Honestly Tasty

Idea

Introduction

Our mission is to create great tasting products in a sector with an infamously bad rep.

Whilst consumers increasingly turn towards flexitarian and plant-based diets in a bid to reduce their environmental impact, plant-based alternatives for milks and meats are tasty and widely available. Unfortunately, that is not the case for cheese, and this is the problem we want to solve...

After recognising this problem when adopting a plant-based diet in 2018, I began experimenting to create a novel production technique by combining starch & hydrocolloid technology with traditional cheese making techniques, with some of our cheeses aged up to 4 weeks. This results in cheeses that can melt but also mature to develop flavours and textures associated with dairy cheese.

The range currently includes an award winning plant-based Veganzola Blue cheese, alongside Camembert (Shamembert), Brie (Bree), and Boursin (Herbi) alternatives.

Substantial accomplishments to date

Since starting as a one man band in 2019, we've made a lot of progress:

Sales:

· Grown revenues by >11x between Y1 and Y3*

· Over 11,500 online customers with a repeat customer rate of 24%

· A total of 75+ regular B2B Customers (last 6 weeks)

*based on unaudited management accounts.

Reviews & Recognition:

World Plant-Based Taste Award - Cheese Alternative Category - Winner (Blue)

World Plant-Based Taste Award - Cheese Alternative Category - Finalist (Shamembert)

Production Capacity

We have established a state of the art, plant-based cheese kitchen in North London, which we believe gives us the capability to support the next 24 months of expansion (up to £4m revenue PA).

Investors & Advisors:

JP & Alex Petrides (AllPlants Founders) as Investors, offering their support and network as a plant-based manufacturing business based in North London.

Tim Rowcliffe (Rowcliff & Son) as an investor & sales adviser drawing on his years of experience and network.

As well as our backers, we are also working with some fantastic food scientists with backgrounds at M&S and the Coconut Collaborative.

Monetisation strategy

Our core business is the development, production and sale of plant-based cheese.

Market Opportunity:

The plant based cheese market in the UK was estimated at just over £225m back in 2019, and £1.93 billion pounds globally in 2021, with studies estimating between an 8.1 and 15.5% Compound annual growth rate through to 2027.

Channel Growth:

Our current revenue split (FY 2022) is predominately direct B2B (independent retailers and food services) at ~40% and D2C (online shop and markets) at ~55%. The remaining ~5% is the nurturing of initial wholesale relationships which we plan to grow over the next 12 months and beyond as we look to move into National Wholesaler relationships.

Support by New Product Development:

We're excitedly working towards launching Cheddar, Feta, and Stilton alternatives over the coming months to support our growth over the next 12 months.

Use of proceeds

With target funds being reached, we intend to spend investment on:

· 38% New Hires (Spanning Sales, Operations, Marketing, technical and Admin functions)

· 25% Marketing Inc. Trade shows

· 20% NPD & Food Safety

· 8% Rebranding; a new visual identify to really bring our brand and mission to life.

· 6% working capital

· 3% Professionalising Governance

We will use any additional funds to accelerate our NPD pipeline.

A portion of the investment reflected in this campaign was received by the Company in the 6 months prior to the launch of the investment round on Seedrs and the Company has started putting this to use.