Food’s Future Summit 2018 keynote speaker and JUST co-founder Josh Tetrick has today announced an exciting partnership with Manav Gupta, the CEO and founder of tech start-up accelerator Brinc in Hong Kong, to provide entrepreneurs with the tools they need to create meaningful, sustainable products that make eating well a basic right.
Tetrick explained the partnership as “using capitalism to make a difference”, saying, “If you want to solve the world’s biggest problems, do it through business.”
This collaboration is a perfect match, with Brinc investing over HK$500,000 per team (10 teams per year, two cohorts per year) to help aspiring founders (early-stage companies) who want to disrupt the current broken food system with their plant-based products – aiding with everything from product development and consumer testing through to marketing and distribution.
The task of building a more sustainable food system is so enormous that it requires the energies of a generation. Working with mission-driven partners who share our goal of facilitating large-scale, permanent adoption of healthy and more sustainable food is the only way we succeed.
–Josh Tetrick, JUST CEO
JUST comes into the equation with its incredible toolkit, made up of raw materials and R&D from the plant and animal kingdom that founders can use to create products like vegan butter and ice cream that work for local palates in Hong Kong and across Asia. Finished products resulting from the collaboration will display a “Made JUST” logo.
“The opportunity to leverage the strengths of the R&D platforms of JUST is game-changing,” said Gupta, who himself is a passionate, lifelong vegetarian.
The Food Technology Accelerator also provides access to Brinc’s learning platforms, mentor networks, follow-on funds, service arms and entry into the growing Chinese market. One of the most compelling aspects for food-tech entrepreneurs in Hong Kong is Brinc’s use of the state-of-the-art facilities at PMQ in Central including Taste Library, which contains thousands of food-related tomes for research, ABC Cooking Studio and pop-up incubator Taste Kitchen.
Hot on the heels of its success earlier this year launching plant-based JUST Egg in Hong Kong – made of mung beans, which scramble up just like conventional eggs – Tetrick announced the company’s ambitious plans to launch “clean” JUST Meat by the end of this year, which tastes just as good – if not better – than the real deal and does no harm to people, animals or the environment.
Clean meat – also known as cell-based or cultured meat (read our primer here)– is meat grown in a lab using a small sample of animal cells (from a chicken’s feather, perhaps) and replicating them in a culture. The first JUST Meat product is chicken nuggets, with sausage, bluefin tuna and even A5 Wagyu beef patties also in the pipeline.
Photo credit: screenshots from JUST
With a commitment to helping all people everywhere to eat well, JUST has also recently rolled out JUST Power Gari – fortified cassava porridge – in Liberia and across West Africa to make a difference to those who suffer from malnutrition. This ties in with Tetrick’s ultimate goal of achieving a global sustainable food system.
Brinc’s Food Tech Accelerator programme is open for applications now – click here to apply and make a positive change for the future of food.
Related: Is the future eggless? An interview with JUST CEO Josh Tetrick
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