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Chick-News.com Poultry Industry News, Comments and more by Simon M. Shane

Nature’s Fynd Receives VC Funding

07/08/2021

Chicago-based Nature’s Fynd Inc. has raised $158 million from VC companies apparently representing Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Al Gore. These names are quoted (or misquoted) frequently in press reports on wannabee IPOs. Implied endorsement provides a measure of implied approval, verging on the sanctification of any business plan involving sustainability, welfare and even profit. Natures Fynd intend to deliver meatless breakfast patties and burgers based on a range of fungal cultures early in 2022. 

 

The entire alternative foods sector with an emphasis on dairy products achieved sales of $7 billion in 2020, representing a 27 percent increase over the previous year, albeit from a small base.  Sales of alt. foods should be compared to the $733 billion conventional food industry.  Aware of the growth and popularity of alt. meats, major protein producers including Hormel, Cargill, Perdue, and Maple Leaf Foods have invested in their own brands competing with Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. 

 

Considerable publicity is accorded to the adoption of an alt. meat product by a QSR or restaurant chain even if only as a test. In contrast there is less media coverage following the quiet removal of alt. meat menu items. 

 

Much of the growth in alt. meat products is attributed to the curiosity factor.  Given the low number of committed vegetarians among consumers and the shifting volume of flexitarians, demand will increase, but at a slower rate and nowhere near attainment of a 60 percent market share of global sales of conventional meat by 2040. Projections by some industry observers are simply extrapolations of recent annual increases over the long term.  Alt. meats as with any product undergo life cycles.

 

A major restraint to future expansion of alt. meat is the apparent lack of profitability.  Reports from public-quoted companies where financial data is disclosed denote a high cost of production and little confirmation of economies of scale in production.


 
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