NotCo, the Chilean foodtech startup, partners with Grupo Pão de Açúcar in Brazil •

Contxto – The Chilean startup famous for its vegan mayonnaise, NotCo, announced last week that it will partner with the Brazilian supermarket chain, Grupo Pão de Açúcar (GPA). With this, the Jeff Bezos-backed foodtech startup aims to increase its distribution partnerships and venture into bigger markets, such as Brazil.

In Summary

NotCo is famous for using artificial intelligence to recreate meat and dairy items with vegan alternatives. Over time, it has become especially well-known for its vegan mayonnaise made of chickpeas.

Other products found available in around 1,000 grocery stores include Not Milk and soon to be Not Ice Cream. The popularity of these products is making the company optimistic about its market growth as it expands regionally.

“We expect to reach a double-digit market share in these three categories in the next three years,” said Mathias Muchnick, CEO and co-founder of NotCo. “We already have 10 percent in market share.”

In-Depth

Last March, the group raised over US$30 million from Bezos Expeditions, which is owned by Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, as well as other funds. Much of these funds made the partnership between NotCo and GPA possible. In the long run, the Chilean enterprise predicts Brazil to someday be its primary consumer of vegan products.

“A big chunk of this investment is going to Brazil,” said Muchnick, who founded the company in March 2017 with Karim Pichara and Pablo Zamora. “We are betting on Brazil to become our biggest market within a year.”

For the time being, NotCo will ship its products from Chile to Brazil until it implements something more permanent. According to reports, the foodtech firm wants to locally produce the products within three to four months without building a factory.

“The strategy is to never build a factory,” said Muchnick. “Here we found several partners to produce our products locally.”