How Sweden’s Sproud makes the world green one split pea at a time
Harvested and processed in late summer in Canada and France, the humble pea can be a critical key to alleviating several coherent global challenges, from human chronic disease to animal welfare, from depletion of soil and water to greenhouse gas emissions involved in climate change.
The Swedish alternative dairy start Sproud has planted the seed for that idea since 2017, when it was first conceived and founded by Maria Tegman, former CEO, now Global Marketing Director.
Sproud was born and raised in Malmö in southern Sweden, a progressive city where many food, health and lifestyle trends begin (it is the birthplace and home of the oatmeal pioneer) Oatly).
After a strong start, Sproud recently entered a new phase of significant growth, with the goal of reaching SEK 500 million (almost $ 58 million) in revenue within three years. It’s well on its way, with London – based VGC Partners invested $ 6.6 million in early 2021. The venture capitalist specializes in next-generation food and beverage brands, with portfolio companies including JUST, the plant-based alternative to eggs, and Ugly Drinks, a zero-sugar sparkling water producer. and energy drinks.
How does a relatively small company sell $ 58 million of a dairy alternative? Sproud’s 17 employees, spread among teams in Malmö, the USA and the UK, think no less, says Tegman, “than imitating cow’s milk” with their “milk” made from protein powder extracted from legumes, “so the consistency, taste and actually the ingredients mimic real cow’s milk … the closest taste to real cow’s milk, but it is also both healthy and sustainable. ”
Milking of life experience
Tegman grew up on a farm. Always interested in “digging into people’s refrigerators and seeing how people eat, what we consume and how we live”, she tells We First, she took a degree in marketing and then went to work for Orkla Foods Sweden, The Nordic region’s largest food company.
What she envisioned as a two-year stint to design and launch products became a 16-year period of working with the household brands in Orkla’s portfolio. “You learn a lot from selling ketchup,” she says.
A turning point for Tegman’s time at Orkla was to innovate products in Paulún’s range of health foods, which Orkla acquired in 2004, which attracted Tegman to the plant-based space. She realized, she says, “This movement will happen so fast that the giants are not ready.”
At that time, many young influencers in Sweden became vegan, and more and more plant-based products came to market – most focused their innovation and marketing on taste, Tegman remembers. “They did not talk about specific ingredients but tried to make indulgent products. And it really fascinated me. ”
Research Tegman says “showed that we in Sweden have a 40 percent LOHAS [Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability population], when the rest of the world is around 20. ”There was an obvious blue sea for innovative herbal products.
But the last part of Sproud’s origin story did not happen until Tegman’s serendipitous discovery of Ripple Foods. The medium-sized company in San Francisco, whose shelf-stable milk alternative to pea protein turned the dairy industry around in the same way that its founder, Adam Lowry, disrupted the cleaning products category with his former company, Method, who had already caught Tegman’s eye, along with other junkies like Thrive Market.
With the advent of a portmanteau name (“Proud” + “Sprout”), Sproud was born, with some provocative taglines: “*** K, THAT’S MADE OF PEAS!” “*** K, IT’S HEALTH!” and “*** K, IT’S SUSTAINABLE!”
Today, Sproud’s is 100 percent vegan plant protein; zero sugar; lactose, nut and gluten free; low calorie; and low glycemic products are available in North America and Europe from major retailers such as Target, Sprouts, Meijer, Harmons, Safeway, Foodland, Sobeys (CN), Waitrose (UK), Amazon and Whole Foods Market.
Have milk? Where from?
More than a quarter of a billion dairy cows satisfy humanity 10,000-year-old thirst for non-human milk – and in various ways degrade the environment. Their famous flatulence and their extensive manure produce greenhouse gas emissions that have been shown to contribute significantly to climate distress. Careless handling of waste and fertilizers can damage local water resources. “And unsustainable milk cultivation and feed production can lead to the loss of ecologically important areas, such as prairies, wetlands and forests, ”according to the World Wildlife Foundation.
And none of this is to mention the connections between cows milk consumption and many chronic health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, certain cancers, even for those who are not lactose intolerant. “If she’s not your mother – it’s not your milk, “Goes the PETA slogan.
The pea, on the other hand, has no known significant disadvantage. Tegman describes it as “one of the oldest vegan proteins. It has been used so much, but no one really sees it as a hero. ”
Tegman studies all the benefits of pea-based dairy in health (5x more protein than almond milk, 3x more than oat milk, etc.) and sustainability (80 percent less water consumption than almond milk, 75 percent lower carbon footprint than milk). realized early “This must be the third generation of proteins,” she says. “This is the protein of the future.”
Sproud’s challenge from the beginning was whether to lead with the product’s new ingredient and neutral taste – or its ESG and sustainability message. “I think we did both,” says Tegman. “First and foremost, to create a brand with a strong purpose to drive change for good – really good – just by creating the brand. Then it must be a protein and it must be an ingredient that can really stand up now and can still stand up in five years. ”
When it comes to the sustainability message, says Tegman, “I think there will be so much we can talk about. There will be so many stories. “Like” how much the world could change if we all started growing more peas … Food accounts for a third of [our carbon] footprints in the world, so food is so important to us [revolutionize]. ”
Like its pulse cousin, the lentil “Pea,” says Tegman, “is actually a regenerating seed.” the rebuilds soil and separates carbon. Sproud’s process uses much less water than is required for almonds, and less soil than oats or soy, “making peas a much more sustainable ingredient.”
Plus, “You will not find us in the refrigerator section of your grocery store,” the company boasts, “further reducing our carbon footprint by 30 percent.”
“But my first need,” says Tegman, “in the early stages of the funnel … is to convince consumers to try a milk that is not made from soy. It is not made from oats.” It is made from a different protein. “
Milk train
In its marketing-more similar to “motion-creating” -Sproud, as well as all disruptive Lead with us business, do not go alone. Instead, it exploits partners from its communities, internal and external, from its supply chain companies to its consumers, who all become ambassadors for the brand in ways that traditional advertising dollars cannot buy.
“Partners are a really important factor,” says Tegman. “We know we are superior in taste.” But it is not enough for company executives to claim that. “We work a lot with the professional sector, so many baristas, chefs, bakers, etc., who are really a credible name in this sector and can really stand up and say that they really love our products. That’s how I build this brand, she says.
“We work with places where people go and have a coffee and are really open to trying a new alternative. I think one of the biggest successes has been to put the brand on the market in small cafes, with famous baristas, and also hotel and coffee chains that you can find all over Sweden, all over the UK or all over the US, where you sit down and have a really nice experience when you try the brand for the first time. ”
The company also sends out samples to vegan chefs and other influencers. “We do a lot of sampling, [especially] because COVID came and we could not go out to the cafes, we could not work with baristas, says Tegman. “We find profiles or people who do purpose-driven things and believe in the plant-based change” and collaborate with them.
“There have been some countries in Europe where we started with our feet on the streets, with people who went out there, told our story, got people to try it – and that’s really where we have [had] the fastest and best success. ”
Responses to all of these tasting initiatives, according to Tegman, have exceeded Sproud’s early expectations. The company hears “every day about how amazing this tastes and how much they liked the product”, she says.
A protein-rich movement
Tegman suggests three ways to fortify yours Lead with us thinking to bring progress to your business:
- Build a strong corporate culture. “It’s all about the people. I left the top position at Orkla with a fantastic future salary, etc. And all that. I think I had such a desire to do something more, work on something I really believed in and really take my 16 years of marketing and turn them into something that can [make] a bit of a change in the world. And I think if you look into my business today, all these people, they have passion, they share the same thoughts. And you know this by listening to so many leaders who create big brands, big companies – that right now it’s about how we build culture internally, how we really believe in each other, how we think we can change. It’s a really good feeling when you go to the office every day [and find] a bunch of believers. You must have this extra passion and you love both your colleagues and the product – then anything is possible. Then you can move mountains. So it’s all about culture. A fantastic product, a hero product together with a good culture, [and] this brand will be invasive. ”
- Think more circularly and more locally at the same time. Such as investing in or collaborating with the regenerative agricultural space. “I would say that [our society will become even] more circular. We will think so much more about how we put together our meals and what we sell and what we buy in our grocery stores. I think we will go back, be so much more inspired by the seasons and what the country we live in can give us. Of course, we will still import and export things, but if we do not want to get into the horrible fact that food is so expensive, we need to think more about what we have close to ourselves. ”
- Accentuate the positive & do not base the competition. “For me, it’s not me who believes in building Sproud by throwing bad things at the cow’s milk industry. That’s not what I’m going to do. I want to talk about pros about Sproud. “For example, that pea protein is ideal for people with allergies (lactose, soy, wheat, eggs, etc.) and in general easier to digest than dairy and its other alternatives.
As in the story of Hans Christian Andersen, “The Princess and the Pea”, a small pea can make a big difference in the world if you happen to be genuine, passionate and committed to changing the world for the better.
If you want to dive deeper with more purposeful companies like Sproud, check out the podcast Lead with We here, so that you too can build a business that changes consumer behavior and our future.