Young entrepreneur’s growing vegan business
A young Southland entrepreneur wants to make her ready-made vegan meal products available nationwide.
Britteny Bryan started the Christchurch-based business Berkano Foods Limited with her partner Nick Harlow, and she believes it is the first ready-made vegan meal service to ship its products nationwide.
The 23-year-old, who was born in Invercargill, is hoping secure a distribution deal with Foodstuffs, which may result in her products being distributed throughout the South Island New World supermarkets.
The idea for the business started when Bryan become vegan and realised the difficulties of the diet.
‘‘When I started becoming a vegan I realised there were no meal services and I didn’t know what to cook.’’
When Bryan had the idea of starting her business, she was three years into a five-year engineering degree at the University of Canterbury.
Unable to take a gap year she dropped out of university to chase her business aspirations.
It took another seven months to gain the required licenses to distribute her products.
‘‘I came from a university background
‘‘I want to make our company the household name in the vegan market the same as what Watties is to tomato sauce.’’ Britteny Bryan, Berkano Foods
where everything is structured, so it was a real learning curve to start a business with no experience,’’ Bryan said
Initially they only made eight orders a week before the couple taught themselves how to market the product and now receive 50 orders a week.
‘‘I want to make our company the household name in the vegan market the same as what Watties is to tomato sauce.’’