Wicked Kitchen plant-based products line-up. Credit: Wicked Kitchen

US plant-based investor Ahimsa Companies is in talks with a clutch of brands to add to its portfolio.

Ahimsa Companies is a collection of investors formed in the US to back and grow plant-based food businesses operating in the country.

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The investors’ first deal, announced last week, was to buy Wicked Kitchen, a brand of plant-based convenience foods and meals selling in the US and the UK.

Matt Tullman, one of Ahimsa Companies’ investors and its CEO, said the investor is weighing up half a dozen brands, all based and selling in the US.

“We’re in conversations with something like six, seven brands,” Tullman told Just Food. “I would imagine we’ll get over the line with a handful of them by the end of the year. There’s a lot of opportunity. These are great companies, they have great products and we hope to help them through this momentary sector turbulence.”

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Demand for plant-based products, particularly in meat alternatives, has eased in a number of markets, not least in the US and the UK, two countries seen as being at the forefront of the development of the sector in recent years.

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The pressures facing suppliers have led to a number of businesses going to the wall on both sides of the Atlantic and to deals that have seen distressed assets bought out of administration.

Tullman said Ahimsa Companies believes there is an “opportunity to support best-in-class businesses across the plant-based sector”.

He said: “In addition, [there is an] opportunity to support best-in-class businesses across the plant-based sector, which are experiencing this moment of turbulence. We think when there is a period of contraction, we’ve got to step up and try to help these companies survive and get to that next level, as opposed to seeing more headlines about the difficulties of the plant-based space.

“The companies we’re looking at and looking to support are the changemakers. Society operates in these cycles, right? Our thesis is that three, five years down the road – maybe it takes ten years but we want to be on the right side of history – we think that supporting these companies today, supporting a movement towards a more just and I think sustainable food system will ultimately pay off for us in the end, whether it takes five years or ten years. We’re going to stick with it.”

Ahimsa Companies has also acquired a manufacturing facility in Ohio making plant-based products.

The site is manufacturing for unnamed clients on a private-label business and will take on some of Wicked Kitchen’s production, Tullman said.