Eat Just, maker of plant-based eggs and cultivated chicken, gets a funding boost

Dive Brief:

• Eat Just secured a new round of funding led by VegInvest/Ahimsa Foundation, an organization that supports companies looking to replace the use of animals in the food system and other industries, the company announced on Friday. 
• The investment will be used for both divisions of the company, Just Egg as well as its cultivated meat division Good Meat, a spokesperson told Food Dive. The company did not disclose the amount that was funded. 
• The funding comes as Eat Just recently went through a round of layoffs in March, along with several other ongoing cost cutting initiatives, like a cutback in ingredient spend and consolidating operations.

Dive Insight:

According to a Bloomberg report, the investment was said to be $16 million worth of new capital to help Eat Just “grow and become sustainable,” said Satish Karandikar, a principal at Ahimsa and VegInvest Trust.

Although the cultivated chicken and plant-based egg maker is closer to operational profitability after the investment, Eat Just still has a long way to go. 

In March, the company laid off 18% of its workforce, or 45 people, in its Just Egg division. The layoffs were part of a recurring theme in the space, with companies like Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat and Maple Leaf Foods’ Greenleaf Foods, also announcing job cuts around the same time. 

A slowdown in demand has hit plant-based meat especially hard as the segment has seen a slip in sales over the past year. 

After Eat Just received regulatory approval from both the USDA and the FDA in June, the company has new hurdles to cross, consumer education, cost and scale at the top of the list. 

The new funding can propel Eat Just forward, but the company still needs to raise a significant amount of money in order to fund a large scale plant for its cultivated meat in the U.S., CEO Josh Tetrick told AgFunder News. 

Prior to the latest round of funding, Eat Just had raised $850 million in capital, and this new investment is expected to improve the quality of its products, as well as propel the company on its road to profitability.