Greenwise

The technological process of turning plants into meat looks quite simple: isolate and flour are placed in the extruder, the raw materials are mixed, kneaded and heated. At the exit of the extruder, the protein has the form of a fibrous ribbon with a structure similar to meat, the ribbon is chopped, oil, spices and a vegan flavor blend are added, then dried — this is how jerks are obtained. The technology of minced meat preparation is also similar: the vegetable texture is crushed into small pieces in a special apparatus, a stabilization system, vegetable oil, vegan flavoring and natural dye are added.

In the spring of 2018, the founders of Greenwise came to the largest exhibition of vegetarian food Vegan Life Live in Manchester. About 15 types of snacks with different tastes were brought in suitcases, and specialists and visitors were given a taste.

"As a result, we were told: cool," recalls Artem Ponomarev. - But the brand and packaging raised questions, this is understandable, its first version cost us only 100,000 rubles."

In December 2019, they also came to the Food Ingredients exhibition in Frankfurt am Main with the old packaging, but the product itself played a role here. At the exhibition, Marcel and Ponomarev met Albrecht Wolfmeyer, one of the leaders of the international organization ProVeg International, which promotes plant nutrition worldwide. "He was sitting at lunch. We ran up to him with suitcases and shouted that we were Russians, we were making vegetable meat. And we poured our jerks into his salad. Surprisingly, he chewed and said he liked it," says Marcel.

It turned out that Wolfmeyer also heads the ProVeg business incubator, which supports startups in the field of plant-based food production. A couple of days later, he invited his partners to the ProVeg office in Berlin for a presentation, following which Greenwise received support from the business incubator. "We didn't get money, but knowledge," says Marcel. According to her, the main thing in working with ProVeg was not financing, but acquiring experience and expertise from leading European and American players in the market of alternative proteins.

The production lines are designed to produce 20 tons of products per month (150,000 cutlets), while about 5 tons are produced. The company expects to reach its maximum capacity already in the second quarter of 2021. Last summer, Efko, the manufacturer of Sloboda mayonnaise, announced an investment of 100 million rubles in the production of vegetable-based burger patties. The product was developed on the basis of the Biryuch-NT center, which is part of Efko, where the protein was created on the basis of soy. The capacity of the pilot line is 500 kg per month. According to Andrey Zyuzin, CEO of Efko Innovations, the products were tasted in public catering (for example, in Subway and Dodo Pizza), and "consumer interest in the product was high." Now it can be bought in 10 non-chain retail stores in Moscow and the region, the cost is about 1000 rubles per kilogram.