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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Stockeld Dreamery

Stockeld Dreamery Raises €16.5 Million for Legume-Based Alternative Cheeses

This week, Swedish plant-based cheese company Stockeld Dreamery announced that it has raised €16.5 million (~$20 million USD) in a Series A round, according to a release sent to The Spoon. Led by Astanor Ventures and Northzone, the funding round also saw participation from new investors, including Trellis Road, Eurazeo, Norrsken VC, Edastra, Gullspång Re:food, and several angel investors. This brings the company’s total funding to around $24 million USD.

Stockeld Dreamery, formerly known as Noquo Foods, launched its first product in May 2021, called Stockeld Chunk. The plant-based cheese is an alternative to feta and is made from a base of fermented peas and fava beans. Similar to feta’s nutritional composition, it contains 20 percent fat, 1.5 percent carbs, and 13 percent protein.

The company is currently hiring and is planning to use the new capital to grow its team from 22 people to about 50. In 2022, Stockeld will move into a pilot production plant and headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

Alternative milk and dairy are the largest categories in the plant-based space, with the alternative cheese category alone growing a total of 42.5 percent in 2020. Stockeld Dreamery is not the only plant-based cheese company to raise a hefty funding round this year; Miyoko’s Creamery raised a $52 million Series C round in August, and Nobel Foods closed a $75 million funding round in July.

For now, Stockeld Dreamery’s first alternative cheese product is only available in select retailers in Stockholm, Sweden. However, the press release mentioned that after moving into its new facility, the company will release new products and expand its distribution outside of the country.

Sweden: Stockeld Dreamery Launching First Plant-Based Cheese This Week

Plant-based cheese startup Stockeld Dreamery (formerly Noquo Foods) will launch its first product, Stockeld Chunk, at select stores in Stockholm, Sweden on May 6. Daniel Skaven Ruben, an early investor and advisor to Stockeld and now the company’s Head of Strategy and Special Projects, published a Medium post today announcing the news.

Stockeld Chunk is made from fermented peas and fava beans and can be crumbled onto either hot dishes or on salad like a feta cheese. It has a similar nutritional composition to feta, with 13 percent protein, 1.5 percent carbs and 20 percent fat. Skaven Ruben is quick to point out in his post that Stockeld isn’t trying to create a “fake” version of feta, only that the product be used like feta.

Stockeld is certainly launching its first plant-based cheese product at the right time. Recent data from the Good Food Institute shows that U.S. retail sales of plant-based cheese rose 42 percent from 2019 to 2020, with 54 million units selling last year making the category worth $270 million.

Plant-based cheese is a tough product to create, as you have to get the taste, texture and melting properties just right. There have been a number of companies making vegan cheese over the years, but a new wave of startups is looking to elevate the product to new heights, and hopefully more widespread acceptance. Grounded Foods and GOOD PLANeT‘s plant-based cheeses are already available, and the more early stage Climax Foods is using machine learning to combine various plant ingredients into different types of cheese.

If you are in Stockholm and want to try out Stockeld’s take on plant-based cheese, it will be available both as part of a dish and a standalone CPG starting May 6 at Pom & Flora, BAK Bakery and cheesemonger Wijnjas Grosshandel.

Noquo Foods Rebrands as Stockeld Dreamery, Readies Launch of Its Plant-Based Cheese

Noquo Foods has rebranded itself as Stockeld Dreamery the company announced today, as it prepares to launch its plant-based cheese product in a little over a month from now.

The Stockholm, Sweden-based startup’s first product will be a feta-like cheese made from fermented pea protein and fava beans. Stockeld Dreamery cofounder and CEO, Sorosh Takavoli, told me by phone last week that his company’s vegan cheese will have a similar nutritional profile to traditional feta in terms of protein and fat, and won’t have any carbs.

Stockeld’s product is beyond the prototype phase and doing a factory launch. Initially, the production run will be limited and sold to foodservice companies and restaurants in Stockholm.

Stockeld raised a $3.6 million seed round a little more than a year ago, and as it re-brands and launches, the company plans to expand its operations as well. Takavoli said they plan to grow the headcount from six to roughly 20 over the next 18 months, and relocate to bigger facilities.

Sales of plant-based cheese lag behind other plant-based categories like milk. But creating a good plant-based cheese to replace traditional dairy cheese is a tricker proposition. In addition to flavor, non-dairy cheese needs to melt properly and have the right texture and mouthfeel. But there are actually a number of startups working to overcome these obstacles. Grounded Foods is using cauliflower to make camembert, guyere and roquefort. GOOD PLANeT makes mozzerella from cocount and potato. And Climax Foods is using data an AI to create new types of plant-based cheese.

While we won’t see plant-based cheese go mainstream this year, both Stockeld Dreamery and Grounded Foods have their cheeses coming to market, so we will definitely get a taste of what is to come.