The EVERY Company CEO Shares Details on Rebrand, Potential of Animal-Free Proteins
The EVERY Company has rebranded and launched a new product in its latest steps to become the “world’s leading animal-free protein platform,” in the words of CEO and founder Arturo Elizondo.
Earlier this month, the San Francisco-based food tech company, formerly known as Clara Foods, unveiled its new identity and its second ingredient launch: a soluble, odorless and flavorless animal-free egg white protein called ClearEgg that’s produced through precision fermentation. The new branding and expansion comes after the company partnered with Anheuser-Busch’s fermentation-focused technology group BioBrew in April to produce the company’s proteins at large scale in an effort to ultimately make the proteins accessible and affordable globally.
Speaking to NOSH, Elizondo shared more details on the rebrand, new product and what’s next for The EVERY Company.
A Mission-Focused Rebrand
According to Elizondo, the rebrand was sparked by a desire to clarify the company’s mission and create a “brand that could really stand up on the same level as the products that we’re creating.”
“For us to really transition the world to an animal-free future, we truly have to democratize access to alternative proteins and meet people exactly where they’re at, and have a technology and an approach that could reach every human on the planet, from every culture, and in every corner of the world,” he said. “That was something that was really important for me. I’m from Texas, and I’m Mexican, and ultimately, I knew that in order to really change the world, we have to win the hearts and minds of people everywhere.”
The “every” in the name denotes both the company’s desire to reach all consumers and its aspirations to eventually expand to a number of different categories. The move from Clara Foods to The EVERY Company also more clearly communicates the fact that it is a technology company rather than a producer of branded CPG products, Elizondo said. Overall, he said it puts the company in a position to supply a wide swath of brand partners and ultimately be in a “league of its own” among alternative proteins.
Addressing a “Pain Point” in Food and Beverage
“Every” also extends to the use cases for its latest product offering, ClearEgg, which Elizondo said can be used to add a tasteless boost of protein in essentially any type of beverage. For ClearEgg, he said the company will largely target beverage companies. Many protein beverage producers use soy, pea or whey protein as protein sources, Elizondo noted they’re often forced to rely on sweeteners and strong flavors to mask their taste, a “big problem in the food industry” that ClearEgg seeks to fix.
“We said, how do we actually democratize protein delivery more broadly, and create a protein that ultimately can go into every kind of beverage, so we can again meet people exactly where they’re at?” Elizondo said.
After launching a pig-free pepsin as its first ingredient last year, Elizondo said the company knew it wanted to take on egg white protein with its second launch because of its functionality and nutritional profile as well as its tendency to foam and bind. Because ClearEgg is essentially an “invisible protein” with virtually no taste, color or smell, the company’s immediate focus with the ingredient is beverages, because “that’s where the pain point is,” he said. The ingredient will also be marketed to food brands for use in products like protein bars.
So why hadn’t this ingredient been used in beverages before? The protein is only found in eggs in small percentages, Elizondo said, so it takes thousands of eggs and upwards of $1,000 to make a single kilogram. The only way to cost effectively produce this egg white protein, therefore, is through precision fermentation of microorganisms, which he noted is a relatively new process in the food industry.
When included in the brand’s ingredient labels, ClearEgg will be listed as a non-animal egg protein. The company doesn’t use any animals in the ingredient’s production process, so it’s technically vegan, Elizondo said, but describing ClearEgg as such “doesn’t really do what we’re doing justice and explain it in the right way to consumers,” so it has chosen to use “animal-free” as its descriptor instead.
What’s Next?
Early interest in ClearEgg has been “overwhelming,” Elizondo said, but the company must be selective with its partners in the short term because its production is currently limited. In April, EVERY announced a partnership with Anheuser-Busch’s fermentation-focused technology group BioBrew to produce the company’s proteins at large scale, so it’s currently “working very closely with them and several other partners to bring capacity and scale as quickly as possible.”
“Fortunately it’s a great problem to have, but one we need to fundamentally change if we really want to democratize access to proteins, and that’s exactly why we partnered with A-B InBev,” Elizondo said.
Despite the limited capacity, EVERY has several brand partnerships in the works that will be launching this year, though none could be disclosed at this time. While EVERY and other precision fermentation companies like Perfect Day have helped to familiarize the food and beverage industry with animal-free proteins, the consumer response to animal-free eggs has yet to be seen. But EVERY’s CEO is confident that the taste of products made with ClearEgg will bring consumers on board.
“What we’re worrying about is, what will my mom like? What about my cousins in Mexico? What about my friends who go to the gym every day and consume a bunch of protein?” Elizondo said. “For the average, everyday consumer, the vast majority of people, taste is ultimately king.”
EVERY also has several egg protein-based ingredients in its pipeline which focus on different use cases like optimization for baked goods or for binding and jelling, he said. Its next ingredient is set to come early next year, Elizondo said.
“Almost every company in the world uses eggs in some shape or form or uses some kinds of proteins,” he said. “Eggs are our animal-free bread and butter. We’re going to continue expanding the toolkit of egg proteins because they’re just so functional. What we want to do is bring all of these proteins to market to ultimately have a full portfolio of options for companies all over the world to pick and choose from.”
