Australian plant-based meat market leader v2food is moving into the US market with the acquisition of plant-based chicken maker Daring Foods, and has struck a strategic partnership with Japanese food giant Ajinomoto.
Under the deal, Daring will continue to operate under its own brand in the US market while serving as a platform for v2food to launch products in the US market, v2food CEO Tim York told AgFunderNews.
“We were looking to launch the v2 brand into the US market a couple of years ago, and then, just the way the category fundamentals were working, it was clear it was going to be difficult to launch another brand into what is already a crowded market.
“And then the Daring opportunity came up; we looked at it and just fell in love with it. It’s a great brand. It’s got really strong distribution in the US, with 16,000 doors of distribution and it appeals to consumers from Walmart all the way through to Whole Foods. And it’s one of the few brands in the US that’s growing at the moment.”
He added: “The rush to get [plant-based meats] into the chilled meat case didn’t seem to work in the US, and that section of the store has probably dropped 20% per annum three years in a row. Whereas frozen has held up much better. First, I think store managers feel like the extra shelf-life gives them some protection on wastage. And equally, the category has historically been in frozen with brands like Morningstar Farms, so there’s just more of a logical evolution, as opposed to the revolution that people tried to instigate in the meat case.”
For Daring, which is known for its short ingredients lists, “Clean label will be the USP that we’ll be sticking to with the brand,” said York, who took the helm at v2food from founder Nick Hazell in 2023 when Hazell left to run algae startup Algenie,
“We’ve got a lot of tech stack in the v2 portfolio [spanning beef, chicken, and pork] that we want to launch into America, but we’ll stay true to that cleaner label positioning that the Daring brand has today. There’s a huge opportunity to stretch the brand into new formats.”
Part of that will be introducing methylcellulose-free products in 2026 based on new tech developed by v2food, said York. “I think everyone’s trying to crack this nut but we’ve done a lot of work on this over the last two years and we’ve made some great strides with it.”
The Ajinomoto partnership
V2food’s partnership with Ajinomoto expands an already productive working relationship, he explained.
“We’ve been working with Ajinomoto for a couple of years on R&D on clean label solutions for plant-based products and now we’re working with them on a deal whereby they will manufacture and distribute our ambient plant-based products under license in some emerging markets in Africa and Asia.
“We’re currently doing it in market trials, and then commercialization will take place in the next year. Ajinomoto has also now made an investment into v2 so they’re now on our cap table.”
He added: “In partnership with Ajinomoto, we’ll also be looking at how we can significantly grow Daring’s frozen entrees business, because Ajinomoto is a large scale, frozen food company in the US.”
‘Plant-based in QSRs in Asia hasn’t really stuck’
While v2food has made forays into several markets outside Australia via Burger King, results have been mixed, said York.
“We did expand with Burger King into Japan, Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines, and we were in some markets up to two or three years. But ultimately, plant-based in QSRs in Asia hasn’t really stuck, so it became more of a limited time offer formula, rather than a permanent sustainability change.”
Stepping back to look at the wide plant-based category, York said, “Like any gold rush, you just got too many people running into the fray and a lot of poor quality food launched.
“If you look at a mature category, there’s typically two to three [leading brands] and a private label player, so it is natural that the meat alternatives category will reduce [the number of SKUs stocked]. We’ve seen that happening already. But Daring is one of the few brands in growth, and is looking like it’ll be a winner in that consolidation process.”
He added: “Plant-based is definitely one of the better solutions to solving that problem [meeting the world’s protein needs more sustainably]. But the reality is, when you are staring at the fixture on a Wednesday night looking at what to buy your family for dinner, you’re not thinking about what’s happening to the planet, so the consumer transition is going to take time.
“I think we all got it wrong, thinking that the market was going to change in three years. In my view it’s a 30-year transition that will happen quite naturally and gradually.”
Jack Cowin: ‘Over the next five years, we expect to see a rationalization of the industry’
Jack Cowin, an early v2food investor and founder of Australian fast food chain Hungry Jack’s (the Burger King franchise in Australia), said the Daring acquisition was “a logical next phase of growth as the market consolidates.”
He added: “Over the next five years, we expect to see a rationalization of the industry with various best-in-class plant-based meat companies such as v2food and Daring coming together to gain scale and provide technical solutions that meet or exceed consumer requirements for great-tasting, affordable and nutritious food that also happens to be better for the planet.”
“Together, we see an opportunity to shape the future of our space in a way none of us could have achieved alone,” added Daring Foods CEO Jeffrey Gendelman, who took over from founder Ross Mackay in April 2024 when Mackay left to launch a beverage startup called Cadence.
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