Eat Just
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Hampton Creek Foods, Inc. is a food technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California. They are funded by Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures, as well as Bill Gates, and The Founders Fund, and focus on finding new ways of utilizing plant-based ingredients that do not involve the resource intensity associated with raising animals.[1] Their research and development is particularly focused on disrupting the global egg industry through lower cost and functionally superior products.[2] The company was founded in December, 2011 by CEO, Joshua Tetrick.[3]
Hampton Creek has been featured in a variety of media outlets, including a special on the future of food by Bill Gates,[4] as well as in a feature article in The New York Times [5]
Creation Hampton Creek Foods was conceived by, Josh Tetrick and Josh Balk in the summer of 2011. Their initial product of focus became a plant-based egg replacer due to animal cruelty, environmental concerns, and allergy/food safety issues.[6] The egg industry, which produces over 1.1 trillion eggs annually, sources 98% of these eggs from battery cages.[7]
Johan Boot, the former Global R&D Director at Unilever, joined the team in October, 2011. In December, 2011, they received a seed round of funding in the amount of $500,000 from from Khosla Ventures.[8] Early R&D was conducted at a small facility in Beverly Hills, CA. Hampton Creek also initially worked remotely with a team at Mattson in San Matteo, CA as well as with Homaro Cantu and his staff at Cantu Designs in Chicago, IL.
Relocation & Growth In June, 2012, Hampton Creek relocated from Beverly Hills, to a 2400 sf facility in downtown San Francisco. That same month, they also received their Series A round of funding from Khosla Ventures, in the amount of 1.5 million dollars. They immediately began expanding the team as well as the headquarters. One of the first new hires was a former Top Chef contestant, Chef Chris Jones.[9] They were also one of only three companies to be selected by Bill Gates to be featured on his website in a special called, "The Future of Food."[10]
Products Hampton Creek's first product is an egg replacer for use in baking cookies.[11] Following the release of Beyond Eggs for cookies will be a consumer-facing eggless mayonnaise (Just Mayo). Hampton Creek is also working with numerous corporations on removing eggs from existing products already on the market. However, egg replacement is a challenging task and other iterations are still in R&D phase.[12]
References
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- ^ Venture capitalists are making bigger bets on food start ups. The New York Times. 29 April 2013
- ^ [8], additional text.