Limitless Meals Co has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding to advance its progressive chocolate various, THIC (This Isn’t Chocolate), aimed toward tackling sustainability and provide chain points within the chocolate business.
The funding spherical was led by Nordic Foodtech VC, with participation from EIFO and Rockstart, and can allow the corporate to scale manufacturing, set up a pilot plant, and develop its group.
Limitless Meals Co’s THIC is constituted of ‘upcycled’ brewer’s spent grain, a major byproduct of beer brewing, and serves as a sustainable, cost-effective various to conventional chocolate. Not like cacao, which faces rising provide challenges because of local weather change, THIC is positioned as a scalable answer that reduces reliance on cacao and addresses environmental and moral considerations within the chocolate business.
”Our core mission is to offer a scrumptious, long-term, and price-friendly answer for the current chocolate and meals industries. Hopefully at some point, we might help coat each Mars bar with our various chocolate answer,” says Maximillian Bogenmann, Co-founder and CEO of Limitless Meals Co. “Till then, providing a flavour-first, sustainable various to chocolate on a big scale presents an enormous alternative to positively impression our current meals system. Partnering with a forward-thinking retailer like 7-Eleven provides us an incredible first step towards realising the Limitless imaginative and prescient.”
Based in 2022 by Maximillian Bogenmann, Christian Bach, and Matt Orlando, Limitless Meals Co leverages its founders’ culinary experience from eating places resembling Noma and The Fats Duck. The corporate’s method to scalable upcycling options highlights how sustainability and indulgence can doubtlessly coexist, providing an answer to chocolate’s mounting challenges.
Limitless Meals Co has additionally introduced a key business partnership with 7-Eleven Denmark to deliver its product to market. The collaboration will initially characteristic a collection of THIC-based merchandise, together with a co-branded cookie with TIM’s Cookies, accessible in all 180 Danish 7-Eleven areas by the tip of the 12 months.
Jesper Østergaard, CEO of 7-Eleven Denmark, expressed enthusiasm for the partnership: “7 – Eleven is consistently exploring new alternatives and difficult the standard approach of doing issues. In our eyes, THIC is a really thrilling product as a result of it’s a extra sustainable various to chocolate – with out compromising on nice style. We’re excited to supply our prospects THIC in our cookies as early as subsequent month – and with out giving all of it away , I’m fairly positive they will look ahead to extra of this sort in our shops sooner or later.”
In keeping with Limitless Meals Co, the standard chocolate business is underneath strain, with cacao costs greater than doubling over the previous 12 months because of climate-induced disruptions within the international provide chain. Moreover, the sector faces vital moral and environmental points, together with deforestation, biodiversity loss, and labour exploitation.
THIC gives a possible answer, providing the identical style and texture as conventional chocolate however with as much as 80-90% decrease carbon emissions, in response to a latest life cycle evaluation.
“Limitless Meals Co is a superb guess within the various cacao area. Their elements playbook aligns fantastically with our technique round backing founders fixing the deep underlying issues in our international meals system: Cacao is a local weather – threatened crop that can grow to be costlier as provide turns into scarcer and demand continues to extend,” says Louise Rørbæk Heiberg from Nordic Foodtech VC. “We’re proud to help this high-powered and impactful group of their journey as they develop and develop, beginning wi th this key partnership with 7-Eleven. And let’s be clear , they’ve nailed the style and high quality from the start.”