Marc Coloma Heura Foods solves global environmental problems - "Vegetable meat and alternative proteins are a Swiss army knife to solve global environmental problems", according to Marc Coloma, CEO of Heura Foods.

Vegetable meat has unleashed a great furor in the markets in recent years, arouses increasing interest from consumers and occupies a greater gap in the shelves of supermarkets. In Spain, its greatest exponent is Heura Foods, the Barcelona startup of vegan alternatives to meat that is already present in 16 countries.

Its alternatives to chicken or beef are already on the shelves of large surfaces such as El Corte Inglés, Carrefour or Alcampo. In 2020, they tripled the turnover of the previous year, reaching 8 million euros. The two co-founders of the startup come from activism and their commitment has become a project that continues to grow.

At a time when the foodtech sector exhibits a great muscle and increasingly monopolizes interest from accelerators or investors, Heura just lifted last June a round of funding of 16 million euros, led by Impact Fooding. They have also relied on the vegetable meat company Unovis, Lever VC, Capital V and Green Monday.

Marc Coloma, CEO of Heura, participated in the recent XVII Smart Business Meeting that took place on July 14th. Organized, it analyzed under the title Present and future of the food and beverage industry which are the most important challenges of the sector.

Marc Coloma Heura Foods solves global environmental problems

With the recent controversy regarding the consumption of meat, Coloma urged not to ridicule the scientific evidence (both WHO and FAO or the panel of experts of the UN climate urge to reduce meat consumption and increase plant-based foods) and take advantage of the opportunities provided by the transition protein to a new food model.

"Vegetable meat and alternative proteins are a Swiss army knife to solve global environmental problems and also take animals into account."

The CEO offers a message of hope: "There is a great opportunity to add value to new raw materials that are going to need a new supply chain. Today only 9% of meat is plant-based and studies say that in the future it will be 60%." This is reflected in forecasts such as the recent Food Trends report.

Marc Coloma Heura Foods solves global environmental problems

Another study carried out by the consultancy Polaris Market Research, based in New York, reveals that in 2027 vegetable meat will move 29,000 million euros in the international market: until that year, this type of products will grow at an annual rate of 15.8%.

Since the startup, which already produces replicas of chicken and beef plant and will soon launch its portrait of pig, speak of transition protein and believe that Spain can lead this market, since numerous studies estimate that 60% of the protein in 2040 will not proceed animals: "There is a great opportunity for raw materials that they will need a supply chain new".

"Instead of investing in animal farms that have increasingly declining consumption in Europe and are more dependent on exports, we need to start investing in the protein transition."

Marc Coloma Heura Foods solves global environmental problems

Some of the challenges Heura sets are to achieve parity in prices for animal meat by 2030 (something they already aspire to achieve by 2025 in one of their verticals), to reach a wider sector of the population and to be equal in value to the meat industry sector. "There will be taxes on meat in the next decade," he anticipates.

The startup also looks with ambition to the United Kingdom, which with a market share that is equivalent to that of the rest of Europe. "We do not want to democratize but to universalize," he points out.

"There are many challenges of texture, taste, color, umami, experience, fat or juiciness that are going to improve a lot in the coming years," says the CEO of Heura. "Vegetable meat must be healthier, tastier and more economically accessible," he says, listing the main challenges.

Marc Coloma Heura Foods solves global environmental problems

"It is very difficult to make livestock more efficient but, going to plant raw materials, it is possible to improve the equation." So much so that Marc Coloma anticipates that, by the middle of the century, animals will be "an obsolete part of the supply chain". In his opinion, "in 2040, most of the protein will not come from animals because it is impossible. The current model is not sustainable."

Heura also has unconventional metrics to assess the true environmental success of its products: in 2020 alone, its products have saved almost half a million animals, in addition to reducing the consumption of more than 3,000 million liters of water, the equivalent of more than 50 million showers.