Eggless Egg-Maker Buys First Plant in Bid to Crack Costs

For anyone who thought the plant-based trend was a short-lived fad, Josh Tetrick, chief executive officer of egg-imitator Just Inc., has a message: They’re just getting started.

The San Francisco-based startup has acquired its first manufacturing facility: a 30,000 square foot location in rural Appleton, Minnesota. The aim, Tetrick says, is to make more of the product it sells as a substitute for eggs—and cheaper. “The biggest limiting step of us scaling has been transformation of the bean into protein,” Tetrick says. “We wanted to invest in a facility, in a community, that would allow us to remove that limiting step.”

Just bought the Del Dee Foods plant, which was already making Just’s proprietary mung bean protein as well as doing some research and development work for other customers. Now, as the plant’s owner, Just plans to expand the facility and its workforce. The acquisition also gives Just greater control over its supply chain, a move which lets companies limit costs, according to Christine McCracken, a protein analyst at Rabobank.

Bringing down costs is a top concern for Just, which says it has sold the equivalent of 17 million eggs already but hopes to grow the volume of its Just Egg sales at least ten times in 2020. It costs the company north of 20 cents to produce the equivalent of an egg currently. It hopes to bring that number down to 4.7 cents in the next two years. The company also makes eggless mayonnaise and is developing cultured chicken.