- Singapore-based Next Gen Foods is the parent company of emerging fake chicken brand, Tindle.
- Tindle’s “secret ingredient” Lipi helps mimic the texture of real chicken.
- After raising a $30 million seed round, Tindle is working to enter the US within the next year.
Andre Menezes was a meat-loving mechanical engineer before he cofounded and became the CEO of Next Gen Foods, an emerging, sustainable plant-based food startup behind the fake chicken brand, Tindle, that’s taking Singapore by storm.
Menezes’ journey simply began because he was interested in exploring adding alternative meat options to his diet. That led him to try Impossible Foods’ plant-based meat product in 2018. After that, he realized being a vegan or vegetarian with access to tasty meat substitutes was possible.
Menezes was such a fan of Impossible Foods’ products, he became a distributor for the company in Singapore and worked to expand its reach to local restaurants and supermarkets there. But then, he thought, if Impossible Foods could develop a fake beef product, why not chicken?
“At the time, [Impossible Foods] were simply not rivaled by anyone else, from my point of view. So [as I] worked closely with them, I decided that if there is good beef there must be good chicken,” Menezes said.
From there, he partnered with Timo Recker, who had extensive food-tech experience as the founder of German plant-based meat company, LikeMeat.
With Menezes' passion and Recker's expertise, the two founded Next Gen Foods during the pandemic in 2020.
Next Gen Foods makes Tindle, a plant-based chicken product made with the company's trademark ingredient Lipi, which helps make it taste as similar to chicken as possible.
The Singapore-based company is working to enter the US within the next year, starting with California.
That push is in part possible because of Next Gen Foods' $30 million seed round - a $20 million extension to the round was announced in July. The company's latest investors include GGV Capital, China's Bits x Bites, Singaporean food and beverage brand iYeo Hiap Seng, and it has been previously backed by Singapore's state-run investment company, Temasek.
Rather than emulating similar models of substitute chicken tenders or nuggets, Next Gen Foods has developed a fibrous and versatile chicken alternative that's close to the taste and fattiness of real chicken.
Its "secret ingredient" Lipi is made of a propreitary blend of plant-based fats and chicken flavor. The Lipi is used in the fibers of the plant-based product to create a more "versatile" texture.
In Asia, Tindle has captured the eye of Michelin-starred chefs and restaurants, specifically in Hong Kong and Singapore. Three Hong Kong restaurants with Michelin stars use Tindle in their dishes.
As the company looks to enter the US, it plans to follow the same recipe it followed in Asia by being featured in Michelin-starred and "Instagram-worthy" restaurants that cater to vegans, vegetarians and meat lovers interested in trying a protein alternative.
"Ultimately, we understand [that chefs] are creative. They want to make sure they can express their knowledge and their craft into a dish that people will love and buy and rave about, creating their reputation. We make sure that we design the product that can do that," Menezes said.