The Weekly Anthropocene Interviews: Annie Ryu, CEO of The Jackfruit Company

The rise of Earth's meatiest fruit

Oct 02, 2023

Annie Ryu is the founder and CEO of The Jackfruit Company and Jack & Annie’s. Both companies are creating products with jackfruit, the world’s meatiest fruit.

Yay, a financial disclosure! This is one of The Weekly Anthropocene’s first-ever sponsored posts, thanks to Jason Ingle of Third Nature Investments (who we interviewed recently) and his work to support plant-based food and textile companies.

A lightly edited transcript of this exclusive interview follows. This writer’s questions and remarks are in bold, Ms. Ryu’s responses are in regular type. Bold italics are clarifications and extra information added after the interview.

Where did you first encounter jackfruit and how did that lead you to founding a company?

I first saw jackfruit on my first day in India. I had been to India for a health tech company that my brother and I had started, working on maternal and child health care.

When I was in India, I saw jackfruit by happenstance. It's the highest yielding tree crop in the world. It's native to India and super abundant there. I got invited to a jackfruit festival my first weekend in India. Jackfruit festivals have now been going on for over a decade in recognition of the fact that it's this amazing natural resource and what a shame that it wasn't better connected to a market. I had been working in global health up until that point. And what I continued seeing was that poverty was the root cause of all the problems that I was trying to solve. With jackfruit, there was an opportunity to address poverty at scale, because it was essentially money growing on trees that farming families would be able to access if we could actually build the supply chains to get it to market.

That sounds fascinating, a really noble thing to be doing. So how does that work in practice? So you're like, hey, there's all these people who could really use a job being jackfruit farmers. What does it look like on the ground?

It's been built over a lot of invested time and energy. I mean, I've been to India 35 times. We now have a fully owned subsidiary in India that works directly with thousands of small farmers. When we started the farmers didn't really know what we were looking for because there wasn't an existing supply chain or an existing market for jackfruit. There are various different varietals of jackfruit and various different stages of its ripening that lead to a very, very different product, very different consumer experience. And so we first of all needed to, you know, develop guides and manuals for what kind of jackfruit we were even looking for. And then we needed to figure out what the seasonality was, where the jackfruit was growing and what quantities, and start building relationships with those farmers. I don't speak all the different languages in India, as much as I have an interest to learn. Each state has a different state language and those languages aren't particularly closely related. So it was really important to have people who were local who could be our partners there on the ground to build these relationships directly with farmers.

We now have a network of manufacturing facilities across India and the United States for, you know, basically unlocking the full capabilities of jackfruit to replicate meat.

Yes, let's talk about that. What was your first jackfruit product and what is the whole spectrum of jackfruit products you make now?

Yeah, so the first products that we started making with jackfruit were really just pieces of jackfruit in sauce, leveraging the fact that jackfruit naturally has that sinewy nature of meat. Barbecued jackfruit in place of pulled pork, Tex-Mex jackfruit, teriyaki jackfruit. And so those items under The Jackfruit Company brand really targeted and continue to target vegans and vegetarians who know how to cook with tofu and are not afraid to cook with jackfruit and make a meal with that as the main part of the dish. We call that line Meal Starters because they’re extremely versatile, delicious, healthy replacements for meat. But you need to be somebody who is willing to cook with jackfruit and not afraid to cook with jackfruit.

So I think we’re starting off with vegans and vegetarians as a consumer base and as the plant-based meat category has gained attention and consumers, based on increasing concerns about, needing to consume more plants to better preserve the planet, we'll have more and more flexitarians also trying those foods.

I'm seeing you're now developing stuff that is more closely trying to match meat-type products. Like you've got sausage links, sausage patties, meatballs, chicken nuggets, chicken patties, how did those come about?

Jack and Annie's we launched in 2020 to basically appeal to meat eaters and flexitarians who are looking to reduce their consumption of meat, but not give up meat entirely and who really, you know, value and appreciate foods that are as similar to the meat-eating experience as possible.

So they're looking for foods that are better for you, that enable them to eat more plants, that are better for the planet, but also taste just like meat. And that's where jackfruit is uniquely suited to be a solution, because jackfruit is the meatiest plant that exists. Like it is something that has been enjoyed as a meat alternative in India for hundreds if not thousands of years because it's naturally meaty just the way it grows. And so we're able to craft delicious meat alternatives that have the taste and texture of meat but are also primarily just this amazing plant that is jackfruit.

It almost sounds too good to be true. So, how is jackfruit special in the meat-alternatives space? Do you think it's better because it appeals as a more sort of natural, unprocessed sort of whole food? Do you think it's better because it involves a tree crop and, you know, carbon is sequestered as the tree grows, which isn't as much the case for grain crops?

I agree with what you said earlier, which is that it’s almost too good to be true. How does something like this exist? That’s where we appreciate that Mother Nature does amazing things. I mean, I literally didn't believe it when I was first introduced to the idea that jackfruit could be a meat alternative, that a crop like a plant could possibly be so meaty just the way it grows.

In terms of why it appeals to consumers, I think different parts of it resonate with different people and for a lot of people, all of it really resonates. It's the fact that it's an actual plant and people are looking to eat more plants. Some of them have felt frustrated by their not being able to understand how a product that in the ingredient label is first and foremost water and second some kind of protein isolate, how does that end up having the taste and texture of meat? We have foods that are first and foremost this naturally meaty plant and that is something that clearly delivers a plant, which people are looking for with plant-based foods.

Beyond that, it is incredibly good for the environment and it's really good for the farmers too. We work directly with thousands of small farmers and contribute 10-40% of their annual income. As you mentioned, jackfruit is a perennial tree crop and it is a hardwood crop that is sequestering a great deal of carbon. The reason that it is super abundant in India even prior to the fact that there was a market for it is that it supports a healthy ecosystem and so people would just allow it to grow to support cash crops and not have anything to do with the jackfruit itself other than enjoy as much as they wanted to consume.

Does it have fertilizer needs? What is its biology in that respect?

It does not require any kind of fertilizers or pesticides where it grows in India. And that's part of the reason it is so sustainable, especially the way that we manage our supply chain. Certainly I've seen jackfruit growing in other countries where it's not native and fertilizers are applied to it. But the fact that we operate this supply chain direct to small farmers in India where the crop is native and has been thriving without any maintenance is part of why our jackfruit is so sustainable.

Are there any concerns about water availability?

Jackfruit is drought-resistant, and it’s a pretty hardy crop. In India, it grows in various different areas, in different microclimates. Sometimes the weather will impact what time the fruit becomes available.

What are your plans for expansion and availability? How are you getting jackfruit to the consumer now and in the future?

In addition to that, we do sell to food service. And so food service is, you know, everything where food is sold, that is not a grocery store. So that's, for us, particularly restaurants, corporate cafeterias, college and university, even healthcare establishments. It's about really making jackfruit part of mainstream consumption. When I started this company, everyone from the buyers at mainstream retailers to the chefs at five-star restaurants had never heard of jackfruit. And for the first multiple years, we had to bring a whole jackfruit with us to every sales call. So, you know, the expansion that we've achieved so far is just really a huge leap forward relative to where we started. It's a lot of fun to go to conferences now and be able to talk to folks and ask, have you ever heard of jackfruit? And everybody says yes. Before, everybody said no. But yeah, we're going to continue growing our distribution across retail and food service. We definitely just see a lot of opportunity with continuing to get distribution in more retail stores, more food service outlets and getting more items on shelves. In that regard, Whole Foods has all 10 of our Jack and Annie's items now nationwide since they expanded our assortment this summer. And Sprouts has around nine of our items.

We have a variety of e-commerce partners that are all available on our website. Amazon Fresh, Instacart, they also can ship our products to you.

What is your favorite Jack and Annie’s product?

The breakfast sausage patties, because I'm an all day breakfast person! And breakfast sandwiches are so convenient to consume whether I am here or, more likely, when I'm on the go.

I was a huge fan of the Beyond Meat breakfast sausage they had at Dunkin Donuts, but they pulled that off the menu. I hope they add jackfruit sausage someday!

Now, one question I always want to ask in an interview: what question should I be asking that I’m not asking?

I mean, I really think it kind of depends on what would add best to your work, right?

Is there any assistance or public approval from local Indian politicians?

A long time ago, we had been featured in a newspaper in India. And as a result, the head of the Department of Agriculture had reached out to me and said, did you know, jackfruit is the only totally organic crop in India. And the reason for that being that because it's native and thriving and there hadn't really been a commercial market for it, why would you apply fertilizers or pesticides to something that's thriving that you're not going to be able to sell because all those things cost money. And so just over this entire period of time, the crop itself has been organic and super abundant in the country. So I think in general, there's a lot of enthusiasm about what we're doing. We don't have any kind of official, like, way of working with the government, but certainly we interface with local government in areas where we source.

Awesome. In Madagascar, where I encountered a lot of growing jackfruit, a lot of the people who grew the jackfruit were sometimes upset that like other animals would eat the jackfruit because you know it's out there and big and tasty. Have you had any human/wildlife conflict issues? Do you have elephants or monkeys or anything raiding your fields? Because I know that happens in a lot of areas.

I wouldn’t call it raiding, but we definitely have some cooperative competition there. It's not like widespread or large scale. It's just, you know, the wildlife loves jackfruit too.

What kinds of animals have you found love jackfruit?

Elephants, monkeys, and giant squirrels. I have not directly observed an elephant eating jackfruit, but there are some videos online.

How would you encourage people to cook with jackfruit?

I would say if you are just getting started with cooking with jackfruit, definitely go to Jack and Annie's and all the foods are very straightforward to prepare. Like the sausages that I mentioned, you know, put those on the stovetop and enjoy that all day breakfast. If it's any of our chicken items, put them in the air fryer, make them nice and crispy and enjoy those however you like as well. A lot of people really enjoy those for snacking, but I have friends who like to do stuff like chicken katsu with them. So they're all very versatile, but I think like Jack and Annie's is a super easy place to start. With The Jackfruit Company items that's another realm of versatility because you could put it in entrees, appetizers, tacos, whatever you like. And we do have a bunch of recipes on our websites as well.

Do you have plans to take Jack and Annie's international, maybe in other relatively vegetarian-heavy markets like the European Union?

We do supply some products to Europe. And we are about to launch Jack & Annie's retail in Canada. So I'm excited for that to appear on shelves in Canada soon. In terms of broader expansion, we see the opportunity for Jack and Annie’s and The Jackfruit Company being very global. It’s really a question of where to focus our resources first. We will be growing internationally, but our primary focus is on continuing expansion in the U.S.

What's the immediate expansion step on your agenda right now?

We just expanded into breakfast sandwiches this summer. That’s a new launch for the brand, and something we’re very excited about. Breakfast is a time when people are looking for delicious convenience. And candidly, also, the breakfast meats currently out there are not very healthy. As somebody who was raised by a cardiologist, we generally steered clear of bacon and breakfast sausages. So we've launched breakfast sandwiches that are vegetarian that have our sausage patties, and they’re just extremely delicious. Our consumers really love and prefer these items that we’ve just launched nationwide with Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Imperfect Foods.

Plant-based meat is often more expensive than traditional meat. And a lot of that's obviously because of huge market-distorting agricultural subsidies to traditional meat. Is there potential, do you think, for jackfruit to become cost competitive with meat in the near future?

Hmm. It’s a multifaceted question. The subsidies are certainly part of why meat is so cheap. But the other piece is that this is an industry that has been existing for a very long time, is very consolidated and has immense efficiencies in scale. When you’re slaughtering millions of animals per week, and you have that scale of purchasing power on your manufacturing, your raw materials, your freight, that scale of negotiating leverage with everyone in the entire cost structure, that will bring your costs down. It’s rare to see a startup that is working in meat, because it’s so competitive now with the giants that already exist. But even if you did see a startup in meat, I mean, their prices are going to be higher than the existing meat giants just because they don't have economies of scale. It’s really not just plant-based vs. meat, it’s small-scale vs. gigantic companies, and you don’t have economies of scale yet. I think that's often and easily confused. People are like, plant-based is just more expensive, but no, small-scale is always more expensive than large-scale.

So I think that's one piece of it in terms of how does jackfruit compare to other plant based foods? Certainly, everybody's cost structure is confidential, so I can't make a direct, fully informed comparison. But from what I know, our cost structure is better. Our cost structure is better and our margins are better because we’re doing less processing, we own and operate the supply chain direct to the farms, and we’re working with a simpler raw material as opposed to a protein extract that had to go through multiple stages. In terms of jackfruit as a raw material versus meat, meat prices vary pretty significant from chicken to pork to beef, from conventional to antibiotic-free to grass-fed but we know that we are able to compete and in most regards underprice beef and pork with our jackfruit, so we're really excited for what that means for our future.

How fast are you growing?

So Jack and Annie's we launched in 2020. And since its launch, we've had nearly 400% compound annual growth rate. Right now in the plant based space, you see a lot of brands that are actually in decline or are going bankrupt. We've been able to buck the trends for the category. We haven't grown this year as fast as we would like to grow, but again, one of the top performers in the space.

Spectacular. This has been really amazing talking with you. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Sam.