Plant-based milk maker Ripple Foods raises another $49M on heels of innovation

Dive Brief:

• Ripple’s latest $49 million investment brings the California pea milk brand’s total capital to more than $274 million, according to an SEC filing last week.
• The funding round follows a $60M Series E raise in 2021 led by Rage Capital —now Bloom8 — Ajax Strategies and S2G Ventures.
• Competition in the plant-based milk market, which is a $29 million industry, is intensifying. The pea milk segment has seen a slightly larger decrease in total sales in recent weeks but has outpaced both conventional and overall plant-based dairy sectors, according to the Good Food Institute.

Dive Insight:

In July, Ripple Foods built on the success of its popular Kids Original Milk, one of the only plant-based milks targeted to children, by launching an unsweetened version.

“Parents consistently say Ripple Kids has been a game-changer for their family, due to the need for an alternative to dairy that provides great taste and optimal nutrition for children,” said CEO Laura Flanagan in a statement.

Ripple Foods appointed Flanagan — a CPG alum with experience at both PepsiCo and Conagra — to take the helm of the business in 2019. Flanagan sits on the board as well.

Yellow peas are a popular main ingredient for plant-based milk and are also used by other companies such as PepsiCo-owned Sabra, Dipasa and Roquette, among others. Ripple, though, has continued to set itself apart from bigger players by stripping unwanted components like color and flavor from the ingredient to yield “rippetin” — a neutral-tasting protein that can be incorporated into food and beverages in high quantities.

Ripple claims its products have 50% more calcium than dairy milk, 8 grams of protein per serving, and half the sugar of dairy milk.

The plant-based space overall has seen a shift in consumer sentiment — with more consumers wanting healthier options with ingredients that live up to their labels. Plant-based milk is the most developed sector in the overall plant-based category, worth about $2.8 billion. “By dollar sales, plant-based milk alone accounts for 35% of the total plant-based food market,” according to the Good Food Institute’s 2022 report on the sector.