Start-ups that caught our eye at Bread and Jam 2024

At the Bread and Jam festival last week, we saw a range of new start-ups vying to plug gaps in the market. 

The festival, which brought together a range of FMCG brands, gave start-ups the chance to get investors’ attention in a number of short pitches. Here are the ones that caught our eye.

Grechka: Buckwheat ​

The start-up Grechka aims to take buckwheat mainstream in the UK. Co-founder Malika Datta hopes buckwheat can follow in the footsteps of foods such as quinoa and kefir in becoming mainstream in the West after being well-known elsewhere in the world.

Buckwheat is a gluten-free product that, according to the journal Food Science and Nutrition​, contains a number of key nutrients, including protein and especially fibre, its main component. According to the journal, it can be used as a gluten-free alternative​ for those suffering from coeliac disease. According to market research platform Mintel, buckwheat is popular in Germany and northern India.

Grechka produces buckwheat products in a range of forms, including buckwheat grain and buckwheat tea (in two flavours). "We believe it is the next matcha, because it is nutritious, caffeine-free and tastes like cookies,” said Datta.

The brand, according to Datta, aspires to lead the trend in buckwheat, aiming particularly towards the growing wellness market, as well as the cereal market.

All the Aunties: Paneer`​

All the Aunties founder Riya Patel started her paneer business after becoming tired of spending such a long time looking for the cheese in supermarkets, which, she said, is often difficult to find in the UK. This contrasted with her own success when she started selling paneer.

Paneer is not just a cheese but a potential meat substitute, she told the audience, with its high protein content (according to Patel, each serve of All the Aunties’ paneer contains 23g protein) and flexibility. With plant-based meat showing signs of decline​, paneer is an older, more established alternative.

In fact, Patel sees it as similar to tofu or tempeh in use, as it can take the place of meat in a range of meals. “You can toss it into a salad, throw it into a stir fry, crumble it into a scramble and have it on toast for your breakfast in the morning.”

While the company cannot do direct-to-consumer sales, because the product needs to remain refrigerated, Patel sees its future as in retail.

I Am Nut Ok: Cashew-based vegan cheese ​

Like some other vegan cheese manufacturers​, Nivi Jasa, co-founder of start-up I Am Nut Ok, is sceptical of the vegan cheese market overall. “When I became plant-based, the main issue was cheese,” he said, “Vegan cheese sucks today.” The product developed by the brand is a reaction to this disappointment with vegan cheese.

I Am Nut Ok uses cashew nuts to make cheese. According to the United Nations​, cashew nuts have been enjoying increasing popularity globally (the three most cashew-loving countries, Germany, the US and India, being distributed across three continents).

The brand, Jasa told the audience, includes a wide range of cheeses including feta, ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella.

It aims to mirror the success of oat milk, which is now a mainstay of coffee menus. The product also aims to take advantage of consumer distrust of ultra-processed foods​, with its short ingredients list.

The best way to educate customers about the product, said Jasa, is via chefs. “Once you can start to use good products on the menu when customers still have a chance to choose ‘which cheese are you giving me?’, they know that’s a good thing.”

Lonkero: ‘Long drink’ alternative to beer and cider​

For people who don’t like beer or cider, Lonkero co-founder Paige Gibbons posited, there are no comparable options: simply drinks, such as wine and cocktails, with a higher price-point and a higher ABV. There isn’t, she said, an alternative with a similar price point and ABV.

Lonkero produces this alternative. Inspired by the Finnish ‘long drink’, it is a blend of gin, soda, grapefruit and botanicals. “It is specially formulated to be a pint-sized, sessionable serve,” said Gibbons.

The brand, according to co-founder Joe Harris, has sold more than 14,000 pints since launch nine weeks before the event. Off the back of these results, “there’s a clear need” for the product in the market, he told the audience.

The target customer, said Harris, is a person who is ‘happy to compromise’ with a beer or cider but wouldn’t choose the drink as their first choice. The 'long drink', he suggests, could give this customer a drink which they’re more enthusiastic about, and therefore will buy more of.