All G Foods and Fënn Foods have merged their plant-based meat businesses into a new company, The Aussie Plant Based Co. All G is retaining its biotechnology division and will focus on developing nature identical dairy proteins.
Fënn Foods was founded by Alejandro Cancino and Paola Moro in 2015 and is based on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. In 2021, it was the first to launch a certified Carbon Neutral Plant-Based Mince under its vEEF brand and named on the 2021 Australian Financial Review’s Fast 100.
All G Foods launched in 2021 after a $15.5 million seed funding raise, announcing its precision fermentation project to create cow-free dairy and retail product, Love Buds.
All G Foods CEO Jan Pacas told Food & Drink Business the demerger made sense for the company as its two divisions were at different stages of development and required different focuses.
“We have always had one foot in the “deep-tech” segment of precision fermentation and the other in the consumer-facing “plant-based meat” business. This transaction represents a pivotal strategic move to allow the two different businesses to concentrate exclusively on their respective and unique needs,” Pacas said.
The merging of vEEF and Love Buds will create a large player in the plant-based meat industry in Australia, with Pacas saying it will be within striking distance of being the market leader.
“There are significant synergies between the two companies we can leverage to accelerate growth for both brands. VEEF has superior manufacturing processing while we have stronger R&D and vEEF is in the retail market while Love Buds is strong in foodservice,” Pacas said.
The Aussie Plant-Based Co. will be based at Fënn Food’s manufacturing facility on the Sunshine Coast, with both brand labels continuing and targeting respective markets. Combined they will have 6000 distribution points across Australia.
All G is now a pure synthetic biology company focused on bringing identical dairy products to the global market as fast as possible.
Pacas said the company recently invested in a cutting edge BioFoundry, the first of its kind in Asia.
“This will enable us to advance our vision of providing the world with high-quality, sustainable, healthy, and tasty nature-identical dairy proteins.
“Our initial focus is on the sought-after lactoferrin dairy protein, which is prized for its antiviral, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, prebiotic, and probiotic attributes.
“At the same time, we continue to advance our work around casein dairy proteins, which are responsible for the key functional attributes that give us everything we love about dairy,” he said.
