While most people are familiar with major plant-based consumer brands like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat (NASDAQ: BYND), there is an entire network of companies operating behind the scenes. From growing and processing raw ingredients to developing new types of food products, the opportunity for growth in the emerging sector is extraordinary.
Most of these under-the-radar companies are smaller and privately held, which means there are inefficiencies in the industry and thus an opportunity for streamlining operations via consolidation. One company, in particular, has already started on its master plan to capitalize on this colossal opportunity.
Eat Well Investment Group (CSE: EWG) (OTC: EWGFF) (FRA: 6BC0) intends to conquer the plant-based food industry by buying up best-in-class companies up and down the plant-based food supply chain. Eat Well plans to use these companies to develop its own plant-based CPG products and supply the overall industry. Eat Well would need leadership well-versed in both the plant-based food industry and the general CPG industry to accomplish its ambitious goals.
Source: Eat Well Investor Presentation
Mark Coles – Founder, Chief Investment Officer: Mr. Coles has over 25 years of experience in CPG business mergers and acquisitions. Mark spent the last decade in the plant-based protein industry, culminating in his previous company getting bought out by a global food supply conglomerate. Mark is an industry expert that knows how to identify and capitalize on opportunities as they present themselves. Mark has been an early investor in many of the leading plant-based companies on the market today.
Marc Aneed – Co-Founder, President & Director: Marc started working on the Gatorade brand at the PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP) owned Quaker Oats Company. While there, Marc developed his brand-managing skills and parlayed this experience into a two-decade career in executive management positions at various CPG companies. Most notably, Marc held a leadership position at global nutrition company Glanbia PLC (LON: GLB) (OTC: GLAPY), where he led several brands, totalling over $1 billion in sales.
Source: Wealthy VC YouTube
Eat Well’s management knew that if they wanted to take on the plant-based industry in a big way, they would need to integrate themselves into the very heart of the industry. Eat Well knows that every plant-based food requires raw ingredients that are high in protein. The company is also aware that farming is one of the least profitable industries on Earth, so they decided to skip the very bottom of the supply chain and start processing the crops into usable ingredients.
Most of the plant-based foods on the market are based on pulses. Pulses are legumes that are processed and used as grains in food products. Unlike grains, which are high in carbohydrates, pulses are high in protein. Some of the most popular pulses used in plant-based foods are chickpeas, fava beans, lentils and green peas.
Agriculture-rich Saskatchewan, Canada, is one of the world’s leading producers of these pulses, and that is where Eat Well started to build its plant-based juggernaut. The company’s first acquisition was Belle Pulses, a leading processor of pulse proteins.
Belle Pulses buys directly from farmers, processes the pulses into usable ingredients (flour, split peas, etc.) and then sells these ingredients to multinational food companies, including Beyond Meat (NASDAQ: BYND), Nestle (SWX: NESN) (OTC: NSRGY) and General Mills (NYSE: GIS). Belle Pulses has been experiencing strong growth, with combined August and September revenues up 35% year-over-year.
Source: Eat Well Investor Presentation
The acquisition of Belle Pulses ensures Eat Well will be a foundational piece of the industry for years to come.
Tony Gaudet, President of Belle Pulses, commented:
In addition to supplying other food companies, Belle Pulses will also supply Eat Well with the feedstock needed to produce their own line of CPG products. These products are currently in development by Eat Well’s wholly-owned food technology subsidiary.
After the raw ingredients, the most crucial part of a plant-based product is its form factor. The product must be attractive, convenient and have a stable shelf life. To this end, Eat Well acquired Sapientia Technologies, a food technology company specializing in creating plant-based CPG foods, primarily snack foods.
Sapientia Technologies is the brainchild of Dr. Eugenio Bortone, a food engineer with over two decades of experience developing new form factors for snack foods. He previously worked at FritoLay, where he led a team that received the patent for the Twisted Cheeto.
Dr. Bortone will use his considerable skills and experience to develop plant-based protein snack foods for Eat Well. The first product, a “Vegan Cheeto,” is rolling out to retail shelves before the end of the year; additional products, including meat analogous and high-protein pasta, are expected to be introduced in 2022.
Source: Eat Well Investor Presentation
The plant-based food industry is expected to grow by leaps and bounds for the foreseeable future. Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) (SWX: CSGN) expects the vegan food market to grow 100-fold over the next few decades, with the top investment bank projecting the global industry to reach more than $1.4 trillion by 2050.
The possibility of consolidating the industry and establishing its own plant-based protein CPG products is an incredible opportunity for Eat Well Group and its shareholders.
While Belle Pulses will provide the backbone of Eat Well’s operations, Sapientia Technologies will develop branded products that have the potential to become household names. With the potential to acquire other brands and bring them in-house, look for Eat Well’s influence to continue gaining momentum for years to come.
It’s still very early days for the plant-based food industry, which has an enormous amount of unrealized upside. All factors considered, including a limited number of public companies in the sector, investors looking for a ground floor opportunity in the rapidly emerging plant-based food market, should seriously consider Eat Well Investment Group and begin their research on the company ASAP.
See due diligence links below.
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