The Vegetarian Butcher grew in twelve years into a business with annual sales of some twenty-five million euros. To become the largest butcher in the world, he sold his business to Unilever. 'I don't understand why people frown.'
In the refrigerated section of the supermarket, you can no longer ignore the 'chicken tuck', 'meatballs' or 'smoked bacon' of The Vegetarian Butcher. What began twelve years ago as an idea in the head of Jaap Korteweg to make the bio-industry obsolete has grown into a business with ninety employees, a factory in Breda and a restaurant in Den Haag. The international business - De Vegetarische Slager's products are at over 4,000 outlets in seventeen countries - reportedly posted revenues of some twenty-five million euros last year.
Korteweg, ninth generation farmer, vegetarian in later life, but also great meat lover, founded De Vegetarische Slager in 2007 out of his own need for tasty meat that does not require animals. Together with innovative chefs and food technology, they work on processes to capture the taste of beef, pork and chicken in vegetarian products that have at least the same quality as the original. Remarkably, the veg butcher has never shied away from collaborating with meat parties in the process. Over the years, the brand has worked with several meat makers, including Unilever brand Unox, snack chain Smullers and frozen snack producer Mora, to develop meat substitutes.
Korteweg did not hide his sky-high ambition: the business had to become "the biggest butcher in the world, in the short term. After twelve years of doing everything on its own, De Vegetarische Slager must now grow into that world player under the wings of Unilever. After all, shareholders Korteweg (51 percent), Niko Koffeman (25 percent), Eric Postma (9 percent) Michiel van Deursen (7 percent) and a number of key employees (8 percent) sold their business - according to analysts for an amount around thirty million euros - entirely to the Dutch food giant just before the turn of the year.
After twelve years of doing everything under his own steam, was there a bit of a stretch at The Vegetarian Butcher?
'No, absolutely not. It actually went very well on its own. But we want to become the biggest butcher in the world as soon as possible. And realizing that ambition is really faster with Unilever's network, reach and capital.'
Isn't it a bit naive to think that a publicly traded company will continue the innovativeness and your sustainable mission against the bio-industry?
'On the contrary. I have never made a secret of the fact that it is precisely with these kinds of parties that we have to cooperate. The special thing about Unilever is that it looks for businesses with a mission. But they don't pour the Unilever sauce over it; they want to retain as much as possible of the identity of the business they have acquired. Take Ben & Jerry's, which has been owned by Unilever for eighteen years. That ice cream brand is still innovative, as it recently launched vegan ice cream. This knowledge was then used for Unilever's other ice cream brands, such as Magnum, all of which now have vegan versions as well. I note that some people are skeptical, but I don't understand their eyebrows. This acquisition is great for our mission.'
What do you yourself remember from the early years, the pioneering phase?
'I think we continued to pioneer for quite a long time, haha. Maybe up until this takeover. We are also an a-typical club. Our team is all made up of people who don't come from the meat industry, except for our operations manager who comes from Unilever. In the beginning that was looked at critically. How many times I was told that opening up a market without experience was not going to work.... I think the best part is that before we were there, top chefs and meat substitutes were two separate worlds. Top chefs wanted nothing to do with meat substitutes. But when our first products came on the market, we very quickly got appreciation from outside. Chefs like Robert Kranenborg, Pier-re Wind, Julius Jaspers; they all enthusiastically worked with our products.'
Currently, the market for meat substitutes is growing incredibly fast. But when you started in 2010, things looked different.
'I was already convinced back then that if you could make something that the meat lover recognizes as meat without the need for animals, it was one hundred percent promising. But whether I was going to succeed, I wasn't so sure. I gave myself a ten percent chance.
That's not very much.
'I even thought that was still very optimistic.'
By now there is a full-fledged business with revenues of some twenty-five million euros. But in those early years, were there also evenings when you thought: I don't know if we're going to make it?
'Absolutely. But there was never a moment when I really thought about quitting. When you challenge a traditional market, you face an immense task. There were exciting moments in those first few years. I mean, adding twenty to thirty thousand euros every month is quite a challenge. And for years on end. When I started The Vegetarian Butcher I had time and money. People also asked me how much money I would continue to put into the business. But you don't know that in advance. You can say that you put in two tons, but that's nonsense. After those two tons you take stock and if it's positive, you just keep going.'
When did Unilever first knock on your door?
'We had already worked with Unox, a Unilever brand, before, for example, the vegetarian meatballs in satay sauce. But that they wanted to talk about an acquisition was last February. They said that by then they had already done two years of research on the potential of our brand worldwide and that had turned out positive. I didn't notice anything about that research. I did hear that they had used our products at a dinner with the top of the business. So that was already a nice compliment. And on Twitter I noticed that former top executive Paul Polman was enthusiastic about our mission.
When you started working with Unox, did you also dream of Unilever as a possible buyer of The Vegetarian Butcher?
'Definitely. They were number one for me. That was very clear. In the field of food, Unilever is after all one of the largest businesses in the world, they have sustainability high on their agenda and it is a company with Dutch roots. This acquisition is the dream scenario.'
So when they showed interest you jumped a hole in the air.
'Not that. Because without exaggerating, in that period every day a business reported to me that wanted to take us over. That ranged from national multinationals to large international food companies and wealthy investors. If I include my top-ten dream buyers, five businesses from that list approached us. All in all, it did amount to a few hundred interested parties. Simultaneously with Unilever, we also spoke with an English/American investment company. That investor wanted to put substantial money into the business. In purely financial terms, we might have been better off going for them, but we chose Unilever because of the greatest possible growth potential. We want to be ten times as big in a few years, rather than five times as big.'
February 2018 Unilever first reported, in December the deal was done. How many talks have there been?
'About five. We talked for a very long time about what is the basis of The Vegetarian Butcher, of Unilever and of this takeover. And that mainly in ordinary people's language. But it did indeed happen extremely quickly. The negotiator from Unilever was getting married in Pakistan on December 17. And he wanted the deal done before his wedding, because he was also going on his honeymoon for three weeks. Then I called in a lawyer and he said, 'don't take that too seriously, it can't be done that quickly at all.' The Unilever team also said that. Only that negotiator and I thought it could be done. And it worked out.
What does this acquisition mean concretely for The Vegetarian Butcher?
'Unilever sees The Vegetarian Butcher, or rather The Vegetarian Butcher, as a global brand. They are going to put more money into it, hire more people and scale up production considerably. But we haven't agreed on a business plan for the next few years. It has become clear to me in the conversations that they seriously believe in the potential of The Vegetarian Butcher. Because of the price and the terms of this deal, I know they mean it, otherwise they wouldn't have paid this.'
It is also remarkable that you do not stay on as director of De Vegetarische Slager, but leave immediately. You are the face of the business, aren't you?
'Unilever initially also wanted me to stay on and keep pulling the cart, but I refused. I have no desire to go into salaried employment five days a week. Then you have to sit in the office and justify yourself; I've never done that. And to start doing that at my age.... By the way, I will remain the face of The Vegetarian Butcher. At first I also had to meet some conditions for that, but I said, 'I don't want any obligation'. So even if I don't do anything at all in terms of promotion anymore, that's fine. I'm far too free bird for that. But I still enjoy working on this mission way too much. And I'm also officially still an adviser, but that hasn't been filled in very concretely. I don't need to, so we won't have any arguments about it.
You're now an entrepreneur again. Do you already have your next revolutionary idea in the fight against the bio-industry?
'It was pretty hectic up to and including the transfer. I can stand to take it easy for a few years. But the new idea is already in my head. I've always said: when The Vegetarian Butcher is on its feet, the next step will be a vegan dairy farmer. So that you replace the cow with technology, where you put grass in and get real grass milk out on the other side. Now I give myself a one percent chance, because that's even harder than replacing meat. But people don't believe that assessment at all now, haha.'
