‘Amazon for Vegans’ Launches With 4,500 Plant-Based Products
Billion Vegans hopes to be an exclusively plant-based version of Amazon.
Billion Vegans, a new online marketplace, recently launched with an offering of 4,500 exclusively vegan products, including items from top plant-based companies like Daiya Foods and Silk. The Beverly Hills-based company, billed as “Amazon for vegans,” recently raised $300,000 in private investments and is currently aiming to raise $1 million in equity funding.
All products sold on the site must adhere to strict vegan practices established by Billion Vegans founders Amir Lavi and Alon Hochberg. All Billion Vegans suppliers are required to sign a binding commitment to adhere to these practices – and notify the company of any policy changes – before being allowed to sell their products on the platform.
“After going vegan, I spent several months replacing all my food, clothes, cosmetics and dog supplies, reading the fine print on every product, and contacting the vendors for more information,” Hochberg tells VegNews. “Then, I bought a pair of vegan shoes on Amazon and when they arrived, I found out the glue was made of pigs’ bones. That was the day I decided to start Billion Vegans.”
Billion Vegans donates 10 percent of all profits to vegan organizations.
Today, six percent of Americans identify as vegan, according to a 2017 Top Trends in Prepared Foods report. Billion Vegans hopes to “propel the vegan movement towards reaching critical mass.”
Even omnivorous consumers are reaching for plant-based foods, however: nearly nine in 10 households that purchase plant-based milk alternatives also purchase dairy milk some of the time, according to a 2017 USDA report.
Plant-based food sales have grown 20 percent over the past year, according to recent data from Nielsen, and the plant-based food and beverage market increased 62 percent worldwide from 2013 to 2017, according to research from Innova Market Insights.
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