins by implying the products are far more heavily processed and full of scary-sounding chemicals than the equivalent meat products (with absolutely no mention of health issues attached to consumption of meat products like bacon, such as the risk of a number of cancers the WHO has linked to consumption of red meats and processed meats for years); while running all these self-interested claims under an astroturf-y banner of “cleanfoodfacts.com”, i.e. rather than plainly disclosing their clear vested commercial interest. Plant-based startups will likely need to up their comms and product dev game (and ideally lift the lid on production methods, as some already are) to counter these kind of cynical attack tactics. Plant-based startups are at least positioned to draw on support from (broader) environmental campaign groups and movements to amplify their own pro-climate messaging. “Clear communications of the benefits of the protein transition coupled with bringing more people together to vote with their fork will help lead the way in [our] growth across the continent,” is how Heura’s PR frames its growth prospects at this point in the PBP (plant-based protein) hype cycle. There’s certainly a very clear and loud story PBP