San Diego, California-based fast food restaurant chain Plant Power announced today that it has completed a $7.5 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Helia Capital USA, Eat Beyond Global Holdings and Batta Foods, with participation from Aileen Getty and other individual investors.
As its name spells out, Plant Power is a fast food chain that offers an entirely plant-based menu. According to the press announcement sent to The Spoon, Plant Power has seven locations up and running in Southern California, with eight more stores opening in locations including Sacramento, Hollywood, and Las Vegas. The company said it reported year-over-year enterprise-wide retail net sales growth of more than 50 percent from 2019 to 2020.
While those growth stats are vague, the general numbers line up with the recent trajectory of plant-based foods. According to the Good Food Institute, U.S. sales of plant-based foods grew 2 times faster than overall food sales in 2020. Additionally, sales of plant-based foods in the U.S jumped 27 percent in the past year, and 43 percent in the past two years to hit $7 billion. The plant-based meat category (including burgers) saw its category sales increase by more than $430 million from 2019 to 2020 and the plant-based meat market is now worth $1.4 billion.
There’s a lot of plant-based momentum in QSRs right now. Copper Branch is a chain in Canada is all plant-based, and even Starbucks is testing a full plant-based menu at one of its Seattle locations. Growing consumer sentiment for plant-based options has even spurred traditional QSRs like Burger King to launch the Impossible Whopper, and both McDonald’s and Yum Brands have partnered with Beyond Meat to create more plant-based meat options for their menus.
Plant Power said it will use its new funding to continue its expansion plans and focus on new corporate unit development.
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