Chunk Foods is an Israeli plant-based protein startup company that wants to shake up the meat industry with its plant-based alternatives, and it’s recently raised $2 million to help it do just that.
Some Background on the Plant-Based Protein Startup
The plant-based protein business is hot right now. Makers of imitation sausages, steaks, hamburgers, and chicken such as Beyond Meat, Morningstar, and Impossible Foods are bringing an idea once thought too futuristic to ever be part of the mainstream into Americans’ houses. Now, the Chunk Foods company wants to do the same in Israel.
The startup company says the multimillion-dollar business investment will help the company scale production of its products and increase the number of employees the company has on hand. The investment was led by venture capital business Stray Dog Capital, Good Seed Ventures, and the E14 Fund at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), out of which Chunk Foods was born.
But it’s Stray Dog’s new affiliation with the company that is perhaps the most valuable to Chunk Foods. Stray Dog is a venture capital business that is almost solely devoted to the development and promotion of alternative meat products. The fund has previously invested in Beyond Meat and Israel’s Aleph Farms, which produces cultivated meat.
What People Have to Say About the Startup
Johnny Ream, who is a partner at Stray Dog Capital, said in a statement about the startup company investment that he and the rest of the team at Stray Dog believe that Chunk Foods will become a crucial part of the fight to bring plant-based protein products to tables worldwide.
“Development of plant-based alternative proteins that resemble traditional whole-muscle products such as steak are often regarded as the most difficult and complex to achieve,” he said. “We believe Chunk’s technologies and proprietary processes have strong potential to play a significant role in bringing these types of products to market.”
What sets Chunk Foods apart from its plant-based protein competitors is its fermentation approach, which the company says enables it to create the sort of fibrous meat texture that meat lovers everywhere love — and are easily able to detect the lack of in other meat products.
The CEO of the startup business, Amos Golan, said that it was this fermentation process that separates Chunk Foods from the crowd — and that customers would be able to tell the difference.
“Whole muscle cuts of beef such as sirloin, chuck or ribs have been the Holy Grail of alternative meats as they account for about 60% of the beef market in the USA,” he said. “We’ve overcome the technological limitations of other approaches by naturally creating delicious and realistic products with many of the attributes of meat, while ensuring a clean and short ingredient list using our novel fermentation technology.”
The Value of the Industry
Chunk Foods and other plant-based protein developers are in the process of disrupting a $2.7 trillion meat business and are growing their own industry as well. The meat substitute business is currently growing at a compound annual growth rate of 7.8% and is anticipated to reach an $8 billion valuation by 2026. That’s a great start for any startup company.
