New Zealand’s Sustainable Foods, Maker of Hemp-Based Plan*t Meats, Files for Administration

New Zealand plant-based meat company Sustainable Foods, which makes the Plan*t line of hemp-based meats, has gone into voluntary administration.

Sustainable Foods, the parent company of vegan meat analogue brand Plan*t, has entered voluntary administration, citing harsh market conditions.

The company’s directors had appointed administrators on Friday after it struggled to raise capital, CEO Justin Lemmens confirmed to the New Zealand Herald. It planned to raise NZ$500,000 to NZ$1M ($310,000-620,000) to allow it to continue trading in 2025.

Sustainable Foods had been “caught in a perfect storm”, he told the newspaper, explaining that consumer and retailer interest cooled in the face of a tough economic environment, just as the manufacturer was investing to develop a new product.

A thwarted expansion followed by funding success

Founded in 2018 by Lemmens and Kyran Rei, Sustainable Foods came to prominence via a line of hemp-based meats in partnership with The Craft Meat Co, which it acquired in early 2020. This was rebranded to Plan*t in 2021, with Lemmens calling the asterisk a “versatile” symbol depicting the company’s nutrition, sustainability, origins in New Zealand, and use of novel proteins.

The brand initially came to market with a range of hemp-based Chick*n, before diversifying into burgers, sausages and minced meats. These high-protein products leveraged hemp’s sustainability and health credentials (it’s linked to cardiovascular, neurological and anti-inflammatory benefits).

But while Sustainable Foods aimed to expand into Australia and Asia by the end of 2021, this move was stalled due to challenging market conditions, and Plan*t’s footprint still remains within New Zealand.

To overcome these challenges, the company raised NZ$2.15M in a crowdfunding campaign in April 2022 (about $1.5M at the time), with investors including ruby union player TJ Perenara and media company Stuff. Following the investment, the company highlighted its aim to grow its turnover from NZ$1.5M in the year ending March 2022 to NZ$20.6M by 2025.

Two months later, it netted a further NZ$1.25M as a loan from the New Zealand Government’s Regional Strategic Partnership Fund to boost its operations. The funds were earmarked “to purchase and install additional manufacturing equipment/machinery to enable the scale-up in production capacity at the Sustainable Foods facility”.

Relocation and cost-of-living pressures hurt Sustainable Foods

In January, Sustainable Foods relocated its headquarters from the coastal district of Kāpiti in Wellington to the town of Ashburton in Canterbury. The idea was to be closer to its hemp suppliers, with a new 1,400 sq ft established to produce its meat analogues.

But according to the NZ Herald, the move was a challenge for the company, and coincided with low supermarket sales due to stocking issues.

The company used a high-moisture extruder – the only commercial machine of its kind in the country – for its hemp protein products, but this was too expensive and hindered Sustainable Foods’ ability to scale up, further hurting its financial health.

Lemmens said the cost-of-living crisis has forced supermarkets to focus on high-volume meat products to maintain consumer footfall, and these have crowded out the shelf space its Plan*t meats could have filled.

The company, which employs over 60 staff and had an annualised revenue of NZ$2.4M, now expects the first report from administrators at PwC soon. “Sustainable Foods will continue to trade while working through possible restructure solutions alongside other options,” Lemmens told the NZ Herald.

The development comes months after fellow New Zealand plant-based brand Sunfed Meats shut down under similar circumstances: supply chain pressure, high costs, and a loss of faith from investors.

Sustainable Foods did not immediately respond to a request for comment.