Non animal-based food start ups raise cash

Start up businesses making anything from non-milk cheese to fake meats have been busy raising cash from investors this week.

In just one week:

• Fenn Foods raised $3 million to expand into exports of its vEEF brand plant-based ‘meats’
• All G Foods won backing from Woolworths venture capital arm to expand its Love Buds alternative protein food range
• And Change Foods raised a $21.5 million seed funding round to produce cheese from fermented proteins rather than milk.

Change Foods won support from US VC Route 66 Ventures and Melbourne’s Giant Leap as well as a number of individuals.

The company ferments microbes to create dairy proteins, fats and flavours, then utilising traditional cheesemaking techniques to turn them into cheese that ‘tastes, stretches, and melts just as you’d expect’.

Founded in Melbourne 2019 by David Bucca, Sacha Baker and Junior Te’o, the company plans a US market launch in 2023.

All G Foods previously raised $16 million from the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, Ellerston Capital and Singapore-based Triple Star Capital, with the latest Woolworths contribution not revealed.

The company, which released a plant-based burger in IGA supermarkets in 2021, plans a range of alternative meat products such as mince, sausages, chicken and bacon.

All G Foods is looking to develop a range of alt-meat products, marketed under the Love Buds brand, including plant-based mince, sausages, chicken and bacon alternatives.

Fenn Foods was founded by chef Alejandro Cancino and was one of the first to launch a carbon neutral plant-based mince under its vEEF brand.

The Queensland company’s product range includes beef and chicken burgers, mince, a schnitzel, meatballs, bacon bits and pulled beef.

In 2020 Fenn Foods moved production from a small commercial kitchen to a new, 1000sqm production facility in Kunda Park, on the Sunshine Coast.

Picture: Change Foods

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