Egg Evolution

At the age of 20, Kartik Dixit realised how much the food system was contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and became vegan overnight. What shocked him most of all however, was that nobody was working on tackling alternative protein in India. Starting with cell-based meat and then transitioning to the plant-based sector, Kartik is now working on evolving egg through his venture Evo foods. In this week’s episode we chat with Kartik about the different layers of vegetarianism in India, and why him and his team chose to develop a plant-based egg product. We also talk about product development, finding a manufacturing partner, future expansion and what a day in the life looks like for the CEO and co-founder.

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After realising that nobody was working on re-imagining the food system in India, Kartik decided that if he was going to make a difference for the planet’s climate it was going to be in the alternative protein sector. At first he reached out to different researchers to see if there was any work being done on cell-based meat, only to find out that there wasn’t any.

Kartik: “I was really shocked that nothing was going on at that time. I decided to pursue some people to start something in the cell-based space.”

But soon enough Kartik decided to make another transition.

Kartik: “After realising that cell-based meat still has a long way to go, I decided to switch over to the plant-based side where the technology gestation period is obviously lower than the cell-based sector… and have an impact in the near term.”

This impact is through Evo foods, Kartik’s early-stage startup that launched in May 2020. Since then the company has gone on to participate in Big Idea Venture’s New York accelerator, and has been chosen as one of the top CPG startups in the FoodBytes by Rabobank program. Evo Foods has also been selected as one of the top 12 startups and first ever food company in the Lightspeed Venture partners’ Extreme Entrepreneurs 2021 program (Green Queen 2021).

But where did the idea to focus on egg come from? In order to understand the thought process behind the startup Kartik took us through the different layers of vegetarianism, highlighting the lack of social and cultural associations with egg that make them a more neutral animal product to enter into the market,

Kartik: “In India there are layers of vegetarianism… for example there is a community called Jains who don’t eat anything coming from roots or animals. So even potatoes are banned, garlic is banned, and other root vegetables.”

Then there are communities that do eat root vegetables, but exclude meat. According to Kartik, even individuals who do eat meat do so irregularly.

Kartik: “In most of India eating animal products is looked down upon, it’s not something people do on a regular basis."

On top of that Kartik went on to talk about how beef was a complete no no when evaluating products due to cultural reasons, and plant-based meat had a number of challenges such as price parity yet to be overcome.

Kartik: “For people to switch to something … there needs to be a significant advantage, which I’m thinking right now is still at a nascent stage.”

The controversy around plant-based dairy also didn’t seem like a path of high impact.

Kartik: “Plant-based dairy is very complicated in India… people really see dairy as a part of their lives, they consider the cow as their mother, and that’s why we wanted not to go into the dairy space.”

This left the team with a clearer, golden opportunity.

Kartik: “We found out that for eggs, you have that market which is ready to accept the cleaner alternative compared to dairy or meat.”

Kartik: “We found that this is the least amount of resistance any kind of animal product has in India.”

This sentiment was echoed through surveys conducted by Kartik and his team which revealed that consumers were ready for the product.

Kartik: “When you tell people that we are going to offer a better alternative to an egg, the response was relief for everyone because they want an egg which is free from cholesterol.”

Even then however, India has been seeing a trend of younger people experimenting with animal products outside of their vegetarian households.

Kartik: “The younger generation wants to try animal-based products, but at the same time you have all of these environmental repercussions of intensive animal farming, which really scares me.”

What’s driving it?

Kartik: “They don’t want to go to the wet market, which is 90% of the whole Indian market for chicken… people are now switching away from the wet market mentality towards a safer and more conscious supply chain for meat-based products. So even though they’re not leap-frogging to plant-based alternatives, they’re still on the journey of realising that it’s better for me and my family to eat something which is not culled in front of their eyes.”

The Evo egg is one of the products that may help people’s journey veer towards the plant-based side of things. With an emphasis on healthy ingredients, Evo foods’ liquid egg uses protein ingredients that the consumer is already familiar with.

Kartik: “We considered the possibility of making a whole egg with the proper egg shell and everything, but one of the constant feedbacks is that it’s difficult for people to constantly break an egg… so we decided it’s better for us to create a liquid version.”

With no background in food science, we asked Kartik what the product development process was like.

Kartik: “It was definitely challenging. When we started in 2019… we were clueless about it and where to find technical people.”

Kartik: “We always wanted to use multiple protein sources rather than a single protein because Indians do want their legumes… but one thing that was really consistent was there’s not enough innovation in the plant-based protein sector, so whenever we would play with different protein sources things would get messed up, it would not coagulate, it would not give the proper texture.”

Kartik: “We took our time, we took almost a year to finalise the formulation and go for a pilot production run.”

One of the biggest requirements for a pilot production run is to develop good relationships with manufacturers. Having had some guests on the show also pioneering plant-based foods in their regions, we asked Kartik what their approach was to manufacturing.

Kartik: “We took an educated guess that if you want to make this kind of product work in the area, you should not create infrastructure from scratch or invest heavily in R&D because you don’t know how the market will react.”

Kartik: “That’s why from the start we were focused on making things work with the current infrastructure as opposed to going for a completely custom-made set-up. We researched on the different kinds of plants that were available in the area, and when we saw what kind of infrastructure they had we made a list, and made the whole process designed according to what infrastructure we had.”

Whilst Evo egg is the first plant-based egg product being developed in India, it’s also not the first in the world and has a small number of competitors. With future plans to expand internationally, we wanted to know how Evo egg compares to other brands such as Eatjust.

It turns out the answer lies in nutrition, with Evo Foods’ product being on par with animal-based eggs in terms of protein content and also containing micronutrients including B12.

Kartik: “Egg is primarily eaten for its nutrition benefits… and that’s why we decided that if we want to create a plant-based egg, it may as well be nutritious.”

Kartik: “It’s a wholesome product which you can make for your breakfast.”

Kartik also gave us an economic breakdown, with the price of Evo egg being on par with other premium egg brands in India as well as with premium brands in Australia, Europe and the USA. Their local supply chain added with their inexpensive manufacturing process heavily reduced their cost.

Kartik: “We still think we can reduce the price by 15-20% within the next 3-4 years. I think people also need to see that there’s an added benefit to their health, to the environment, and that’s why we’ll take price reductions consciously as we go forward in the journey.”

We also spoke about the future of the startup, and next stages in their development.

Kartik: “Singapore we do see as a country where we should introduce the product, and we are going to work on that over the period of the next 6-8 months.”

Kartik: “We’re definitely going to launch in India within the next month… but we had to change our model from B2B because restaurants are in really bad shape in India, and many are getting shut down. Home cooking, which is already prevalent in India accelerated through COVID and people are now getting accustomed to cooking at home … which is why we changed our strategy a little bit to D2C.”

Kartik: “It’s an exciting time for us, we want to have a successful launch in India and focus on India, at least for the next 12 months.”

To learn more, you can head to Evo Foods’ website here, or follow them on social media.

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