Jack & Annie’s Maker Adds $5M to Series B to Tackle America’s Fibre Deficiency with Jackfruit Meat

The Jackfruit Company and its consumer brand Jack & Annie’s have raised $5M in a Series B extension round to support their product development and expansion efforts.

In a nod to consumers’ growing appetite for fibre-packed food options, The Jackfruit Company, which sells jackfruit-based meat analogues, has secured an additional $5M in an extension to its Series B round.

The startup had previously raised $23M in its Series B in 2021, when it debuted its consumer brand Jack & Annie’s. Already the most well-funded jackfruit protein company – which makes ‘meal starter’ ingredients and finished products like burgers and sausages – the latest investment takes its total raised to $33M.

The round was led by existing investors InvestEco, Creadev, and Grosvenor Food & AgTech, who returned for another bite. “We are expanding our sales force to accelerate our growth across segments,” founder and CEO Annie Ryu told Green Queen. “We are continuing to invest in product development and optimiation, for retail, foodservice, and industrial ingredients.”

She added: “As we continue to see consolidation across the plant-based and broader meat alternative industry, our company is now positioned for strong growth to continue to deliver the delicious foods consumers have come to love.”

The Jackfruit Company aims to solidify foothold

The Jackfruit Company, founded by CEO Annie Ryu in 2011, was set up as a way to help farmers in India find a market for the fruit. But it soon began developing its own meat alternatives, the idea being that the company could offer a product that’s naturally meaty and thus has shorter and cleaner ingredient lists.

“Consumers are seeking foods that help them eat healthier in order to live better and longer,” said Ryu. “There’s plenty of confusion in the food industry about what’s truly good for you, but we all know we should eat more fruits and vegetables. Whole-food options are foods consumers know they can trust as truly good for you.”

Under The Jackfruit Company banner, it offers seasoned ingredients like BBQ and Tex Mex, which is available in grocery stores like Whole Foods, but is geared towards foodservice and B2B clients more.

Ryu set up Jack & Annie’s in 2020 as a consumer-focused label, selling a wide range of pork, chicken and beef analogues, like tenders, patties, nuggets, sausages, meatballs, and shredded steak. The brand made its fast-casual debut earlier this year, with restaurant chain Smashburger (a fellow Colorado-based business) putting its jackfruit patty on its permanent menu at all 235 locations nationwide.

The products under both brands are available in more than 6,000 retail stores across the US and Canada. But vegan meat analogues have had a tough couple of years with constant sales declines.

“The initial expectations for how quickly meat eaters would adopt and embrace the category were overly optimistic,” suggested Ryu. “High trials did not lead to high repeat [purchases] because of consumer disappointment with the taste, nutrition, and ingredients/processing of some of the products in the category.

“These concerns collided with high inflation and flexitarian consumers trading down to lower-priced meat. The category needs to continue to improve in taste, nutrition, simplicity of ingredients/processing, and price (vs meat).”

Armed with the fresh funding, The Jackfruit Company will now look to strengthen its foothold as one of the long-standing plant-based meat brands on the market. But the raise also comes amid an investment slump in plant-based food (which fell by 24% last year, a slide that has continued in 2024).

“Our investors see us as a leader in the future of the category – a category that will return to major growth,” Ryu said when asked what kept investors interested in her company. “Jackfruit is nature’s meatiest plant – a natural and unique solution to the demand drivers for plant-based meat, without the dissatisfiers that drove some consumers away. In a category that’s been struggling, we’re a bright spot of growth and opportunity.

Reaping jackfruit’s fibre-packed benefits

While jackfruit doesn’t boast the same high protein content that most meat analogues do, the true nutritional benefit of the ingredient comes with the fibre content. Americans, like people in most wealthy countries, eat too much protein, but are not eating enough fibre.

In fact, only 5% of adults in the US meet the daily requirement of fibre intake, with the average American consuming half the recommended amount. This is despite the link between fibre-rich diets and lower risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, strokes, high cholesterol and heart disease (the leading cause of death in America).

Animal products, meanwhile, don’t contain any fibre, accentuating this deficiency. The nutrient is becoming increasingly important in the US, where GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic have climbed into mainstream consciousness – 30 million Americans have already tried these medications.

These drugs work by replicating incretin, a natural hormone found in our bodies that boosts GLP-1 to help regulate blood sugar, fulfil the appetite, and manage weight and metabolism. In our bodies, incretin is naturally regulated by dietary fibre.

It’s why the two nutrients Americans are most interested in consuming this year are protein (71%) and fibre (64%), according to a 3,000-person survey a few months ago. And since more than nine in 10 consumers are getting these nutrients from food products (instead of beverages or supplements), The Jackfruit Company’s products fit right into current dietary habits.

The business is now looking to team up with brands and manufacturers to develop new products in categories such as dumplings, sandwiches, frozen entrees, and tacos, Ryu told Axios.

“We are currently starting to see major headwinds for the category subside. We’re expanding our distribution and getting more items on shelves in the retail channel, while rapidly gaining acceptance in the foodservice channel as the real food solution in plant-based meat,” she told Green Queen.

“There is growing interest in jackfruit as nature’s meatiest plant and a natural way to help people eat more plants by delivering the taste, texture, and nutrition they seek. We’re excited to leverage our globally leading jackfruit supply chain to provide partners with high-quality jackfruit ingredients.”

The jackfruit market is set to reach $450B by the end of the decade, where The Jackfruit Company is joined by fellow innovators Karana (Singapore), Jack & Bry (UK), Upton’s Naturals (US), and Fiber Foods (Uganda), among others.