“We want to be a global brand for vegan food”: The Good Spoon interview

France-based vegan mayonnaise business The Good Spoon is the result of a coming together of two Paris region businesses, one a food-tech firm and the other a food product development and marketing company.

It was a meeting at a trade show which saw Jordan Lellouche, who ran The Fooding Company – the development and marketing firm – engage with Gaetan Gohin, co-founder of the food-tech business Algama, which specialises in microalgae and its use in food products.

The pair soon began to talk about working together on a new brand to tap into the surge of interest in plant-based products and Algama's expertise in ingredients.

The result of that chat is The Good Spoon, which they co-founded and that has since developed a vegan mayonnaise product – swapping eggs for chlorella – that is now sold in supermarkets in France and Belgium. 

Jordan Lellouche: We met at a Carrefour food show and discussed innovations around food. This led us to talk about vegan mayonnaise and how we could make it and combine that with our marketing experience.

It is essentially a joint venture. Algama specialises in microalgae and The Fooding Company develops and markets brands. The JV combines the experience of both. We don't manufacture ourselves. We outsource the production based on our recipe.

This was just before the Covid period in March. It helped us to develop our team and to invest in the product, which we changed from fresh to ambient. The Lever money allowed us to develop a team of ten people in sales and marketing.

Very. Using microalgae you can create the right quality of product. And is healthier as it has less fat. If you don't use microalgae in the process, it is a very difficult product to make. Ours is close to a classic mayonnaise. We spent two years in research and development.

The retailers here had been looking for some years for vegan mayonnaise because it is very complicated to make this type of product. The market in France for this type of food is growing a lot and buyers are putting a lot of resources into vegan foods. It was launched in Paris in 300 Cojean stores and now we're in 1,000 stores including Cojean, Franprix, Auchan and Carrefour in France and Belgium. 

Yes. We decided to keep it simple and to start with two SKUs – Supernaise, which is like a classic mayo, and Garlinaise, our garlic mayo.

Credit: Foodingcompany.

We have deliberately made the product not too expensive. It is about €2.00 for 125g which is about 20% more than the classic mayo.

We don't have exact information to give you as we are a start-up but we know we have had a good response in the supermarkets around Paris. The reaction from consumers has been very good.

No. We are interested in foodservice as well. We are in discussion in France with a chain which provides food for schools, hospitals, military sites and other public places. The French Government is now starting to push vegan food in schools and we can supply our product as a condiment that fits in with this push. We are also in talks with a UK foodservice operator that supplies school canteens.

Yes. We are not signed up with any retailers in the UK yet but we would love to be. The UK is a very interesting market for The Good Spoon as innovation is very present there. We are starting discussions with different distributors for a launch in 2021.

We want to be a global brand for vegan food. At the moment we are focused on vegan mayo but we may look at vegan milk or vegan meat alternatives in the future. We haven't started developing products in this area yet. We are just reflecting on and analysing new meat alternatives. Ultimately, we want to have a great offer for the markets in France, Belgium and the UK and then we will then look at other countries.

We postponed our launch with [French grocer] Auchan. It was supposed to be in March but had to be put back. But we have not lost any deals. At the start of Covid-19, retailers were focused on key products rather than new products but now they understand that consumers want more and more alternative foods.