Sunfed plant-based meat business shutting down
New Zealand plant-based “meat” business Sunfed’s chief executive and founder Sukul Lee says she is in the process of shutting it down.
The business has been running since 2015, aiming to provide meat alternatives.
The products are sold in New Zealand and Australia.
But Lee posted a video to the business Facebook page on Monday saying the inventory was now being run down and the stock was no longer available in Woolworths Australia.
In New Zealand, remaining stock would run out in two months, she said.
She said the business had not been able to move to a position where it had a positive cashflow. The pandemic had put the business under pressure due to staff shortages, supply chain problems and skyrocketing costs, and the business was “very lean for far too long”, she said.
Venture capital investors who had backed the business through its growth and development had started to pull back, she said.
New capital, was harder to get post-Covid and existing venture capital investors were no longer interested in supporting the business to the same extent, she said.
Lee said some investors had jumped into a “plant-based gold rush” thinking they would see valuations increase quickly.
But the physical world of a food business was a longer-term play, she said.
She said the “plant-based bubble” had now burst and the category was “undergoing a reality check”.
“With unfavourable market conditions, I have had to make the decision to shut the company down in a solvent, orderly fashion. It’;s been a decade-long journey in starting, building and now closing Sunfed. I’m humbled by it and grateful for it.”