Plant-based food and beverage maker The Planting Hope Company announced yesterday that it has completed a $9 million IPO through the sale of 22.5 million shares (CAD $0.40 each) and will begin trading later this week on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “MYLK.” The completion of the IPO brings the company’s total valuation to about $30 million CAD (USD $23.88 million).
Over the course of the past year the company, which was previously known as Spinning Wheel Brands, officially renamed itself to The Planting Hope Company in September and restructured its leadership team. According to co-founder and CEO Julia Stamberger, Planting Hope is one of the first entirely women-led, publicly-traded companies in Canada and one of only a handful of women-led, publicly-traded companies at the global level. All eight individuals serving on the company’s executive team and its Board of Directors are women.
Canaccord Genuity Corp., served as the agent for the offering and received a cash payment of CAD $315,000 (USD $247,000), 787,500 shares and 1,575,000 warrants per the terms of the deal. The company also announced it has signed an agreement with IR labs Inc. to help develop and manage a comprehensive investor relations corporate communications program.
The plant-based company markets two snack brands — Mozaics and Veggiecopia — in addition to its flagship sesame milk brand, Hope & Sesame, all of which are available at major retailers in the United States and Canada including Kroger, Sprouts and Whole Foods.
Why an IPO?
Planting Hope is on a mission to continue innovating and launching new brands that deepen its commitments to nutrition, sustainability and diversity. Stamberger said the decision to go public, rather than taking additional investment from a VC or private equity firm, allows the company to freely execute against a multi-brand approach and to act on its core values while also directly representing the interests of its primarily female consumer.
Under the Spinning Wheels name, the company operated under an entirely white, male board with Stamberger noting “that’s who our investors were.” However, when the opportunity for an IPO presented itself she said she decided to take the idea of positioning the company alongside its values one step further and pitched the idea of restructuring to a female-led organization to that all-male group — they “proudly supported it, no one stood in our way,” she said.
“There is a lack of respect for women as leaders in the food and beverage industry that we have seen on a rather pronounced basis and my personal theory is that it is driven by who controls financial capital,” Stamberger said. “The majority of the financial capital in the food and beverage market is controlled by men and they leverage their network and who they feel comfortable with at certain levels to manage and run those companies. We end up with a lot of companies whose core consumers — those who are bringing those products into the home — are women, but the leadership is primarily male.”
How has the mission evolved?
The company was founded on a goal to “Do Better,” according to Stamberger, which it has evolved to include nutrition, sustainability and diversity as core tenants. Planting Hope’s first brand, Mozaics, was created to give consumers a better option for vegetable-based snacks, one that was not green- or nutrition-washed, she said.
Most recently, that line has reformulated with a transition from organic to non-GMO vegetables due to supply chain challenges, however Stamberger said they decided to take the challenge on as an opportunity for more “efficacious solutions” and made deeper investments in the product — also moving the chips into neo-plastic compostable packaging. The new packaging can be discarded in the regular waste stream and breaks down on its own, releasing “harvestable bio-gas” that can be used as a renewable energy source.
“We’ve aligned our products with our supply chain and in a way that it’s able to scale both through the co-manufacturers that we work with, as well as with some forward-looking investments in equipment,” Stamberger said. “But also we’ve made decisions that took a look at the writing’s on the wall in terms of supply chain and adjusted accordingly.”
What’s next?
Looking toward next year, Stamberger said Hope & Sesame will roll out its new packaging that embraces themes of “magic and whimsy” in Q1. The upcycled product line will also be introduced in a refrigerated format in an effort to draw in new consumers who look for dairy and alt-dairy exclusively in the refrigerated set.
It’s a change from Planting Hope’s current portfolio brands, which are all shelf-stable, a format it initially embraced to reduce the risk of food spoiling and going to waste according to Stamberger. However, she emphasized the need to adapt to retailer constraints in order to continue driving consumer adoption, citing the fact that Hope & Sesame struggled to find retailers that would place its shelf-stable product in coolers. She also noted that the team is constantly looking to integrate more sustainable solutions into Planting Hope’s brands whether that be environmental-based solutions or sustainable modes of business.
“We’re not limited just to one area of sustainability, but we look for the best way to achieve that given the products that we’re bringing through, making sure they are also relevant consumers, taste great and make sense in the marketplace,” Stamberger said.