‘Butter’ made from coconuts
Vegan butter company Herbivore is spreading itself internationally. Entrepreneur Craig Brown explains how he plans to take New Zealand – and the world’s – vegan products market by storm. Brown, who has a background in tech, says breaking into the food business and supermarkets has been an eye-opening journey.
What has your venture set out to achieve?
I sold my tech business in 2018 and the buyers of that business took myself and my family over to the UK, where we were based for quite some time. While living and working over there I absolutely loved going to English pubs, but one of the things I didn’t like was the food.
I believe English pubs do average food incredibly well so I started looking at other food alternatives, and that’s where I started eating vegan. I started eating it because it was a lot lighter and fresher than the stodgy old Guinness pies. That started me down a rabbit hole and my family and I started experimenting. This interest in vegan food got me going to the supermarket and markets looking at different vegan food, and my thoughts were there were all sorts of food out there that was bloody rubbish but they had put a vegan label on it and try to charge a heck of a lot of money.
I own a farm, know what it costs to grow grass and to milk cows, and I couldn’t get over why vegan food was so expensive so that started my commercial brain. I’ve always been interested in the environment and what we can do for climate change, and I started looking at the potential of taking the bovine out of the butter and what I could replace that with that would be advantageous for the environment. We settled on coconut oil because it is a wonderful plant that sequests its carbon. It grows on marginal land and doesn’t require herbicides or insecticides, or much water – and the plenty of health benefits associated with coconuts.
We returned home for the Covid-19 pandemic – got back about six days before lockdown – and then we moved back to the Bay of Plenty. During lockdown I started looking for partners that we could work with to create Herbivore and partnered with a Filipino firm. We officially launched in 2021 in food service, and continued trialling it and getting the taste and texture right. In 2022 we came up with the version we have now and introduced our retail product in August last year.
How much time and money have you invested?
We started in 2020 and this has been very consuming ever since. We’ve invested significant money to date – high six figures, and will need to continue to invest over the next few years.
What’s the opportunity for your business?
We’re still very much at the start of our journey, producing about 10 tonne of our butter a month, and a large percentage of that is going to bakeries. We won the Foodstuffs Emerge Award last year after being in store less than six weeks, and now we’re in over 150 New World and Pak’nSave stores, which has been nice fast growth for us. We are exporting to China and close to doing the same in Singapore and Thailand.
I believe that Herbivore has its place in every kitchen Herbivore is plant-based, however, 90% of our customers are not vegan, they just love it for the taste and it enhances some dishes. For me this is great as we are achieving our goal of delivering a world-class butter that is significantly better for the environment.
What’s next for Herbivore?
My immediate goals are 100 tonne per month, and we won’t get that out of New Zealand so we are looking further afield.
One of my colleagues has just got back from America and we managed to be selected to present to a very large group over there, and we’re progressing to the next stage with them, so that’s really exciting. We want to make sure we do everything right in New Zealand; learn our lessons in our home market and then take it to many more countries.
In three years’ time you will be ...
We’d love to be in the US and Britain, and Europe always looks appealing too.
What’s one thing you wish you’d known before starting the business?
The complexity around distribution. I’ve never worked in the food game before, and the complexity around distribution is something that has taken a while to understand. There is so much jargon; once you spend a couple of years in there it all makes sense, but I tell you at the start it was like a foreign language.
What’s your business background?
I’ve had a few successful businesses, but this is my first time in food. I said to my wife once we sold our B2B software business AutoPlay I would retire, and if I was to get involved in another business it would have to be something that was doing something significantly good for the planet.
Most helpful piece of advice you have ever received?
Get up in the morning and go as hard and as fast as you can until the end of the day, and then push repeat. Read these two books: Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point and Jim Collins Good to Great. Malcolm will help you build your business to a tipping point, and Jim will teach you how to maintain a great business. The Small Business Project is a weekly series that shines the spotlight on Kiwi small businesses doing interesting and unusual things in their industries. If you would like your business to feature in The Small Business Project, email Aimee Shaw at aimee.shaw@stuff.co.nz