Banana Wave to make ripples in plant-based dairy space with Eat & Beyond investment

07 Apr 2022 --- Banana Wave, an oat- and banana-based milk alternative produced by Mylk Brands has gained new funding from Eat & Beyond Global. As dairy shortages upset the industry, Canadian investment issuer aims to fast track the tropical-sourced beverage and expand its plant-based portfolio.

“In the near term, we will seek to dramatically improve distribution and improve marketing. In 2022, we will be launching a single-serve offering in several flavors to better position the brand for everyday child consumption in lunchboxes,” Michael Aucoin, CEO of Eat & Beyond, tells FoodIngredientsFirst.

Banana Wave is also working on a single-serve product specifically targeting adults with added plant-based protein, to be sold through convenience store distribution channels.

“Eat & Beyond seeks to invest in innovative early-stage plant-based and food tech companies with significant growth opportunities,” he remarks. “That growth can be driven by fully capturing the potential of these products whether through increased investment in marketing, increased distribution, and/or product innovation.”

“In Banana Wave, we see a brand that checks all the boxes in terms of consumer demand: great taste and texture, nutritious and environmentally sound,” says Aucoin. 

The launch comes as the global market is experiencing unprecedented prices for dairy commodities and products. 

Milk supply growth in the top five exporting producers weakened to 0.5% in the second half of 2021 and output is set to shrink to 1.2% during the first half of this year. Tight supplies of milk for fat and protein commodities have been overlaid with complex supply and demand impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and sanctions on Russia and its allies.

Challenging the dairy categoryBanana Wave is set to disrupt the alt-milk space (Credit: Mylk Brands).
Aside from seeing production disruptions, the dairy space has been drastically challenged by evolving consumers’ preferences toward plant-based products and environmental obstacles.

Innova Market Insights pegged “Shared Planet” as its Top Trend for 2022, followed closely by “Plant-Based: The Canvas for Innovation”. The market researcher notes that consumers now rank planetary health as their number one concern, overtaking personal health, which has been the top priority in recent years.

There have been significant rollouts of NPD with many brands and manufacturers diversifying their product portfolios with plant-based sources that resonate with consumer needs.

The alt-milk market is forecast to be worth an estimated £400 million (US$541 million), brands are tapping into consumer demands for more milk without the animal-based ingredients. Potato milk rivals the already popular oat, pea, nut or soy-based milks. Dug potato milk drink is pegged as “deliciously creamy, makes the perfect foam in coffee,” and works just like any other milk.

Dutch plant-based ingredients manufacturer Fooditive has unveiled its new vegan casein in an animal-free alternative milk made from peas using fermentation. The ingredient is the first vegan casein made available for applications in the food industry.

Bananas making waves
Banana Wave is based in Florida, US, and is available in five flavors: Original, Unsweetened Original, Mango, Chocolate and Strawberry. All varieties are gluten-free, soy-free and non-GMO. Each carton contains 90 calories or less, vitamin B, potassium, fiber and protein.

Steve Gelerman, CEO of Banana Wave, tells FoodIngredientsFirst: “We feel the best way to create the perfect plant-based milk is to start with bananas for several reasons. Bananas are a very popular fruit and are naturally fat-free.”

“By using them, we can also create a creamy texture that other non-dairy milks cannot without adding fat. Banana Wave has the only fat-free non-dairy milks available,” explains Gelerman.

The tropical-sourced raw material for Banana Wave is notably free of fertilizers. Ammonium nitrate fertilizer prices alone are up to £1,000 (US$ 1,300) a metric ton compared with £280 (US$370) a ton last year. The cost of fertilizer first rose in response to the increase in wholesale gas prices, based on the levels of energy needed for production. 

“We chose to start with non-dairy milk as it is a growing space, but more importantly, it removes animals from the equation,” says Gelerman.

Plant-based dairy should deliver on tasteAmong novel alt-dairy launches, industry has explored the potential of potato milk to rival oat and soy milk (Credit: Veg of Lund).
Banana Wave conducted exhaustive formulation and process trials to achieve optimal taste and texture of its plant-based milks. 

“We start with whole, natural bananas and add healthy oats and vitamins to create our unsweetened original. For other flavors, we start with our unsweetened original and for chocolate, add rich cocoa; for strawberry, add whole pureed strawberries; and for mango, we add whole pureed mango and a hint of vanilla.”

The base of all the flavors is banana. They use recyclable packaging that locks in the flavor for up to one year without the need for any refrigeration. This keeps the flavors tasting fresh.

“We are always looking to expand our product line. One avenue for us to do this is to create new occasions for use. Kids love the taste, and it’s also popular with parents because the products are packed with vitamins and the sugars are drastically reduced,” explains Gelerman.

Alt-milk NPD launches
Singapore- and US-based TurtleTree Labs teamed up with Solar Biotech in the US to rapidly scale the production of cell-based milk. The move marks an important step into the manufacturing viability of cell-based milk as a practical alternative food source.

Two emergent technologies – molecular farming and cellular agriculture – are making a splash in the alternative dairy space for their ability to remove the cow from the equation. Among recent developments, Miruku, a New Zealand-based food-tech company developing animal-free milk proteins cultivated in plants through molecular farming, has netted a US$2.4 million seed investment round.

Meanwhile, Israel-based Wilk – a developer of cell-based human and animal milk, and milk components – joined Cellular Agriculture Europe, a coalition of companies committed to building a more resilient and sustainable food chain.

Spanish dairy specialist Pascual launched what is tipped as the first global incubation program for cellular agriculture technologies in the dairy industry. The program, Mylkcubator, is run by the group’s new Corporate Venture unit, Pascual Innoventures, which has been set up to support start-ups disrupting the milk value chain. 

By Inga de Jong