Founder Stories: Neophyto Foods

by Foodbevy
February 23, 2021

Interview with Ethan Zhang

Let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there. How did your company get started and why?

2 years ago my co-founder Kamil went vegan to adopt a greener lifestyle, but quickly realized that all the vegan cheeses and meats available were horrible. Therefore, he approached my other co-founder Jane, a food scientist by background, to help him solve his problems. Born out of a personal need, we wanted to make it easier for everyone to choose foods that are delicious as well as kind to the planet. Today, we use our food science ingenuity to make plant-based versions of everyone’s favorite foods without compromising on taste, texture, or sustainability.

What is your product and how would you describe it?

Our core product, Neokit, is the first plant-based ground meat kit in Canada. Neokit is a 5-ingredient kit that is uniquely shelf-stable without added preservatives, takes only 10min to prepare 4 servings of plant-based meat with unparalleled texture, and can be used in any way that ground meat is used for (think patties, meatballs, tacos, etc). Nutritionally, our product has less sodium and calories, while using only one-quarter of the number of ingredients of other meat alternatives. Neokit keeps the number of ingredients to a minimum as we seek to empower consumers to be in charge of what they choose to put in their bodies. With Neokit, consumers finally have the option of making plant-based meats just the way they like it without being restricted to the available flavors and SKUs. Key nutritional characteristics include: non-GMO, gluten-free, preservative-free, and nut-free.

How have you pivoted your business this year?

Our first product that we launched in Jan 2020 (after 1.5 years of R&D) was actually Neocheese, which is a soy-based fermented cream cheese product with a smooth and creamy texture, akin to that of dairy cream cheese. Nutritionally, Neocheese is high in protein and free of dairy, nuts, carbohydrates, sodium, lactose, and cholesterol. We targeted the foodservice sector for the initial launch and our clients include restaurants, caterers, and hospitality groups. Unfortunately, Covid lockdown hit in Mar 2020 and caused most of our clients to shutdown their operations. Covid-19 has also caused the temporary shutdown of our previous Neocheese production facility.

As a result, we went back to the drawing board, listened to our customers, and consolidated the learnings from Neocheese. In the middle of a global pandemic, we were deep in intense research and product development, and out came Neokit. We also adopted the direct-to-consumer e-commerce channel when launching Neokit, in contrast to the B2B channel that we took with Neocheese. Within 4 months of the launch of the MVP of Neokit, we’ve gone through a re-branding and re-packaging exercise, and also launched into 15 retail stores across 3 provinces in Canada.

What is your next challenge to overcome?

Our next challenge is to build up our brand awareness, bring Neokit to even more people, as well as develop new SKUs and product lines. Distribution will also be a significant challenge as a result of the global pandemic, as supply chains will be facing delays and uncertainty. We’re looking for greater media exposure as well as better ways to keep up the engagement with our community.

What do you predict for the food industry over the rest of the year?

There’ll be a lot of changes in the food industry as well as industry-related services, e.g. distribution, logistics, supply chain, technology providers etc. We’re already seeing the rise in number of large food companies going direct-to-consumer by building out their Shopify stores, as well as a number of new distribution logistics companies being born to meet the new demands of the industry. I believe that the way that food will be delivered to consumers will be changed dramatically over the rest of the year, where even though jobs will be lost (i.e. service staff), jobs will also be created.

Learn more at: https://neophytofoods.com/

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