Consumers' appetite for plant-based alternatives has led to a premium Tasmanian food producer acquiring another.
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Pure Foods, which operates the brands Tasmanian Pate, Woodbridge Smokehouse and Daly Potatoes announced last month it had acquired Lauds Plant Based Foods.
The acquisition is the latest buy for the company, who purchased south-east potato company Daly Potato Co for $1.8 million in September last year.
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Pure Foods managing director Michael Cooper said the acquisition was in line with the company's focus on premium Tasmanian products, but was also a result of rising consumer trends in the area of plant-based foods.
Lauds Plant Based Foods produces plant-based dairy and lactose free dairy products.
"The plant-based food category is one of those ones, it's going beserk at the moment," Mr Cooper said.
"As a business we strategically made the decision that we needed to be in this space, and Lauds aligned with our values; they were also already contracted to us to provide a product for us, so it made sense."
Mr Cooper said it was a challenge to create plant-based cheese, but the product created by Lauds was so good that you very nearly couldn't tell the difference in taste.
He said that was an amazing accomplishment, but the cheese and dairy products was only the beginning.
"We are planning to do a lot more in this space, we're looking to develop new products like plant-based meat and drinks."
Lauds Plant Based Foods team leader and former co-owner Danielle Wheatley said the decision was a good one for them.
"We have values that align with Pure Foods, we want to support Tasmanian business," she said.
"But we were also at a point with the business that we wanted to take it to the next level."
Ms Wheatley said Pure Foods had "amazing distribution channels" that would help to elevate their product into new markets and take it further than it had before.
But even though the opportunity is great, and she can see the potential, the acquisition was still a little bittersweet.
"It's kind of like this business is our baby, we have got it to Kindergarten, but now it's up to other people to take it further," she said.
Ms Wheatley said she and all staff would be staying on after the acquisition and there was the potential for further staff growth, as the business continued to grow.
"We will be able to step outside the business instead of always working with it," she said.
Mr Cooper said the acquisition of Lauds Plant Based Foods was another step towards Pure Foods next goal - a purely Tasmanian meal kit service.
"We are in product development stage at the moment, but we're working on a Tasmanian meal kit service," he said.
The recent purchased of Lauds and Daly's would help to provide options for the meal-kit service.
Mr Cooper said he hoped it would be launched in the first quarter of 2021.
A Tasmanian meal-kit service has a market edge, but Mr Cooper said the company was proud to be Tasmanian.
"At the moment anything Tasmanian has a huge market edge," he said.
Mr Cooper said meal kit delivery services was another fast-growing sector of the consumer market.
"There has been an increase in the number of meals being delivered to homes as a result of COVID, but even before that it was steadily growing," he said.
"And everyone is focused on Tasmania at the moment, in some ways we are 10 years ahead of the game."