Fable Food Co's plant-based meat alternative will be available in 600 Woolworths stores as part of its retail strategy. Fable launched six months ago with the endorsement and backing of chef Heston Blumenthal. Its $1.5 million capital raise included funding from Grok Ventures and Blackbird Ventures.
Fable was founded by former fine dining chef and mycologist Jim Fuller, organic mushroom farmer Chris McLoghlin and former Shoes of Prey co-founder, Michael Fox.
Fox told Food & Drink Business the strategy was to start in Food Service, allowing consumers to sample the product and build awareness of the brand. While COVID-19 didn’t impact their business plan, it did bring retail plans into the limelight.
“We announced our partnerships with Harris Farm and Woolworths at the beginning of the year, so this was always the plan,” he said.
Fable’s deal with meal kit company Marley Spoon was a great strategy, Fox said, resulting in a sales boom.
The Woolworths roll-out will see the company's Plant Based Braised Beef product in 600 stores around the country.
The product is a minimally processed plant-based protein. The shiitake mushrooms are the main ingredient (62 per cent), with other all-natural plant based ingredients.
The company’s current manufacturing set-up uses a contract manufacturer with capacity to produce 150 tonnes a month. “It means we have scale and time to grow into it,” Fox said.
In terms of export plans, Fox told F&DB there are excellent opportunities in overseas markets. “We have signed with a distributor in Singapore and our relationship with Heston Blumenthal will see us do some projects in the UK. It’s about dipping our toe in the water internationally. Currently we want to make sure we keep most of our resources focused domestically until the end of the year. Moving into retail will inform us of any tweaks we need to make to the product before expansion of that scale.”
