Eat Just closes financing round led by VegInvest/Ahimsa Foundation

Eat Just, Inc has announced it has closed a new round of financing led by VegInvest/Ahimsa Foundation, a mission-aligned organization that supports companies striving to replace the use of animals in the food system and other industries.

The fresh funding will enable the alternative protein leader, which created one of the USA's fastest-growing egg brands, made entirely of plants, and the world’s first-to-market meat, made from animal cells instead of slaughtered animals, to continue improving the quality and profitability of its products.

“We founded this company to take the animal out of the equation, and today, we’re proud to continue this vital work with an investor who has shown an unwavering commitment to this ideal. Our work is not easy and not certain, but it's what is required,” said Josh Tetrick, Eat Just Co-founder & CEO.

“Eat Just and its leadership in the industry play a critical part of building a kinder, safer food system. We're proud of this investment and the continued partnership to make products that consumers love without causing the harm inherent in animal agriculture,” added Shaleen Shah, President, Ahimsa Foundation.

VegInvest/Ahimsa Foundation is a pioneer in partnering with innovative companies like Eat Just to remove animals from our food system. VegInvest/Ahimsa Foundation’s initial investment and partnership enabled JUST Egg to move from lab-scale to commercial launch and grow to the point of selling the equivalent of 400 million eggs, saving more than 14 billion gallons of water, 69 million kilograms of CO2e and 21,000 acres of land.

JUST Egg is the dominant player in the plant-based egg space, accounting for more than 99% of the category, and brand’s repeat purchase rate remains strong at 51%. JUST Egg products are now available in more than 48,000 retail points of distribution in North America, including 4,000 new doors across major retailers year-to-date. Branded partnerships with other CPG companies have added an additional 10,000 points of retail distribution. Food-service sales for JUST Egg grew 15% and 39% in Q1 and Q2 of this year respectively, with major airline, coffee chain and college and university launches.

GOOD Meat, Eat Just’s cultivated meat division, received a landmark US regulatory approval this summer, which allowed the company’s chicken to be sold to American consumers for the first time in history. This builds on the firm’s first-in-the-world clearance and commercial sales in Singapore in late 2020. Now, the team is focusing on addressing key scale-up challenges with the goal of producing tens of millions of pounds of meat before the end of the decade.