Maker of Tindle vegan chicken to use $100m funding to scale and cut costs for consumers

Next Gen Foods, which expanded into the UAE last year, made its US foray earlier this month

Next Gen Foods' Tindle brand of plant-based chicken is available at 16 locations across Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Photo: Next Gen

Next Gen Foods, the food technology start-up that manufactures the Tindle brand of plant-based chicken, will use the $100 million series A funding it recently raised to scale its business and in turn bring down consumer costs for the meat substitute, its chief operating officer said.

“We’re really [almost] at a price parity with chicken already, and this is before we’ve even scaled the business. As we scale manufacturing and the supply of major ingredients, then the price will come down to the level of chicken — maybe even lower,” Alex Ward told The National in an interview.

The company plans to add manufacturing units through the establishment of a global research and development centre in Singapore, where it is based, Mr Ward said on the sidelines of the inaugural Food For Future summit, at Expo 2020 Dubai on Thursday.

The global market size for chicken — the most widely consumed meat worldwide — was estimated at $196 billion in 2021 and is projected to hit $207.6bn in 2027, according to Research and Markets.

Global retail sales of plant-based food alternatives, meanwhile, are expected to reach $162bn by 2030 — 7.7 per cent of the projected $2.1 trillion protein market — according to Bloomberg Intelligence. The Asia-Pacific region is tipped to be the largest market for these products, where sales could reach almost $65bn by 2030, up from $13.5bn in 2020, it added.

“Plant-based meat accounted for just 0.3 per cent of total meat sales in 2020, but growth is accelerating as products become more widely available, consumer awareness grows, prices come down and the perceived health and sustainability attributes gain traction,” Bloomberg Intelligence said in a November report.

At present, Europe is the largest market for plant-based food and is expected to remain so for the next three to four years, according to data provider GlobalEdge.

The global vegan food market is expected to be valued at more than $22bn in 2025, up 37.5 per cent from 2021's $16bn, Statista predicts.

Next Gen launched the Tindle brand in Singapore last year, and then rolled it out across Macau and Hong Kong territories and Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. It began retailing in the UAE in September, with its products now available at 16 locations across Abu Dhabi and Dubai, including at Expo 2020, according to its website.

Mr Ward said Next Gen's immediate focus will be on North America, one of the world's biggest markets for plant-based products. The company is seeking to sign distribution agreements to gain access to the continent's vast restaurant industry, he said.

It is also targeting an expansion into China, Brazil and some European markets, while increasing investments within the markets it operates in

The planned R&D centre in Singapore will focus on protein research and will be a “significant investment” for Next Gen, Mr Ward said.

“If we do market expansion as a way to grow our business, then product line expansion is the other way to grow it and get more share of menus in restaurants,” he said.

Mr Ward also disagreed with the notion that plant-based foods are premium products. The entry of more players into the market will help bring prices down for consumers, he said, highlighting the success of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, which pioneered the large-scale plant-based food industry.

“If you look at today’s restaurants, [plant-based foods are] priced at a very similar level to good quality meat,” he said. If there are enough brands to cater to demand, there might not even be a need for farming techniques to produce low-quality chicken meat, he added.

Total funding for Next Gen now exceeds $130m, including a seed round of $30m in July last year. Its series A round is the biggest in the plant-based food start-up scene and saw the participation of new international investors, including Indonesia-based Alpha JWC, Singapore's EDBI and London-based MPL Ventures.

Some of its existing investors also participated in the round, including Singapore's Temasek, through its newly established Asia Sustainable Food Platform, GGV Capital, K3 Ventures and Bits x Bites.