Today’s post shines a (very high level) light on three food companies shaping the future of our eating habits in London & Beyond(Meat). Keep an eye on these culinary companies disrupting the London (& global) foodie scene.
NEAT BURGER : THE FUTURE OF FAST FOOD
Founded by Italian businessman Tommaso Chiabra (for my fashion readers, that’s VS model Frida’s husband). Tommaso was also an early investor in Beyond Meat and Deep Green Mining. Neat Burger is also backed by Lewis Hamilton and Leo DiCaprio. Wellness Holding (who own Technogym) is another key investor.
Neat Burger opened up shop in London in 2019, and has since expanded to 5 sites in the capital. Neat’s aim is to expand to 1K franchise and dark kitchens globally by 2030, including sites in the US, Italy and Middle East.
In October 2021, it received $7M in funding, led by Softbank’s Rajeev Misra, and is currently raising $30M. The vegan chain was recently valued at $100M.
Neat Burger aims to be the leader in plant-based fast food.
- All products are organic, meaning no GMOs and no antibiotics in the foodchain.
- Their carbon footprint is kept low through using vertical farming techniques.
- Buns are gluten free – or opt for a lighter, lettuce bun
ALLPLANTS: PLANT BASED MEAL DELIVERY
Co-founded by Greek Cypriot brothers Alex and Jonathan Petrides in 2016, allplants serves the £10 BN UK and £100 BN developed country flexiterian markets, helping each of us to replace our meat consumption with a plant based meal. Reducing greenhouse emissions and meat consumption is not an overnight job, and, as consumers, even switching one meaty meal for a delicious plant based meal will have an impact.
Having tried the company back in 2020, I can attest that allplants’ meals are convenient and tasty – the meals arrive frozen, and simply pop in the microwave to warm up and enjoy! From breakfasts and smoothies to sides and, of course, mains, allplants is steadily increasing the number and variety of meals. With so many of us back to commuting to work, allplants makes it easier to enjoy more cost effective healthy plant based meals from home, than buying a take out each day!
The Garlic & Chili Greens sounds delicious and the Truffle Mushroom Orzo with Spinach and Cashews sounds like a warming winter dish.
allplants most recently raised £38M in their Series B funding round. Key investors included:
- Draper Espirit – who have also invested in Revolut, Cazoo and Trustpilot.
- Octopus Ventures – who have invested in Cazoo, Zoopla and Depop
- Felix Capital – who have also invested in Oatly and Peloton
- Footballers Chris Smalling and Kieran Gibbs.
The Company hope to use the funding to …
- Grow its current 170 employee base across operations, innovation, marketing and tech …
- … and increase their Walthamstow kitchen to 6x its current size….
- … in order to create more innovative recipes to inspire more of us to create plant-based meals at home!
Doubling its revenue every year since the brand launched, I have strong and high hopes for allplants. allplants is a trendsetter in the food market. This round is the biggest ever Series B by a D2C plant-based food co in Europe. Previously, their 2020 £3.4M seed funding on Seeders was the UK’s biggest vegan crowd funding campaign at the time!
SPOTLAS: THE FOODIE MAP APP
Founded by England and Tottenham Hotspur Footballer Eric Dier and his brother Patrick Dier and friend Zoe Connick, Spotlas is a truly innovative app, which has incredible potential.
The best way to describe Spotlas is a visual foodie app map. It’s a visual foodie app, where you can easily find cafes, restaurants and bars through your friends’ recommendations, photos and reviews. As a seasoned (excuse the pun) insta food blogger, one of the downsides of instagram is that the feed isn’t the most efficient or user friendly way for my friends and followers to find my recommendations when they are in “location X”. Therefore, I love the concept of Spotlas – it’s a way for food bloggers to continue reviewing food spots, and for followers to actually be able to find the reviews and recommendations easily when going to specific locations.
The two key benefits over insta include:
- A map so you can quickly see what’s nearby without trawling through a long list of places you saved from zone 5 to zone 1
- Icon code so you can quickly identify bars, pizzerias, coffee spots etc
The team raised £0.7M in funding in November 2021 through Seedrs.
Currently the team aim to establish an engaged user base in London, before starting a bigger marketing push to transfer Instagram’s foodie community to this more convenient platform. Later down the road, they hope to generate revenue through click-through booking service and incorporate takeaway apps such as Deliveroo.
If you’re not on Spotlas already, I’d recommend joining to find the best food spots in the specific areas you are in.
Which other plant players do you have your eyes on? Which other foodie start ups are you loving? Let me know! Lots of love, Jo xoxo
PS. This is NOT investment advice.
PPS. Images courtesy of the respective companies.
