Start-up focus: JUST’s innovation journey evolves beyond mayo
28 Mar 2018 --- Bay Area food start-up, JUST, is an innovator in the plant-based foods space. The company was founded in December 2011 by Josh Balk and CEO Joshua Tetrick, under the name Hampton Creek Foods, Inc. and is best known for its vegan mayonnaise and early work into the cultured meat space. The company, which recently changed its name to JUST, believes its brand of mayo shows it’s possible to produce plant-based foods that consumers love at prices they can afford, without relying on the egg, meat and dairy products that take a toll on the planet.
To date, JUST has raised over US$220 million in funding and is valued at more than US$1 billion.
JUST products are in over 100,000 points of distribution and growing foodservice. Just Mayo, Just Dressing and Just Cookies can be found in more than 500 universities, 3600 K-12 public schools, Fortune 500 cafeterias, pro-sports stadiums, and many more.
JUST products can be found at 18k+ retailers across the US as well as in Mexico and Hong Kong. JUST are also present in Manhattan and Mexico City grocery aisles, and featured on end caps in Hong Kong's largest retailer.
JUST's flagship product is called JUST Mayo. It utilizes plant substances, with the original formula using the company's egg replacement powder, which is made out of a varietal of Canadian Yellow Pea.Despite a troubled 2017, where the company lost some of its top employees amid accusations they were engaged in a coup meant to take control from its co-founder and hand it to investors, the company is now looking to follow new pathways.
Now, the company is on a mission to help soften the blow of malnutrition in West Africa. Power Gari is a fortified cassava porridge, with ingredients sourced locally from small-scale farmers in Liberia. It is relatively cheap to produce and popular with Liberian consumers. It is also tailored to the exact dietary needs of malnourished children and adults in the country.
Malnutrition affects 2.1 billion people around the world and JUST believes its Power Gari product can increase the intake of critical vitamins and minerals by including them in a product that tastes good. The porridge has earned the approval of local schools and non-profit organizations, which say it delivers good nutrition for children. Over 650 kids are currently Just Power Gari today, and more will be eating it tomorrow, according to Just.
FoodIngredientsFirst spoke to Taylor Quinn, Director of Emerging Markets at JUST, who is spearheading the program in Liberia, who said that to be successful in this space, the company would have to incredibly innovative. “By no means do we think that our product, Power Gari, can completely cure malnutrition, however, I do think that it is a step in right direction to ending hunger and malnutrition. No one product or company is going to make a dent in the universe, unfortunately as much as we try, but at the end of the day we are trying to prove what is possible and provide better food solutions that are nutritious, delicious, affordable and local.”
When Quinn moved to Liberia in 2015, he completely immersed himself in the country for six months. “After meeting a pediatrician in a hospital called Redemption Hospital, he told me about the severity on malnourished children in the country and down to the fact there was simply no nutritious food available to these children he believed that a lot of children would starve and die and home. So for me, that was the turning point,” he explains. “And I quickly realized we had to do something about it.”
The product development process was a long and grueling challenge. According to Quinn, they tried and failed many times. But the key was to design something that was from Liberia and that would work for the Liberian market. “Now two years later Power Gari is the product we went with, it has been a long process, but all of our work here in Liberia is done by incredible small business partners, this work is 100 percent Liberian owned, and we want to keep it that way,” he notes.
“In this line of work, there are many different angles and ways in which this program helps the community. Power Gari creates jobs for women farmers and people in rural areas. First and foremost this project can be seen as a nutrition project,” Quinn continues, “There are a lot of schools involved, so it’s also an education incentive project. We can make sure that children in schools are eating well and able to focus because they aren’t hungry throughout the day, but our high-level goal is to feed as many kids as possible.”
“Our goal is to try to make sure that 7.1 million meals in Liberia are eaten this year, and we are currently looking at and speaking with potential partners, about exploring and doing work in other countries outside of Liberia. Our secondary goal is around creating jobs and nutritional impact. This work is funded by mothers working in extreme poverty, the locals of Liberia, who buy this product at their local market,” he explains. “We support small businesses, where money is invested back into the business and those profits allow our small business partners to grow and succeed in this market.”For Quinn, the question around sustainability is not something that he thinks about a lot: “Inherently, how this work exists at a foundation level, is that it is 100 percent Liberian owned and this business model has been created so that it doesn’t have to be funded by anybody,” he reveals. “We want to build food systems that work in developing countries, and so we have spent the time to figure out how to build food manufacturing facilities, that work in the context of Liberia.”
Initially, JUST wanted to design foods that are inherently Liberian and Quinn also noted that during the process, every aspect of this work has been one hurdle after the next. “No day is ever boring, each day stimulates growth, there is such a good market opportunity for local and affordable food in Liberia, so although we have our work cut out for us, this is just the beginning,” he adds.
The focus for Liberia has been figuring out what works in the country based on four core things: Affordability, taste, nutrition and locally-sourced food. Quinn believes that food should exist everywhere based on those four pillars.
“We want to enable others to do similar work and we also want to continue doing this in other countries, so that we can do it faster, better and ultimately feed more children. As we look in the next five to ten years we want to expand to dozens of more countries with potential partners and ensure that all of our operations are run by locals in every country,” Quinn says.“There is and has been a lot of hype around all natural, organic, clean label healthy foods, for example, and these items can charge higher prices for these labels. For a lot of companies and Silicon Valley startups, it’s possible to get stuck in the bubble of designing food for other people who live in places like Silicon Valley, and we see that as a huge problem,” he states. “That being said, food start-ups are taking an approach which is entirely user-designed, which helps to build food systems that work from scratch. In some senses, learning from experts and keeping an open mind to what is possible in the food chain as a whole, has allowed us to design a system that works quite well, in countries like Liberia.
And for now, JUST is looking to expand their range of Power Gari solutions in Liberia. “Last month we did the first test of a few different flavors of Power Gari using all locally available ingredients, such as sesame seeds, ginger, different forms of coconut including coconut oil and the meat, so we are planning on bringing different flavors and variations to the market soon. As we look to other markets we’re taking an approach of looking into native crops, and the diets of those who are living in poverty, in an effort to create nutritious, yet familiar foods, while making them new and exciting through recipe development and beautiful packaging.”
“The key motivation for us is to support other food companies looking to incorporate nutrition into low cost, quality food, not only is that the right thing to do but also makes business sense. That's the message that I want to put forward to companies as we look to expand,” Quinn concludes.
A recent podcast interview with Taylor Quinn can be found here.
By Elizabeth Green
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