Big moves are happening at Veganz Group AG — the plant-based food innovator just announced a major leadership shift. Founder and CEO Jan Bredack is stepping aside after nearly 15 years, handing over the reins to Rayan Tegtmeier, a seasoned growth strategist with a serious track record in scaling companies and opening doors to capital markets. With this transition, Veganz is aiming to accelerate its evolution into a high-performing food tech holding company, expanding globally, and close what they’re calling a “glaring undervaluation” of their stock.
We recently caught up with Rayan Tegtmeier, the incoming CEO of Veganz Group AG, to break down what’s next.
The following is a transcription of the above video, and The Market Online has edited it for clarity.
Lyndsay: Rayan, let’s actually start right here for a second. You are taking over from the founder himself. So what’s the first thing you actually want investors and employees and customers even to know about what your leadership style will look like?
Rayan: I have a basic knowledge about tax audit informatics and have a good understanding of how I set up companies, restructure companies and get good transformation in special terms of Veganz to transform Veganz from a trading company to a food tech company. So, with some centrally secured IP to transform this group into the future.
Lyndsay: You actually called your stock “glaringly undervalued,” that’s a strong statement, Rayan, what’s behind that confidence and how do you plan to fix that disconnect between the market price and the actual value?
Rayan: Yes, as I mentioned before, Veganz before was a common trader for vegan food. So out of this, the last year they developed the supply chain a little bit back and developed deep knowledge in how to produce vegan or organic food. So, there they got, over the years, substantial knowledge, especially our Veganz will launch its first blockbuster milk sheets. This is what we are going to do next. First they developed over the last five years, 2D printing for oat milk especially. So, this was heavy, they invested $8 million in the development, challenged this project. And now the business development is outlined.
So, they are capable to scale this company over in the first step over three countries. We will start in the US with three factories. We will then go to the Middle East, and we’ll also go to Thailand on the first step. Five factories. Each will cost $5 million CapEx and $2.5 million in working capital. And the same we will do in the second tranche again. So afterwards we will have an internationally scaled up business, for factories on various countries. Then with these factories, we can supply the demand of our clients in each area.
Lyndsay: Veganz has actually transformed from that vegan supermarket chain that you spoke about into that food tech company. What’s the big next leap here, Rayan? Are we talking about more M&A or more global expansion that you kind of touched on a little bit or something entirely new here?
Rayan: Yes. Veganz has changed from the old tradition trade company to an IP group. So, first we have the oat milk then we also will have some substitute for meat. And what we also sold last month is OrbiFarm. It’s also a deep IP from the Fraunhofer Germany Institute for indoor farming. What’s very good for a pharmacy branch to build up substantial goods to produce the farmer medicines.
Lyndsay: So, Rayan the big question here is we all know that plant-based food has been a fast moving, crowded space. How does Veganz cut through all of that noise and really avoid becoming just another name on the shelf?
Rayan: We cut off our trade business and transformed the complete group into an IP patent company. This will lead us to a sustainable business model in the future based on heavy, deep knowledge of understanding how we will produce food in the future.
Lyndsay: Let’s flip over just a little bit here. I mean, you’ve worked in over 35 countries and led some big growth strategies. How do you plan to use that global experience to turn Veganz into a serious international player here?
Rayan: I used my knowledge of how to build up these groups from the past, and I will take over this blueprint on Veganz. We started last week, or we started last month to collect all the customer demand all over the world. It’s maybe 160 million liters mostly in the US. So, based on this demand, we will produce or establish factories in US, in the Middle East and Australia and Thailand to fulfill this customer demand.
Veganz Group AG is trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange,under the ticker symbol VEZ and their story can be found over on their website at veganz.com
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