JUST, Inc.

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JUST, Inc. (formerly Hampton Creek) is an American food manufacturing company headquartered in San Francisco that produces plant-based foods that are sold globally. The company was founded in December 2011 by Josh Balk and CEO Joshua Tetrick, under the name Hampton Creek Foods, Inc.. With around 130 employees, JUST makes mayos, dressings, cookies, cookie dough, breakfast proteins and cultured meat.

The company has emphasized its desire "to create a whole new model that makes the current system obsolete", building a food system that produces tasty food at lower cost, with fewer resources, a lower environmental impact, and without harm to animals.

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History

Background and founding

JUST was founded as Hampton Creek in the summer of 2011 by Josh Balk and Joshua Tetrick. Balk was then senior director of food policy for The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) farm animal division, and had previously been known for his work at Compassion Over Killing (COK). Tetrick was an American entrepreneur who had worked on social campaigns as a Fulbright Scholar. Both founders had been friends since their teenage years, and, together, developed the concept of a plant-based food company stemming from problems each had noticed in the global food system. Explained Balk, "a [cheaper] plant-based egg product that had the same taste and texture as normal eggs... would meet a need consumers and food customers have that hasn't been filled yet."

The duo set about finding a technical partner who "understood the biochemical properties of food and how to manipulate ingredients to make them perform better, especially in processed foods." Johan Boot, the former R&D director at Unilever, was subsequently hired. Later that summer the company initiated initial plans and meetings with Khosla Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. Some early research for the pea protein formula was outsourced and soon moved R&D in house, and the patent for a "plant-based egg substitute and method of manufacture" was filed on November 2, 2011. Tetrick stated to The New York Times in October 2013, that "while a chicken egg will never change, our idea is that we can have a product where we push updates into the system, just like Apple updates its iOS operating system. So our mayo is version 1.0, and the next version will be 2.0, which will be less expensive and last twice as long."

Office relocation and expansion

The organization received $500,000 in seed funding in December 2011 from Khosla Ventures, its first round of investments. In June 2012, the company relocated from Southern California to a facility in Northern California, specifically the SOMA district of San Francisco. Also in June after the relocation, the company received a $1.5 million Series A round of funding from Khosla Ventures. The funds were used to expand the company's headquarters and add additional employees. One of the first new hires was chef Chris Jones, former Chef de Cuisine of Moto restaurant in Chicago, and a former Top Chef contestant. In February 2013, the company launched its first product, Beyond Eggs, an egg-free egg replacement using plant-based ingredients such as peas. Their second product Just Mayo was released around seven months later.

The company continued to hire staff as it released new products. By April 2013 they had hired a protein chemist, food scientist, and a sales executive from Heinz. By later that summer the company had 25 employees. By July 2013, the startup had raised a total of $4.5m in funds. By September 2013, the company continued to market its Just Mayo and Beyond Eggs for Cookies brands, and was also in production on "cookie dough called Eat the Dough and a product that scrambles like a real egg." Just Mayo was introduced to several Whole Foods stores in Northern California in the middle of September 2013, spreading to Whole Foods stores in other states in October.

Growth in distribution

On February 17, 2014, the company announced it had raised $23 million in Series B round led by multi-billionaire Li Ka-shing and Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang. CEO Joshua Tetrick announced that the company would use the funds to continue its growth in North America, establish a presence in Asia, build strategic partnerships, and grow its team. Throughout the summer of 2014, the company expanded its operations into a new 90,000 square-foot facility in San Francisco. The company hired Dan Zigmond, described by TechCrunch as "Google's main data guy," in June 2014 to build a database for the company's research into plants. Zigmond, who had been working for eight years on YouTube and Google maps, stated his plan was to "build the world's largest plant database." The company signed chef Ben Roche in July 2014.

The company launched its products into the Dollar Store in late June 2014, and in Walmart on September 24, 2014. By that point their products were also available in Whole Foods, Safeway, Costco, as well as through the catering company Compass Group, which serves meals in educational and industrial settings in around fifty countries. With around 62 employees by August, by December 2014, the startup sold its products in 15,000 locations, including Kroger. Also in December 2014 the company raised $90 million, bringing total funding raised since the company's founding to $120 million.

During this same period, the company was embroiled in controversy where employees informed the press the company was using investment capital to buy their products from retailers to boost sales and to ask retailers for large quantities of their products to generate buzz.

JUST has grown from zero to 100,000 points of distribution as of December 2017.

Recognition

On August 5, 2015, the World Economic Forum named the company a "Technology Pioneer," shortlisting it with 48 other companies. Through Compass Group, its products are served in more than 3,000 K-12 schools, more than 300 universities, professional sports stadiums, government agencies and Fortune 500 corporate cafeterias. Revenues increased 350% in 2015, and that year the number of employees grew from 60 to the current number of 127. The company has projected that around 10% of their sales in 2016 will be international, primarily in Asia.

On February 2016, the Unilever brand Hellmann's launched a new mayo product without eggs. Despite the new market competition, Tetrick described the development as "an extraordinarily positive thing," explaining to the press that he and Balk "didn't start Hampton Creek to do anything but try and make the food system much closer to our values and there is no way just one company can do it." He stated further, "as other companies begin to embrace the things we are doing, I'd encourage them to focus on everyday people [as compared to the health-food demographic], as that is what is really going to change things."

Intellectual Property

In September 2017, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued JUST a machine learning patent for food ingredient discovery. US 9760834  "Discovery Systems for Identifying Entities That Have a Target Property", covers the company's machine-learning enabled discovery platform and methods for discovering new plant-based ingredients. The patent relates to a combination of robotics, proprietary plant databases, artificial intelligence and predictive modeling that the company said increases its scientists' rate of discovery and its ability to bring new products to market.

At around the same time, JUST also announced the acquisition of a worldwide patent portfolio covering foundational "clean meat" technology, including clean meat compositions, food products and methods of manufacture. The patents include US 6835390  "Method for Producing Tissue Engineered Meat for Consumption"; US 7270829  "Industrial Production of Meat Using Cell Culture Methods"; and related patents in regions throughout the world including North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Maps JUST, Inc.

Products

Just Mayo

JUST's flagship product is a spread called Just Mayo. It utilizes plant substances, with the original formula using the company's egg replacement powder, which is primarily made out of a varietal of Canadian Yellow Pea. In early February 2016, Hampton Creek announced it was working on Just Mayo Light but it was later discontinued. In early 2018, Just Mayo was reformulated with a recipe that offers 40 percent less calories while retaining the same flavor offering varieties of Just Mayo beyond the original, including Chipotle, Sriracha, Garlic, Truffle and "Awesomesauce."

Just Mayo was introduced to several Whole Foods in Northern California in the middle of September 2013, spreading to Whole Foods stores in other states soon after. By 2015, the Just Mayo product was available in American stores such as Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, Dollar Tree, ShopRite, Kroger, Publix, H-E-B, and several Costco warehouses. As of November 2015, Walmart was selling more Just Mayo than Whole Foods, with both franchises selling the brand at most of their stores.

Just Cookies

The Just Cookies product line was launched in 2014, and was marketed as a more sustainable and healthy cookie because of its ingredients. Flavors as of 2016 included chocolate chip, sugar, oatmeal raisin, double chocolate espresso and peanut butter. The cookie is made without butter or eggs, which makes it cholesterol free. Both Oprah Winfrey and Chef Andrew Zimmern publicly commented they were fans of the brand, and by late 2014, the large catering company Compass Group had replaced its conventional chocolate chip cookies with Just Cookies. Unlike other JUST products, the macadamia cookies contain milk

In 2014 the company introduced Just Cookie Dough, an eggless chocolate chip cookie dough that can be baked or eaten out of the jar. The cookies use sorghum as a primary ingredient, making them safe for consumption before cooking. Initially marketed as Eat The Dough, the product was first featured by Katie Couric's talk show, Katie, on February 4, 2014. Just Cookie Dough was being nationally distributed by 2015, and was introduced to Target in February 2016.

Beyond Eggs

In February 2013, the company launched its first product, Beyond Eggs. The eggs-free egg replacement is made with plant-based ingredients such as peas, sunflower lecithin, canola, and natural gums, and was marketed as being free of animal products, gluten, and cholesterol. The egg substitute was primarily marketed for the making of cookies. Prior to the fall of 2014, the public distribution of Beyond Eggs was stopped, in order for the company to work primarily with private companies such as the catering conglomerate Compass Group.

Just Scramble

On November 30, 2017, the company announced the launch of Just Scramble, a product derived from mung bean that tastes like egg, is free of antibiotics and cholesterol, and its ingredients require less water and emit fewer carbon emissions than conventional eggs. Prior to launch, Just Scramble won "Best Plant-Based Food" at an international protein industry summit and received confirmation of "GRAS" (generally recognized as safe) status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A Business Insider review said "the texture was perfect and the taste was distinctly egg." JUST plans to expand production of Just Scramble in 2018 beginning with foodservice partners in the United States and internationally. In January 2017, JUST formally expanded into Asia with the launch of Just Scramble and several other products at Green Common, which operates healthy casual dining and retail shops in Hong Kong. The company told Quartz that it is looking to get Just Scramble into mainland China, Japan, and India.

Cultured (Clean) Meat

In June 2017, the company revealed that it had been secretly working on cultured meat for a year and aimed to make its first commercial sale of a "clean meat" product by the end of 2018. In August 2017, the company said it had begun early talks with at least 10 global meat and feed companies across South America, Europe and Souteast Asia to bring industrialized production efficiency to lab-grown meat.

JUST is one of a small number of startups working on cultured meat, or clean meat, which is real meat that is created without the need to raise and slaughter animals. The process includes harmlessly extracting cells from an animal and feeding those cells nutrients so they can multiply into a product that can be cooked and eaten. Companies working on cultured meat products say the process is much like brewing beer or making soy sauce, both of which are cultured food products. They also say the end result will be better for the environment, safer for consumers and more humane to animals than conventional meat production. One of the biggest technical challenges is finding cost-effective and scalable nutrients to feed the cells to get them to multiply so that mass quantities of meat can be commercialized and sold. JUST has said it hopes to make its first commercial sale before the end of 2018.

"Folks in Silicon Valley think about [lab-made] meat and they think it's some new thing dreamed up by some teenager in a garage somewhere," JUST CEO Josh Tetrick told Quartz. But really, it's been decades in the making. "It wasn't until recently that the greatness of [Dutch entrepreneur Willem van Eelen's] idea was met by a society and set of enabling technologies that could make it real," he said. Ira van Eelen, the elder van Eelen's daughter, serves as an adviser to JUST.

Biscuits, Crackers and Pasta

After an influx of funding in late 2014, the company announced it was working on recipes for biscuits, crackers, and pasta all based on plant protein. Executives also stated that they were "developing a plant product that is comparable to sugar," and by October 2014 the company was developing noodles, ice cream, and dips. By 2016, the company began to develop and release salad dressings like Just Ranch, Caesar, Chipotle Ranch, Thousand, Sweet Mustard. Just Scramble was released in late 2017. Generally, Hampton Creek has stated it hopes to replace "conventional food dye, sugar, trans fats, and MSG" with plant-based substitutes.

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In the media

A Freedom of Information request in late 2015 revealed that the government-controlled American Egg Board (AEB) had engaged in a paid advocacy campaign targeting Hampton Creek through online media, with the board's CEO dubbing Hampton Creek a "major threat" to the egg industry. As the United States Department of Agriculture prohibits advertising by its marketing boards "deemed disparaging to another commodity," the revelation met with a fair degree of controversy in the press, resulting in AEB changing PR agencies and the resignation of the AEB president.

Food Dive named JUST the "Most Talked About Food Company of the Year" in December 2017.

Allegations about buyout program

In August 2016, Fast Company and Bloomberg News reported that in the lead-up to a venture capital funding round in 2014, Hampton Creek engaged contractors to visit leading retailers and buy its eggless Just Mayo product. Bloomberg cited emails sent by Caroline Love, a vice-president at Hampton Creek, which instructed the contractors to visit retail outlets to buy the product. Hampton Creek also reportedly asked contractors to call retail outlets to make inquiries about Just Mayo in an effort to make it appear that there was interest in the product. Hampton Creek claims that the buyout program was for quality control purposes.

Target pull out

In 2016, Hampton Creek voluntarily recalled one batch of its Just Mayo product due to Salmonella contamination concerns. In June 2017, Bloomberg reported that Target and Target.com had stopped selling Hampton Creek products, representing the loss of one-third of the company's retail business. Two months later, Target severed ties with Hampton Creek, citing complaint letters received from unnamed parties. Following the conclusion of a federal investigation by the Food and Drug Administration in August 2017, Alternet investigated further, determining that the complaints against the company were unfounded and a "malicious hoax." Nonetheless, as of March 2018, food products labeled either Hampton Creek or JUST remained unavailable from any Target outlets.

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Technology

The design of the first product, Just Mayo, was outsourced to Mattson, a San Francisco food technology company. JUST has made a major investment in automating the process with large industrial robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The project is called Blackbird. The R&D team sources plants from countries around the world, mills them into a powder, removes their proteins and splits it into 72 fractions. They look at the plants' molecular characteristics and functional characteristics and tests their performance in real world food applications.

Chefs & team

In June 2012, JUST hired former Top Chef contestant Chris Jones, with the chef leaving his work in the restaurant industry in 2012 to become the company's director of culinary innovation. Hampton Creek signed pastry chef Ben Roche in July 2014, with Roche taking part in a number of publicity events for the company over the next summer. Ben Roche currently serves as the company's research and development chef. As of January 2015, chefs beyond Jones and Roche included Trevor Niekowal, who along with Roche served as a research-and-development chef. All three chefs had previously worked with Moto, a Chicago molecular gastronomy restaurant often featured on the Discovery Channel show Future Food. Other chefs formerly with Moto but now with JUST include Nate Park and Thomas Bowman.

In the summer of 2016 JUST hired former Microsoft Creative Director Sean Wolcott to become the company's first Chief of Design Sean Wolcott resigned after Lee Chae (R&D VP), Jim Flatt (CTO), Axel (CFO), Stephanie (CHR) and others exited the company. All were replaced.

Board & advisors

JUST's board includes longtime DuPont executive Jim Borel; HRH Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal, founder and CEO of KBW Ventures; advertising industry executive and environmentalist Larry Kopald; former R.J. Reynolds/Nabisco food safety expert Cliff Coles; and noted oceanographer Sylvia Earle. In January 2017, JUST added Pedro de Andrade Faria, who previously served as Global CEO of BRF S.A.

Advisors include Peter Diamandis, Founder and Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation and co-founder of Singularity University; entrepreneur and philanthropist Jon Vein; and Ira van Eelen, the daughter of Dutch entrepreneur Willem van Eelen who pioneered cellular agriculture.

Food science

JUST press releases and news articles frequently feature details that the company has hired former Google employees.

Former employees told Business Insider that the CEO, Tetrick, told his food scientists to perform bogus experiments using liquid nitrogen when journalists or potential investors were visiting, in order to create the impression that the company is a research and development-driven high technology business, rather than a food manufacturer.

JUST is developing a "Plant Database" that would use machine learning to automate the discovery of new food applications for edible plants. By August 2014, the company announced it had indexed 4,000 plants. Mashable reports:

"Hampton Creek indexes the world's plants, categorizing data about each species and its varietal. By categorizing a plant's molecular properties and using its predictive models, Hampton Creek can predict what a given specimen could be used for in the kitchen. Out of the thousands of plants it has classified, the startup has identified 13 that can be used to make world-changing foods, two of which it currently uses on the market: A varietal of Canadian Yellow Pea used in its Just Mayo eggless mayonnaise and a varietal or sorghum used in its Just Cookies edible cookie dough."

In August 2015, Business Insider quoted anonymous ex-employees that the amount of plants in the database may have been exaggerated, though the article noted, "this may be a case of semantics, as Hampton Creek includes the results of third-party research in its database. But some employees felt uncomfortable with how the company portrayed its role in the data analysis." Tetrick later defended the public numbers, stating to Inc. that "the JUST research databases contain botanical, molecular, and functional data across more than 100,000 plant species and varieties."

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Funding

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See also

• List of food companies
• List of companies based in San Francisco
• List of egg substitutes
• Food biotechnology

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References

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External links

• Official website

Source of the article : Wikipedia