Erbology was one of eight nascent nutrition food and drink companies that were chosen in June 2017 and given a €25,000 grant to participate in the innovation initiative.
It saw the companies work closely with PepsiCo employees to tackle the key business challenges they faced, such as distribution, marketing or supply chain.
Erbology, which offers nutrient-rich, plant-based products, such as oils, shots, crackers and energy balls, grew by more than 400% over the course of the six months. During the programme it launched 11 new products and had Erbology products listed on Ocado.
Strategic expansion
All eight companies saw strategic expansion, brand evolution and revenue growth with overall retail sales of the collective group growing by nearly €10.7M.
Erbology London was chosen as the recipient of the final grant as the company demonstrated stand-out sustainable and scalable growth, PepsiCo revealed.
“We launched the Nutrition Greenhouse to partner with the best and the brightest entrepreneurs in the food and beverage nutrition space,” said Juan Ignacio Amat, vice president nutrition for PepsiCo western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.
“Our goal was to work with breakthrough brands that share our vision to deliver more convenient great tasting everyday nutrition products and we’ve achieved just that with these eight stand-out companies.
“It was a very hard decision to choose only one to receive the final €100,000 grant but my sincere congratulations go to Irina and Victor Turcan of Erbology.”
‘Focus on accelerated growth’
Erbology founder Irina Turcan said: “We’re honoured to receive the €100,000 PepsiCo Nutrition Greenhouse grant. We’ve achieved a great deal in the last six months working with our PepsiCo mentor to best utilise our initial €25,000 grant and the injection of a further €100,000 into our business is going to make a huge difference as we focus on accelerated growth in retail and e-commerce.”
Science minister Jo Johnson MP has applauded the PepsiCo programme.
“New and innovative businesses such as Erbology drive earning power across the economy. Our modern Industrial Strategy celebrates and supports initiatives like this to boost the UK’s position as the best place to innovate and grow a business,” said Johnson.