Eat Just—the US market leader in plant-based egg alternatives—has struck a deal with UK-based Vegan Food Group (VFG) to take its flagship JUST Egg product to Europe.
A holding company formed last year, VFG is the parent company of VFC, Meatless Farm, Clive’s Purely Plants, and Tofutown.
The JUST Egg product sold in the US is made from mung bean protein, expeller-pressed canola oil, turmeric and carrot extracts, dehydrated onion, tapioca, salt, sugar, gellan gum, nisin (a preservative), potassium citrate (a texturizer), transglutaminase (an enzyme that helps with gelling by cross-linking proteins), and tetrasodium pyrophosphate (an emulsifier).
According to VFG cofounder Matthew Glover, “There will be a slight tweak” to the recipe for a European audience, “although the base mung bean ingredient will be the same.”
But he added: “There’ll be no noticeable difference in taste or quality.”
VFG has secured exclusive European manufacturing and distribution rights for JUST Egg products and will build a fully automated production line to produce them at its Lüneburg site in Germany with commercial production set to begin later this year, he told AgFunderNews: “VFG will be handling sales, manufacturing and distribution entirely. We have considerable interest from retailers and food service and will be announcing more details soon.”
Eat Just secured the regulatory green light to sell mung bean protein in the EU in April 2022, while UK regulators gave the go-ahead in recent months, Glover told us: “Given the slight formulation tweaks mentioned and discussing this extensively with the Food Standards Agency alongside other regulatory bodies, our teams were given the green light within the last six months.”
Eat Just did not respond to questions about a previously announced distribution partnership with Italian egg producer Eurovo, a sales and distribution agreement with German poultry company PHW Group in 2019, and a mung bean manufacturing partnership with Germany-based Emsland Group. However, Glover confirmed that the mung bean protein for JUST Egg products in Europe will come from Eat Just’s Minnesota-based protein extraction facility.
The avian flu effect
Eat Just—which has raised more than $850 million since 2011—first positioned itself as a b2b plant-based egg supplier before losing patience with the lead times of large CPG companies and introducing its own consumer brands such as Just Mayo based on yellow pea protein in 2013.
By 2019, however, CEO Josh Tetrick was betting the house on its mung-bean-based liquid egg alternative JUST Egg, and had also staked a claim in the emerging cultivated meat industry via a division called GOOD Meat, which has secured regulatory approvals in Singapore and the US, but has not yet landed on a model for profitable production at large scale.
The JUST Egg business, however, is booming as avian flu wreaks havoc in the egg supply chain, Tetrick told AgFunderNews last month: “In the last 30 days, we’ve had everyone from the US military to some of the largest convenience store chains, restaurants, bakeries, and some major fast-food chains reach out to us. We’re growing across the board in retail and in foodservice. We have roughly 56% or so consumers who, when they buy it, buy it again.”
Further reading:
Eat Just seizes the moment as avian flu fuels surge in demand for egg alternatives
