Umiami: “We’re the First Company Worldwide That Can Create a True Whole-Muscle Chicken Breast at Scale”

Along with La Vie , Umiami is effecting a successful plant-based business ecosystem in its home country of France, continuing to go from strength to strength and creating 70+ posts following the acquisition of a former Unilever production facility. Such is the popularity of Umiami’s unique plant-based chick*n whole cuts.

We founded Umiami on a simple observation: meat consumption is more about whole-cuts, such as chicken breasts or ribs, than minced products, such as patties and nuggets. In fact, only 73 million Americans consume nuggets yearly, while 248 million have chicken breast – the latter is the most consumed meat worldwide.

To overcome this challenge, we have created a unique technology called Umisation. © Umiami Can you tell us more about Umisation? How does this technology differ from what is available on the plant-based marketplace?

Umisation is a unique technology – we developed it in-house over three years with a team of 30+ R&D scientists and engineering experts. It allows us to create whole-muscle plant-based meat, meaning that we can replicate the long fibers of meat using only a few simple-to-understand components.

We bought the empty building from Unilever in December 2022, and in just nine months, we completely revamped it and installed our production line inside it. We’re not talking about small equipment here: the line will produce 7,500 metric tons a year – and there’s room for additional lines.

More to come soon, as we’re entering into the commissioning phase! © Umiami What’s in the pipeline for new product development? Once you have this unique capability, you can produce all kinds of whole-muscle products. What’s so fascinating about the product is its versatility: you can cook it in whatever way you would cook an animal chicken breast.

You can pan-fry, oven-bake, marinate, slice, or fry our product, or eat it cold in a Ceasar’s salad or wraps. “Most people had yet to have a plant-based meat indistinguishable from animal meat – until they tried our product.” The constant feedback we received is how much of a step change our plant-based fillet is. Most people had yet to have a plant-based meat indistinguishable from animal meat – until they tried our product. © Umiami Can you tell us some details about your activities in North America?

We of late made public a 32.5M€ equity raise , bringing the total amount we raised over the past three years to over 100M€ once you consider debt and subsidies. Secondly, the fundraising will propel our sales effort – we began trading a sales office in Tokyo earlier this year and have just hired a General Manager in the US.

This additional capital will allow us to go further and faster. ©Umiami What is currently your main trade (geographics, trade)? Where are you heading to/What is your main focus in the upcoming months?

In the coming months, we will deliver our B2B shoppers at scale – we have listings planned in multiple European countries. Which are the trade points to you will be attending – any chance to meet your team in person in the upcoming months?