5 Innovative Plant-Based Brands from Spanish Speaking Countries

To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month,  observed annually from September 15th to October 15th, we’re taking a look at the top five vegan companies in Spanish speaking countries, and thanks to the platform, Vegconomist, which is launching a Spanish-language site to provide information about the vegan economy to 570 million Spanish speakers on Earth, we compiled this list of the best vegan companies from Spanish speaking countries.

Heura Foods was founded three years ago on Earth Day by Marc Coloma and Bernat Añaños in Barcelona, Spain. According to Añaños, the activist brand saved 276,643 animals in their first three years of operations and is aiming to save 1,500,000 animals by the end of 2020. Heura is the fastest-growing vegan meat startup. In 2019, Heura reported an incredible growth of 450%. Their 100% vegetable meat is served at Nectari, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Barcelona. The Spanish vegan brand made its debut in Latin America in 2020 by offering its products in Chile.

One of the most celebrated vegan food brands in Latin America is NotCo. Karim Pichara, Matías Muchnick, and Pablo Zamora founded the food tech brand in Santiago, Chile. In 2019 the company secured a substantial investment of $30 million including an investment from Jeff Bezos—the richest man on Earth. NotCo creates vegan-versions of meat and dairy products that are available in Brazil and Chile including Not Mayo. In Chile, Burger King uses NotCo Not Meat vegan patties for a plant-based Rebel Whopper and Papa John’s uses the NotCo plant-based meat for their vegan pizzas.

The future of plant-based leather is being spearheaded by the Mexican company Desserto. Adrian Lopez Velarde and Marte Cazarez of Guadalajara’s organic plant-based vegan leather is made from cactus. The durable vegan leather is free from PVC, phthalate, herbicides, and pesticides. It’s made with rainwater and mature leaves that are only cut every 6-8 months to prevent damaging the cactus plant and enable repeat harvesting. The leaves are sun-dried which further reduces the product’s energy consumption. The sustainable leather brand won the Green Product Award 2020 in Munich, Germany along with the prize for sustainability at the Monte Carlo Fashion Week (MCFW) 2020 in Monaco.

Nelson Rodrigues, Andrés Ramírez, and Artur Jiménez founded WARUWA, a Colombian agro-food initiative which brings together e-commerce, logistics, agrotech, and environmental justice. WARUWA is a B2B company helping farmers and restaurants throughout Colombia and Latin America by reshaping fruit and vegetable chains. They offer over 300 types of fruits and vegetables. To date, the agro-food initiative has supported more than 1,200 farming families and served over 8 million plates to restaurants, retailers, schools, and hospitals.

The Live Green Co. is a Chilean plant-forward biotech company at the forefront of the plant revolution. Their vegan meat products go beyond imitating animal products by focusing on taste and clean functional ingredients as well as sustainable production and packaging.  The collection is 100% vegan and gluten-free. They launched with burger mixes and pancake mixes. The Live Geen Co. is collaborating with Sigma Alimentos, a Mexican food manufacturing company with $6 billion in revenue and operating in 18 countries.