Feeling Bullish: Will we ever trade vegan stocks on the Indian bourses?

19 April 2021

The vegan rumour mills are churning. With news of Impossible Foods preparing to publicly list themselves at a whopping $10billion valuation, the plant-based boom is on the brink. And it’s not the vegans fueling this rise.

The vegans of the world don’t mind. They’ve been quietly multiplying. Not only that, it looks like the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns gave people a lot of food for thought. Many people are now willing to consciously replace their animal-based meals for more sustainable options and the entrepreneurs and food technologists are hard at work. This effort is not lost on the investors. According to the VegTech™ Index, there are currently 21 global publicly traded companies that are “actively innovating to remove animals from the supply chain to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems”.
 

The India Story So Far

In spite of all of this, the innovators in the Indian alternative landscape are on full throttle. Desi brands like Goodmylk, Good Dot, Soft Spot, Veggie Champ, EVO, Greenest, to name a few, are laying the foundation for the rest. There are active investments taking place in this sector. More recently Mister Veg, a Faridabad based mock meat start-up, has raised funding of Rs.4.25 crores from Jubilant Ingrevia. While we may have a bit more time to be able to trade in vegan stocks on the NSE, the interest to invest is encouraging to say the least. Take Jubilant Ingrevia’s investment in Mister Veg for instance. The parent company, Jubilant Bharatia also owns Jubilant Foodworks Limited which has the exclusive rights to Dominos in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. They also run the Dunkin Donuts franchise in India. This can only be seen as a step in the direction towards offering consumers more sustainable food choices.

Staying Relevant
 

For now, the future looks bright for the consumers in India at least. Sustainable meat and dairy alternatives are here to stay and are coming in fast. Beyond Meat just set up their production facility in China and are launching the Beyond Burger and Beyond Sausage in India. With the competition at our doorstep, it’s up to the Indian brands to stand out and stay relevant before even aiming for the stock market.