by Mary Margaret Stewart, staff writer
For Mike Wolianksy and Sadrah Schadel the journey to running No Evil Foods, a plant-based meat company in Asheville, North Carolina, began with the homesteading life in upstate New York.
“We just were doing as much as we could from scratch because we wanted to try to know more about our food and make things in a simpler way,” said Wolianksy, co-founder and CEO. “And she actually started experimenting with meat alternatives during that time in our kitchen.”
Schadel has been a vegetarian and vegan her whole life. Wolianksy said she ended up in a place where she realized that veg-friendly products weren’t always healthy.
“So we were looking at products we were buying in the stores and thinking, ‘Well, maybe we don’t want to buy that’ or ‘Maybe that has a lot of ingredients that we don’t really recognize, so let’s make something for ourselves that’s a little bit simpler.’”
And that’s just what they did, with the products that they’re making now for No Evil Foods not much different than her recipes. Fast-forward to their move to North Carolina in 2014: their business blew up, and it blew up fast.
They started out simply, at the farmers market in Asheville. After selling out the first day, No Evil Foods was in local grocery stores within a month or two. By seven to eight months, their products were in the local Whole Foods. After a few years of natural growth, they decided to look to the future.
“We realized that we’ve got people,” Wolianksy said. “People are really excited about what we’ve created here – the products, the brands – do we want to do more with this? Because we can have this greater impact around our mission. And so, we started to think a little bit bigger.”
In 2017, they went to their first trade show, Expo East, which was a “huge inflection point” for them. At that time, No Evil Foods was in about 200 stores.
By the end of 2018, they were sitting at about 1,400 stores. And by the close of 2019, they’d expanded to nearly 5,000 stores.
While No Evil Foods has been around for six years, Nashville, North Carolina-based Atlantic Natural Foods (ANF) draws off a rich history. Loma Linda, one of ANF’s plant-based brands, was founded in 1890 to serve the Seventh Day Adventist community, who’s plant-based for religious reasons.
“The Loma Linda brand is that old,” said Laura Lapp, brand innovation manager for ANF. “So, we were creating plant-based items before plant-based was even cool – before it was a movement.”
With those deep roots, the company officially launched in 2008. Lapp said they didn’t want to just cater to one community or religious group, but instead find ways to create new, plant-based options for the larger population.
“One of the trends that we’re seeing – and our shelf-stable products speak directly to this – is convenience,” she said. “So plant-based, of course, is fruits and vegetables, but it’s complete meals that are convenient and quick to make…many of them can be microwaved for 60 seconds.
“Recently, we’ve seen this growth and trend to make sure you have these staples in your pantry…it’s something you can have on hand for whatever life throws your way.”
ANF launched their microwavable products about six years ago, testing the waters with new recipes and flavor profiles. And then, it took off.
“The plant-based movement has grown dramatically, even in the last two years,” Lapp said. “So we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response to these products, and it seemed like we were ready with them when the market was ready and started to show that growth.”
On the grocery side, Jeff Downings has seen a big increase in plant-based products and shoppers within the past two years at Foothills Market IGA, which he owns in Marble Hill, Georgia.
“Well the demand for [plant-based] is growing, and especially the substitute or plant-based meat items,” he said. “We have a number of those now, where we didn’t have any 18 months ago or something like that. They’re selling very well.”
And ANF has seen that this growth in popularity of plant-based items has extended past the veg-community with “everyday consumers” getting a taste for plant-based, going right along with their mission – “to create affordable, sustainable, healthy, shelf-stable sources of protein for all people and available everywhere.”
Getting more people on board with plant-based eating also is what No Evil Foods is about. Wolianksy said that he and Schadel tackle this mission by sticking true to simple ingredients.
“I think a lot of people might look at our category as a cool alternative but not necessarily always be comfortable with some of the ingredients that are being used,” he said, “especially if they’re trying to make a transition from animal protein.
“For long-term growth of the category, it’s going to be really important to bring those people over from animal protein…to be able to say, ‘We use ingredients that you recognize that you feel good about.’ And then it makes it easier for them to make a habit, rather than an exception.”