Portland’s robust food startup community has a new entrant as the team behind plant-based protein startup Chkn Not Chicken unveils its brand and a round of funding.
Chkn Not Chicken raised a $4.5 million Series A led by Stray Dog Capital, a venture firm that has backed plant-based companies such as Beyond Meat. The round also included individual angels and family offices, said co-founder and CEO Brian Pope.
As you may have deduced, Chkn Not Chicken is making a plant protein-based replacement for chicken. The company uses yellow peas for the protein so its product is also soy and gluten-free. The team has been developing the product for the last two years and is ready to roll it out to consumers.
The company is founded by Pope and two friends Marc Marano and Ryan Choi. For varying reasons the three friends found themselves each looking at ways to reduce the amount of meat in their diets. As they were doing this, they found products like Impossible and Beyond Meat as beef replacement, but they weren’t as pleased with other protein replacements, said Pope.
Marano and Choi are also the founders of Position Pivot, a venture fund that not only invests but incubates ideas. The three decided to incubate what would become Chkn Not Chicken, said Pope.
Early in his career Pope was a brand manager for Taco Bell, and there met food product consultant and chef Gina Galvan. Galvan helped the team develop the recipe for Chkn Not Chicken. A childhood friend of Marano owns a food manufacturing facility that does large-scale production for brands and retailers, so that expertise was tapped to develop the manufacturing process.
“The magic really happened in the combination of the passion of the founders and mission, Gina’s direction and the opportunity to do all of our development with insider access at a commercial manufacturer,” Pope said, adding that the test runs were done at night and in between shifts at the facility.
The company is based in Portland because Pope settled here about five years ago. He has a background in building emerging brands. He was most recently chief revenue officer at beverage company Nuun Hydration.
In Portland, Pope says he has found inspiration.
“The startups in the food space and people (here) focused on passion and purpose in their life and it felt like this is where Chkn Not Chicken needed to be based,” he said.
So far, the team is four people. Pope said this capital will be used for hiring in sales, marketing, manufacturing and supply chain. The company has tested with early consumers and is now ready for a wider product roll-out.
“The team at CHKN Not Chicken has developed an amazing product, built the key infrastructure that will allow production to scale quickly, and created a brand that resonates with consumers and will help expand the plant-based chicken category,” said Johnny Ream, partner at Stray Dog Capital, in a written statement.
The team is working on partnerships with local retailers and is interested in getting product into restaurants and food service.
“Our ambition is to be a national brand,” Pope said.
Chkn Not Chicken is part of a growing group of companies that create plant-based proteins to help meat-eaters replace some of the meat in their diet. Like other brands in this emerging plant-based market, the company isn’t necessarily built for vegetarians.
“We think we can make the biggest impact (on the environment and health) if we can get a large percentage of the population to think about eating meat a little less often rather than double the number of people who are fully vegan,” he said. “We need welcoming on-ramps to being flexitarian and bring more people into the tent with that first step.”
