According to the Washington, D.C. based Good Food Institute, the plant-based food market grew an impressive 17% last year and has become a $3.7 billion market in the U.S. alone. While this is currently a small fraction of the food market, it is likely to sustain rapid growth in the future for several reasons. These include increased concerns about the sustainability of the food supply and the desire of many consumers to cut down on meat consumption. Additionally, innovation into more product types (e.g., meat, milk, cheese, snacks) and improvements in the taste of the products bode well for these products.
Against this backdrop, Michelle Adelman, CEO of Accite Holdings, a boutique investment firm is leading a charge to bring technology-led, sustainable agriculture and food projects to Africa and emerging markets. Accite’s goals are to spur economic diversification, create employment of youth and women, and use technology as a catalyst for change in the agriculture and food sectors in Africa, while making efforts to move toward the ultimate goal of fostering a nutritious and sustainable food supply while ultimately contributing to feeding the world.
Accite’s objectives may sound lofty, but Adelman, a Cornell graduate with years of global experience in management consulting at Accenture and as a top executive in a home health services start-up has already achieved a great deal in bringing sustainable food technology to southern Africa. Adelman founded Go Fresh!, a Botswana-based producer of locally grown Grade-1 nutrient-rich vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, herbs and leafy greens. The company uses cutting edge greenhouse and hydroponic technology that uses only 2% of the water that would normally be required to grow vegetables. The products are grown using an ISO manufacturing and food safety system to ensure quality. To date, Go Fresh! Has created 85 agricultural jobs with plans to create an additional 350 jobs.
Adelman stresses the importance of plant-based food being offered not just in the world's most economically developed countries, but everywhere, “The success of plant-based food (as one of many solutions we need to feed the world) is critical to us actually having a planet to still live on in 2050,” she says, “Our industrialized livestock system simply cannot keep up with demand without killing the planet in the process.” As a result, Accite and its companies are focused on creating a manufacturing capacity of plant-based food in Africa with African grown input crops as a key strategic goal.
While introducing higher-tech plant-based foods to Africa may sound counterintuitive, as Adelman notes, it actually makes perfect sense in a region where people are concerned about the food supply and its sustainability. She says, “We spend much of our time the U.S. talking about “transitioning back” from heavy animal protein and processed food diets to more natural, plant-based food. Africa is unique in that we have an opportunity to help consumers leapfrog from “no” food to healthy food, just like they leapfrogged from no phones to mobile phones.”
Accite also owns Crossover Meats, a maker of blended meats designed to provide sustainable and more affordable all-natural beef alternatives to global markets and promote regenerative farming. Because of exploding global demand for meat being driven by emerging markets, Adelman sees blended meats as an important component of ensuring a long-term food supply in concert with the shift to plant-based proteins.
Accite’s latest venture is Infinite Foods, which aims to be the leading distributor, licensor and manufacturer of plant-based protein products across Sub-Saharan Africa. The goal is to enable leading plant-based food brands from around the world, including leading brands in categories such as meat, milk, eggs, cheese and fish to enter the African continent more quickly while facing considerably less risk than entering on their own or dealing with a less seasoned partner.
As Africa already has 1 billion consumers and is growing at 2.25 times the rate of the rest of the world, it represents a substantial market for food. Moreover, with a growing middle class in several markets and increased tourism, the African market holds clear promise going forward. While counterintuitive to some in the economically developed West, many young consumers in emerging markets are very concerned about sustainability, another factor leaving plant-based protein products poised for global growth.
While promising, the African market can be challenging as it is unique in many respects. As such, a “safe pair of hands” with local market knowledge is needed to assist even an established brand in entering the market. As such, Infinite Foods unique nature, in that they have seasoned U.S. business executives who have lived and worked in Africa and understand both Western business ethics and African consumer ethos, provides a major advantage to firms starting to globalize in emerging markets.
Adelman notes that in African markets’ distribution is challenging as many still have an informal market system, refrigeration is less common and many consumers get paid and therefore buy food just once a month. Moreover, messages and marketing language need to localized, with local stories being desirable. Infinite Foods’ expertise and track record of getting into hospitality outlets and retailers in South Africa and Botswana creates a platform for entering Africa, and experience in the region allows them to share expertise on which of the continent’s 54 countries to enter based on the ability to overcome general barriers and issues related to infrastructure, currency, language, laws, economic climate and consumer behavior differences.
Indeed, plant-based food companies looking to enter Africa are well-advised to do business with Infinite Foods because of its local market expertise. As Adelman puts it:
“It may seem obvious, but Africa is not a single market, but 54 individual countries. Imagine if you had to roll out a product in the U.S. and each of the 50 states had their own culture, currency, language, history, borders, regulatory environment and economic foundations! Scale in each individual market is critical because you can’t move products seamlessly across country borders (say if you have an oversupply in one and undersupply in another) and it is very difficult to operate without a local country presence. African consumers also have unique histories and can be very nationalistic."
Infinite Foods has already secured relationships with the U.S. based Beyond Meat (burgers and sausage), French Emborg (cheese) and Swedish-based Oatly (milk) and is in discussions with several other best-in-class plant-based brands. The company’s experience, track record, and regional/local market expertise are highly impressive and dramatically reduces the risk for companies considering entering Africa. The focus of CEO Adelman and her team on both running a company effectively while focusing on food quality, safety and long-term sustainability of the food supply, as well as employment and youth is both admirable and impressive.
What Adelman and her team have already accomplished is truly remarkable and it looks like the best is yet to come.
