San Marcos-based Plantible Foods has no need to put all of its proverbial eggs in one basket.
Plantible has perfected the breakthrough use of the sustainable plant protein called RuBisCO, a fat-binding and oil-holding ingredient that replaces eggs in vegan commercial food products.
Now available to commercial bakers, the ingredient Plantible trademarked as Rubi Whisk was developed from its also trademarked Rubi Protein RuBisCO powder, which its co-founders say is the earth’s most nutritionally complete plant-based protein. Rubi Whisk will allow companies to create goods that require binding, structure and moisture retention — including breads, donuts, cookies, cakes, pastries and pastas – to be free from eggs and gluten.
After years of research and development in San Marcos and an expanded site in Vista, Plantible has grown and now has capacity to produce and ship hundreds of metric tons of Rubi Whisk to global customers.
Co-Founder & CEO
Plantible Foods
The company, which counts Kellogg’s among its investors, will initially showcase RuBisCO protein in its trademarked Plantible’s protein solutions through New York-based bakery Sweet Maresa’s. The company will sell macarons with Plantible’s ingredients this summer.
“For too long, consumers have had to make trade-offs when choosing plant-based or gluten-free foods, compromising on taste and texture and often settling for less delicious and nutritious products,” said Tony Martens Fekini, co-founder and CEO of Plantible Foods, which is seeking to reshape the world’s food supply chain with a vertically integrated agricultural platform.
He said unlike nearly every other market, food and agriculture seem to be largely the same as it has been for thousands of years. The time is ripe for some disruption of the status quo, and to open the doors to mainstream adoption of sustainable, nutrition-dense and allergen-free foods.
He said “the egg industry is a $60 billion market with sustainability issues” that has been challenged with avian flu outbreaks and regulatory pushes of legislation forcing companies to keep their egg-laying chickens cage-free, with many unable to provide proper infrastructure. All of that also increases the volatility of the egg industry, including the quality and price.
“We see a huge opportunity for being a viable replacement without forcing any compromising,” he said.
A 2021 report by Boston Consulting Group and Blue Horizon predicts that the market for alternative proteins will reach $290 billion by 2035. This includes plant-based substitutes for meat, eggs, dairy, and seafood. The market is expected to occupy 11% of the global protein market by 2035.
RuBisCO is short for Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase, a plant protein stored in all green leaves that is responsible for the process of photosynthesis. It is an enzyme that catalyzes the first major step of carbon fixation and contains all nine essential amino acids.
Plantible develops its Rubi Protein RuBisCO into a powder that is neutral in taste, odor and color, while maintaining its integrity as a complete protein containing the nine amino acids.
Fekini and co-founder Maurits van de Ven moved from The Netherlands to the United States in 2017, leaving behind careers in agriculture commodity trading (Fekini) and investment banking (van de Ven) to start looking into how to best grow, harvest and extract RuBiscO protein from the highly-sustainable Lemna plant, also known as duckweed.
Fekini said Lemna is one of the most protein-efficient crops in the world, requiring 10 times less water per kilogram of protein than soy. Grown in a controlled environment, it doubles in mass every 48 to 72 hours, enabling a consistent daily harvest throughout the year.
Originally landing in Chicago at a water recycling plant, the two learned about a deserted tomato greenhouse in San Marcos that would suit their needs for production. They headed west, set up shop on two acres of land and in 2018 the pair launched Plantible.
During their research and development over the next year, they raised a seed round with some angel investors and Unshackled Ventures, which backs immigrant business founders, and in 2020 during the pandemic, built a second site in Vista.
After raising a $21.5 million Series A round of funding in 2021 led by Astanor Ventures, Plantible Foods began leasing a 140-acre aquafarm and production facility in Eldorado, Texas, where it now continues to scale its plant-forward, allergen-free highly functional protein.
“It’s been a crazy journey for these two Dutch guys,” Fekini said. “It’s been a phenomenal ride so far to commercialize, to do R&D. And we’re still in our early days with a long journey ahead.”
He said that the ingredient’s applications go beyond baking, that Plantible’s solutions will have myriad applications across meat and dairy alternatives, sports foods and for bettering adult nutrition.
Fekini said the company is focused on being part of a “toolkit that will enable companies to move to greener, cleaner food system.”
[Correction:] A previous version of this article listed stated Plantible “counts Kellogg’s among its partners.” It has been corrected to reflect that Kellogg’s is an investor in the company. Also, the previous version stated that Sweet Maresa’s will be using Platible’s Rubi Whisk. The artcile has been updated to say Sweet Maresa’s will be using Plantible’s protein solutions.
Plantible Foods
FOUNDED: 2018
FOUNDERS: Tony Martens Fekini and Maurits van de Ven
CEO: Tony Martens Fekini
HEADQUARTERS: San Marcos
BUSINESS: Food ingredients company
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 63
WEBSITE: plantiblefoods.com
CONTACT: info@plantiblefoods.com
SOCIAL IMPACT: Plantible is working on solving what co-founder Tony Martens Fekini says “the greatest humanitarian and environmental challenge faced today” — sustainably nourishing the world’s growing population
NOTABLE: Plantible Foods has made commercially available its first product Rubi Whisk, which can be used commercially to replace eggs and improve gluten-free products.
