Hidden Gems: Meet Todd and Jody Boyman of Hungry Planet

Today we’d like to introduce you to Todd and Jody Boyman.

Hi Todd and Jody, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself
Jody Boyman, Co-Founder: I was born an animal lover, and have been plant-based for about 45 years. In St. Louis, as a kid, I’d spend hours after rainstorms rescuing earthworms from the pavement and relocating them to grass. I’d rescue baby birds who had plunged from their nests, and dogs who had been dumped along country roads.

As a youngster, during family dinners, I’d often look down at my plate and ask our mom, “Who did this used to be?” which was wildly unpopular. I had lots of inspirational quotes taped to my wall, including one from Chief Seattle: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” Over time I became aware that our food choices have unintended consequences for our health, the environment, and animals. I began connecting the dots and realized that while our planet is abundant, but not without limit.

Todd Boyman, Co-Founder: My background is as a tech investor and a tech entrepreneur. Both my sisters had been eating plant-based for a while before I took a hard look at the science and was convinced it was time for me to make the change, too. That was over 30 years ago, and the science, while compelling back then, is simply overwhelming today.

Fast forward a few decades and a few careers for Todd and Jody, sibling co-founders… Hungry Planet really began as a passion project. We wanted, more than anything, to do something meaningful to help solve two of the world’s most pressing problems: the health of humankind and the health of our planet. We choose to build a platform for positive change, one where people could literally eat their way to a healthier planet while staying true to our deepest values as human beings. From the beginning, we approached the opportunity differently.

We’d already been eating plant-based for decades, but we knew that in order to transform our food system, we had to create delectable plant-based meats that would appeal to everyone at the table, including committed carnivores and vegans. From the beginning, we set out on a mission to craft a wide range of proteins to feed our growing human family, prevent environmental destruction, avert global pandemics – and reduce animal suffering. Crucially, this range of meats had to be a simple switch for conventional meat, while also delivering superior nutrition.

After more than a decade of culinary R&D, we developed the most authentic and complete range of award-winning plant-based meats available in the world – and the innovation continues. At the culinary helm is Ron DeSantis, Certified Master Chef (there are only 62 active ones in the country). We now proudly offer 9 proteins: Beef, Chicken, Pork, Lamb, Turkey, Crab, Chorizo, Italian Sausage, and Breakfast Sausage.

As for meat forms, we offer raw, raw formed, pre-cooked grilled, pre-cooked fried, pre-cooked handheld, and ready-to-eat meals. We like to think of Hungry Planet® as the secret to making delicious food healthier, and it appeals to everyone from avowed carnivore to committed vegan. We make meat that just happens to come directly from plants.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
From the beginning, we focused on crafting plant-based meats to be a perfect 1:1 swap for conventional meat in any recipe, any cuisine, globally. This was many years before Beyond or Impossible arrived on the scene. We had the vision, and the advantage of time as we patiently self-funded the R&D. Some thought we were crazy, but we wanted to be poised for the opportunity to launch once our meats were ready and the market was ready.

We’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, the importance of building a support network early on. Building a great business requires great people, and we believe it is all about the team. To get started, we need vision, drive, focus, and a wide variety of talents and skills. But, at a certain point, it became abundantly clear that we needed more capability and bandwidth.

So, we quickly learned that it was important to nurture a strong support network of accomplished, mission-aligned people who provided advice, provided perspective, and helped us figure out what we could (and couldn’t) do all by ourselves. This network has been invaluable as we’ve grown rapidly to address skyrocketing demand in an increasingly crowded category where much of the food just really isn’t all that good in terms of taste, texture, and nutrition.

At the start of the pandemic, we had just loaded into the largest foodservice distributor. Shortly thereafter, food service fell off a cliff as restaurants and hospitality shut down worldwide. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Fortunately, our agile team was able to quicky change channel priorities and bring forward – by over a year – a suite of retail items so we could reach those hungry at home. In short order, we developed 17 Hungry Planet® retail items that are now on grocery shelves across the country. Our 3 new ready-to-heat meals are game-changers with exciting applications across university and healthcare. We offer a Chicken Piccata meal, a Salisbury Steak meal, and an Italian Sausage Meatballs with Penne meal.

We are now in all 362 Sprouts, plus Albertsons, Tom Thumb, and Randall’s in the Southern US plus hundreds of additional Albertsons in Northern CA and Seattle, with the network growing steadily. We’re also available at Costco.com, Amazon, our own website (with free shipping). Our website Find Us page has all grocery, deli, and restaurant locations and is updated daily: www.hungryplanet.us/find-us/.

We are proud to be the first to offer authentically delicious plant-based meats with demonstrably superior nutritionals that perform spectacularly as a one-on-one swap for conventional meat in any cuisine, any recipe – and nobody tastes the difference.

As you know, we’re big fans of Hungry Planet. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We offer the widest range of chef-crafted plant-based meats for use by professional chefs and home cooks alike that are delicious and, importantly, offer demonstrably superior nutrition. Our craveable meats are packed with protein and fiber, with about half the calories, a fraction of the fat (no saturated), and lower sodium than other plant-meat brands and than conventional meat. We proudly display our nutritionals on the front of our retail packs.
Hungry Planet® beef patties, for instance, have 75% less fat and 31% fewer calories, no cholesterol or saturated fat, with a whopping 22G protein – higher than conventional beef. The great thing about Hungry Planet® meats is that they handle, store, prepare, cook and taste like conventional meat, and most people can’t even taste the difference – yet our meats are much better for health, planet and animals.

From about 2015 until a couple of years ago, we were a very small team. The two of us wore many hats including sales, marketing, operations, PR, social media, design, etc. In the past 2 years, we’ve been rapidly building a world-class team, to scale expeditiously in order to meet global demand. In January of 2021, we announced a $25M raise that is further accelerating our growth. The focus into the future continues to be on building a thriving business, remaining true to our mission, and creating a team capable of bending the curve on personal and planetary health.

You can now eat Hungry Planet® meats at restaurants across the country including all Plant Power Fast Food locations, as well as all Meta Burger locations that are entirely platformed on Hungry Planet Beef and Hungry Planet Chicken. They are listed #1 on Happy Cow and their Award-Winning Flat Iron Burger has been voted best in the world. We’re also on the menus of some of the fanciest steakhouses including Craig’s in LA that is diner to the stars, reservation only. They offer our crab cakes, beef bolo, burger, and Italian sausage on pizza.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Over the past 10+ years, Hungry Planet helped create and define the plant-based meat category. With the rapidly growing popularity of plant-based meats, over the next five years, we expect that Hungry Planet will continue to help lead this movement toward a healthier food system that heals the planet and our bodies with the most complete, the most nutritious, the most versatile plant-based meats. Our mission is to bend the curve on personal and planetary health, and while a lot of progress has been made, we are just getting started.

Globally, the meat industry exceeds a staggering $2.4 trillion dollars. It is inefficient, unhealthy, unjust, inhumane, and unsustainable. This ginormous market provides a significant opportunity for Hungry Planet to do well by doing good.

In 2020, total dollar sales of plant-based foods were over $7 billion. Total meat dollar sales are about $2.4 trillion. Of that, plant-based meat’s total dollar sales were $1.4 billion, representing a 27% dollar growth in 2 years. As an industry, we like to look at the pioneering plant-based milk market that now commands 17% of the overall milk market. Once plant-based meats also command 17% of the meat market, it will be in excess of $400 billion.

Currently, “Alt Meat” only accounts for .5% of all meat consumption globally, so it is going to take a sustained, concerted effort to turn this food system around so we can all realize a more humane economy. Most people are opposed to factory farming but remain blissfully unaware that 99% of meat, dairy, and eggs in the USA come from factory farms.

Early on we commissioned a report on the environmental savings of our meats vs conventional meats and believe this data will be increasingly compelling for people who want to eat more sustainably. Our meats provide 90% savings in CO2, 90% savings in water, and 75% savings inland. We don’t need more people to go vegan, we need more people to eat a plant-based meal once a day or even once a week to see a measurable environmental benefit.

If we can manage to feed 80 billion land animals per year just to eat them, why aren’t we able to feed 8 billion people? We need to shift from feeding all these nutritious plants to animals, which is hugely inefficient, and eating the plants directly. We believe that every decision we make about the food we eat is a vote for the world we want to inhabit, and future generations will inherit.The future of meat is plants”, and, Hungry Planet is delivering on that future today with the most complete range on this beautiful planet.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.hungryplanetfoods.com
• Instagram: @hungryplanetfoods
• Facebook: @hungryplanetfoods
• Youtube: @hungryplanetfoods
• Pinterest: @hungryplanetfoods