A Strategy To “Future-Proof” Some Of Our Favorite Foods

For most of us in the developed world, food and beverages aren’t just about basic nutrition and hydration. They often play a key role in family and community gatherings. They also provide us with enjoyable “organoleptic experiences” – the fancy word for the flavor, aroma, mouth-feel, and energy we enjoy when consuming them. We shouldn’t, however, take our favorite pleasures for granted. For several key crops, climate change could compromise supply and/or quality. There are also crops for which there are social justice concerns with regard to the way they are produced – particularly if that is in the developing world. And then there are foods for which some people have severe allergy issues and the de-risking complications/limitations that can create.

There is a food technology start-up called Voyage Foods that is working to address some of these issues, or as they put it, “future-proofing” some of our favorite foods starting with peanut butter, chocolate, and coffee. The company does this by developing products that provide a very similar and desirable eating experience but are made with different crops that aren’t constrained by global environmental issues. The logic is a bit different for each product line:

Voyage’s first product, which has been on the market since June of 2022, is a nut-free spread made up of sunflower (kernels and oil) and grapeseed that is an alternative to traditional peanut butter. That is obviously useful for people with that common allergy. The Peanut-Free Spread is also something that can be used by schools or other entities that want to de-risk what they are offering to everyone by using a peanut-free replacement.

In the near future, Voyage Foods will be selling a bean-free cold brew complete with a caffeine kick. With Bean-Free Coffee Voyage Foods addresses that it is getting harder and harder to produce high quality coffee beans as climate change drives that crop to higher and higher elevations to find the right growing conditions. The goal isn’t to replace the traditional crop, but to make it more resource-efficient, sustainable, climate-proof, and cost-effective.

The other near-launch product is a cocoa-free chocolate ingredient. In this case there is also a climate change issue for production, but there are also forced labor and other social issues associated with some production regions for cacao. While the latter can be dealt with through a Free Trade certification program (For instance Fair Trade America), and Voyage Foods is fully supportive of that market segment, the company’s goal is more about keeping chocolate an affordable option in the face of rising global demand.

Founded by Adam Maxwell, Voyage Foods launched two years ago with $6MM of venture funding and raised another $36MM in May of 2022. They have a 25 thousand square foot facility in Oakland, California for research and processing. In addition to DTC distribution, the Peanut-Free Spread is now available at retail and is also finding a fit for schools, restaurants, and other settings where it is prudent to avoid the allergy risk. (The Peanut-Free spread is currently available at Sprouts Farmers Market, Fairway Market, Gourmet Garage and Mar-Val Food Stores). The coffee and chocolate alternatives will be supplied as ingredients to large-scale global food manufacturers. For instance, the Bean-Free Coffee might be an option at a shop or restaurant setting. The chocolate could be used as something like a chip in a granola bar, a coating on a cookie or pretzel.

One might wonder how it is possible for Voyage Foods to replicate the many desirable characteristics of peanut butter, coffee, and chocolate without using the traditional crops in the recipe. Instead, they start with options like sunflower seed meal, various legumes and grape seeds – carefully avoiding anything in the Big 9 allergen list set by the FDA. (As many as 85 million Americans regularly avoid buying foods with ingredients on that list). Grape seed is an interesting example of up-cycling a typically unused sidestream. Getting from these starting materials to familiar tasting products comes down to the details of how they are processed – something guided by sophisticated food science, analytical methods, and internal sensory tests that helped develop the flavor profiles of the products.

Processed foods are often criticized as a negative feature of the modern food supply, but not all “processing” deserves that critique. In fact, processing has always been key to the creation of these three products. Peanuts are blanched, roasted, put through a two-step grinding process, and mixed with oil, sweetener, yeast and vitamin-C to make the spread we are all used to. Chocolate has always been made through a variety of elaborate processes that combine multiple ingredients. The cacao beans themselves have to be removed from a pod, fermented, roasted, and ground. The special “mouth feel” of chocolate products is achieved by using fats/oils that melt at mouth temperature, and that is a key part of the experience. Different types and amounts of sweeteners are also included depending on the style of chocolate. Coffee has also always been made through complex processing steps. The berries must be fermented, the seed covering removed, and the bean roasted in one of many different ways, just to get the desired flavor profile. The same important flavor and aroma notes can be generated from other starting materials. For the Voyage Foods version, the caffeine is added as an optional ingredient.

Voyage Foods fully recognizes the importance of traditional crops for the economies in places they are grown, and that is why the Voyage vision is not to replace the traditional source crops, but to diversify the supplies to “democratize” and “future-proof” these favorite foods and beverages. They have made a conscious business decision to find ways to generate a robust supply for the masses by sourcing cost-effective, diverse ingredients. That way they can offer these alternatives to favorite foods at an accessible price for businesses, food manufacturers and consumers.