Brett Christoffel jokes that his employees include himself, his dog, God and the cows. But that's only because unlike other jerky companies, his doesn’t use the latter at all.
“When I found out that Texas’ largest export to the world’s stomachs is beef, it pissed me off. And I thought, rather than sitting around and bitching about it, I’m going to change it,” Christoffel, CEO and founder at All Y’alls Foods, told NTX Inno.
After deciding to go vegan nearly three years ago, Christoffel created All Y’alls Foods, a plant-based jerky CPG startup. And based out of Cross Roads, Texas, about nine miles east of Denton Christoffel is looking to make the slogan “beef-loving Texan” a thing of the past as one of the members of SKU DFW’s inaugural cohort – and one of the only from the North Texas region to join the accelerator program.
All Y’alls Food launched in May 2018, after Christoffel got a call from the Go Texan marketing program of the Texas Department of Agriculture to show off its wares at a festival in Grapevine. The idea for the plant-based product came to him after spending time around a dehydrator at his previous vegan raw juice bar he opened in Van Alstyne. He said the process of using the whole bean is healthier for the consumer.
“With our product, if you put it next to beef it has more protein, calcium, magnesium and iron, zero cholesterol, it’s not a Class 1 or 2 carcinogen and it's full of fiber,” Christoffel said. “All the protein and calcium we need is in plants but somehow the meat and dairy got in between us and the plants, and when we get our protein and calcium form those sources instead of directly from the plants, then we get all this stuff that isn’t so good and it isn’t really good for the animals or the earth.”
All Y’alls Foods makes a line of jerky product developed whole non-GMO soybeans in four different flavors, most recently with the launch of a crunchy bacon bit product in July. All Y’alls Foods hit the shelves in Texas, after being chosen out of a pool of more than 800 as one of the winners of H-E-B’s annual Quest for Texas’ Best contest – one of Christoffel’s biggest accomplishments so far. Now, it sold in specialty groceries, vegan markets and other grocery chains across the state, as well as on the company’s website and on Amazon.
All Y’alls Foods also partners with the Rowdy Girl Sanctuary in Waelder, Texas, a vegan sanctuary that also helps farmers find ways to get out of the animal agriculture business.
“Our focus right now is on the natural stores as opposed to mass markets because there’s more of a concentration there of people who are seeking out plant based options,” Christoffel said.
With a background in large enterprise learning initiative, Christoffel said the creation of SKU DFW in the region has helped him grow his business. He said it has helped him learn the strengths and weaknesses of his business, allowing him to scale his business faster.
The Austin-based CPG startup accelerator program, founded by lawyer Shari Wynne Ressler and entrepreneur Clayton Christopher, who founded Sweet Leaf Tea and Deep Eddy Vodka, moved to North Texas earlier this year in a partnership with local mentoring organization DFW CPG. It’s first cohort here, which kicked off in September, includes four other startups ranging from cookie makers to lactose-free ice cream.
“The experience itself has been mind-blowing because I went into it knowing I don’t know what I don’t know. I have a team of seriously heavy-hitting people that are helping me to fill in all the gaps and round things out and ensure that I’m successful,” Christoffel said. “They help play on your strengths, they help drive out the weaknesses and help empower people to take a very objective fact based look at everything and improve.”
Christoffel said that the pandemic has helped to grow his business, with many stocking up on snack options as the work and shelter in place from home. This year, Christoffel said sales are on track to be four to five times higher than they were last year, though he declined to disclose how much sales and revenue All Y’alls Foods has. He also attributes the increase to a rise in consumers becoming “plant curious” – looking for meatless options to the meat-based products they enjoy. It’s a trend across the population with the vegan food market expected to grow from $14.2 billion in 2018 to more than $31 billion by 2026, according to Allied Market Research.
Christoffel also said that as All Y’alls Foods gets in more stores, it brand recognition and purchases of its product have gone up.
Still fully bootstrapped, Christoffel said he plans to continue to launch new flavors of its soybean-based jerky, as well as roll out new products in the meat-based snack vertical – although his, of course, will be meatless.
“I don’t want to pay someone I don’t know to kill an animal that didn’t want to die so I can have it on my plate and enjoy it for a few minutes when it was that animals whole life,” Christoffel said. “On the scale of food, I put wheatgrass shots at one end and bacon drippings at the other end, so I’m always like, ‘Go towards the wheatgrass,’ and so while mine is not necessarily like having a fresh salad, it’s so many times better than having its animal-based counterpart and I’m okay with that.”
