A new player has emerged on the alt dairy scene with an aged plant-based cheddar launching at select restaurants in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area this week under the Plonts brand.
The startup, which has just opened a pilot plant in Oakland, California, raised $12 million in a seed round in 2022 led by Lowercarbon Capital and supported by Peter Rahal’s Litani Ventures, Accelr8, Pillar, Ponderosa Ventures, and several angel investors. However, cofounders Josh Moser and Dr. Nathaniel Chu chose to keep the funding under wraps and remain in stealth mode “until we had something to sell,” Chu told AgFunderNews.
“We wanted to wait until we had a product that was out in the market,” added Chu, a microbiologist from MIT who started exploring alternatives to dairy cheese after learning about its environmental impact.
“I started thinking about all the things that I love about cheese, the sharpness of Cheddar, the nuttiness of Parmesan, and got stuck on this idea that none of these flavors actually come from milk, which is pretty bland. The flavors come from the microbes in those cheeses. So I started making plant-based cheese in my basement.
“I met Josh [who has a background as an operator and investor in early-stage climate and sustainability companies] through a mutual friend through MIT, and we started talking about what we might be able to build around some of this fundamental technology.”
Magic with microbes
While the first wave of plant-based cheeses (think Daiya Foods and Follow Your Heart) deployed gums and starches, and the second wave (think Miyoko’s) deployed cultured nuts, Plonts uses soy as its core ingredient, coupled with microbial cultures Chu says deliver depth and complexity to flavor and texture that makes Plonts stand out in the marketplace.
“What’s magical about microbes if you really understand what they need to thrive and what they need to create those flavors, is that by adding these self-replicating organisms, you can put in all these metabolic pathways, all of these enzymes that you can’t replicate by trying to add them one by one. Where our differentiation lies, is using high-throughput biotechnology tools to look at microbial metabolism and microbial ecosystems to pair the right microbes for a given ingredient.”
Currently, Plonts uses soybeans “because they’re inexpensive and sustainable, but we can look for microbes to pair with whatever ingredients we think are going to achieve our mission,” he said. “We’re not just using microbes to make something sour or add probiotics, but diving into how does their metabolism overlap with this ingredient to create the rich, delicious flavors that we love in cheese?”
‘We don’t need to add natural flavors’
He added: “We’ve also been working really hard on trying to match the texture and mouthfeel of dairy cheese, plus our products have higher protein than your typical plant-based cheeses, which have zero protein. Ours have about 3g protein per serving, and we’re working on increasing that, as the protein contributes both to improved texture but is also one of the base materials that our microbes digest to create flavor, so we don’t need to add natural flavors or nutritional yeast to our cheese. All of the flavor is coming from the interactions of microbes with in this case, soybeans.”
Moser added: “The other thing I’d say is that nuts are much more expensive than soy, and they are also more suited to making soft cheeses as opposed to commodity cheeses such as Cheddar.”
While Plonts is using coconut oil in its current formulations, it is excited about the new generation of dairy-like fats from fermentation, said Chu.
“I think they are super interesting; we’ve talked to a bunch of players in this space, and I think that there could be a home for us.”
Consumer drivers for plant-based cheese
Plonts’ pilot plant in Oakland is about 10,000sq ft, half of which is dedicated to manufacturing space, said Moser, who said the firm is still evaluating scale up options. “For now we’re focused on nailing down the production process at our pilot plant and delivering high quality food so we get to a place where we have the demand to justify building significantly larger production capacity in house or with a co-manufacturer.”
While plant-based cheese has thus far failed to garner the kind of market share enjoyed by plant-based milk (around 15% in the US retail market), there is no reason that it could not increase household penetration if the products get better, said Moser.
“Our target consumer is the same consumer that has oat milk and almond milk or soy milk in the fridge, which we know people consume for a wide variety of reasons, whether it’s sensitivity to lactose or dairy protein, or due to animal welfare or sustainability concerns, they like the taste better, or just because it is a good product in and of itself and they just want to try different things rather than necessarily trying to imitate an animal product.”
According to SPINS data shared with AgFunderNews, US retail sales of plant-based cheese fell 6% to $218.6 million in the 52 weeks to July 14, 2024.
Further reading:
Sponsored
Restoring the soil quickly is key to capturing returns in regenerative agriculture