Plant-based fast food chain Clean Kitchen Club has raised more than £2m in a joint seed and crowdfunding round to expand the roll-out of its estate outside of London and push the brand into supermarkets.
It surpassed a £2.1m target on Seedrs, with £2.3m currently raised from more than 460 investors, including its existing shareholders, valuing the start-up at £12m.
This follows an two initial seed rounds in last year totalling £1.1m, with backers of the business including former Quorn chairman Clive Sharpe, Made in Chelsea star Spencer Matthews, who owns non-alcoholic spirits brand CleanCo, and Steve Easterbrook, the disgraced former McDonald’s boss fired by the chain in 2021.
Clean Kitchen Club – co-founded by YouTuber Mikey Pearce and Made in Chelsea star Verity Bowditch in 2020 – generated £725k of revenues in its first year, expanding from dark kitchens on Deliveroo to its first site in Camden.
It now runs six outlets, with plans to open a further five stores outside London, including in Manchester and Brighton.
The business has also diversified into corporate catering for the likes of Candy Kittens, Amazon and Sky.
A retail offering is in the works for early 2023, with plans for a new line of ready meals and food-to-go items to be launched in supermarkets and online retailers.
“We believe this represents a significant opportunity to grow and diversify our income and get Clean Kitchen products into more customers’ baskets’ every week of the year,” the company said in its crowdfunding pitch.
Clean Kitchen Club is targeting revenues of more than £10m in the next year.
Pearce said: “From the moment we launched Clean Kitchen from my aunt’s kitchen in Brighton we have been on a mission to bring plant-based food to the mainstream.
“The success of our vegan takes on the grab & go classics has surpassed even our wildest dreams. The fact that so many have joined us on this journey, not just in a monetary sense but in advice and practical support, has been the icing on the cake.”
Bowditch added: “The desire amongst the UK’s leading entrepreneurs, as well as fans of the brand, to invest in our company validates our determination to offer the public great tasting, sustainable protein alternatives.
“As more and more people start to realise the need to mitigate the impact that meat production is having on the environment, so they are demanding a fresh, dynamic solution that fits seamlessly into their lifestyle. We provide exactly that.”
This story first appeared in the grocer
