Nabati Foods Global, a plant-based food tech company based in Edmonton, offers whole, natural, plant-based foods for health-conscious consumers, including its plant-based Chick'n Burger, a finalist in this year's competition. In this episode, we meet Nabati CEO Ahmad Yehya, who tells us all about the business, the product, and shares lessons learned developing and launching this innovative new product
Welcome to the Canadian Grand Prix New Product Awards bonus episode of The Food Professor!
My co-host Sylvain Charlebois and I are thrilled to once again be supportting Retail Council of Canada’s new product awards this year as we both are big believers in supporting new and innovative products for the grocery shelves and beyond.
Nabati Foods Global, a plant-based food tech company based in Edmonton, offers whole, natural, plant-based foods for health-conscious consumers, including its plant-based Chick'n Burger, a finalist in this year's competition.
In this episode, we meet Nabati CEO Ahmad Yehya, who tells us all about the business, the product, and shares lessons learned developing and launching this innovative new product.
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Thanks for listening, and good luck to all the Canadian Grand Prix New Product Awards finalists! To see all the finalists and learn more about the upcoming gala awards on June 3rd 2021 visit http://www.rccgrandprix.ca/
If you liked what you heard you can subscribe on Apple iTunes , Spotify or your favourite podcast platform, please rate and review, and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the grocery, foodservice, or restaurant industry. I’m Michael LeBlanc, producer and host of The Voice of Retail podcast and a bunch of other stuff, stay tuned for our next episode with my partner Sylvain Charlebois!
Stay Safe everyone!!
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to the Canadian Grand Prix New Product Awards bonus episode of The Food Professor.
My co-host, Sylvain Charlebois, and I are thrilled to once again be supporting Retail Council of Canada's new product awards this year as we are both big believers in supporting new and innovative products for the grocery shelves and beyond.
Nabati Foods Global, a plant-based food tech company based in Edmonton, offers whole, natural, plant-based foods for health conscious consumers, including its plant-based Chick'n Burger, a finalist in this year's competition.
In this episode, we meet Nabati CEO, Ahmad Yehya, who tells us all about the business, the product, and shares lessons learned developing and launching this innovative new product. Let's listen in now.
Ahmad, welcome to The Food Professor podcast. How are you doing this morning?
Ahmad Yehya
I'm great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, it's, it's my pleasure. And this is one of several bonus episodes we're going to have on the podcast celebrating the finalists for the Canadian Grand Prix Awards, the Retail Council of Canada's Food Awards. So, congratulations, you made it to being a finalist. That's a big deal.
Ahmad Yehya
Yes, it is. It was a great surprise to actually find this out.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, let's start at the beginning. Tell us about yourself, your your professional background and all about the company.
Ahmad Yehya
Sure, absolutely. So, my name is Ahmad and co-founder and CEO of Nabati Foods. I'm originally from Egypt and moved to Canada back in 20, 2006. I have a background in electrical engineering degree. And recently, in 2007, 17, sorry, got an MBA. I was working in the biomedical field. But at some point, I got really tired of that, and really wanted to pursue my passion. And I did that, just that with my partner, starting our business Nabati Foods.
And, we wanted to share with people great plant-based foods that we made at home. And, the way we started really is from home due to lack of great opportunities, or great products on the shelf. Nabati actually means plant-based in Arabic. And it really describes what we're doing and who we are and as a company as well. And, the whole point of Nabati Foods is to create mouthwatering products that are whole, natural, made of whole natural ingredients, free of common allergies. And the idea is to bring people together using great food that's better for us and the environment.
Michael LeBlanc
Oh, fantastic. Now, when you say was your passion, and we is, is that when you're young, and you'd like to cook, or create things, or how did that come to you?
Ahmad Yehya
Yeah, really. When I was a kid, I always like to be in the kitchen and cook and get involved in. I was always getting kicked out of the kitchen. So, I love cooking. I love making stuff at home. So, it's really something I enjoy. It gives me great joy.
Michael LeBlanc
Fantastic. Well, all right, well, let's talk about the product, the Nabati Chick'n Burger, I believe it is. So, tell me all about the product. And and, you know, tell me what makes it different. And you said you know you didn't quite see that anything quite like it. So where do you think it fits on the grocery shelves? Or on consumers plates? Tell me about it.
Ahmad Yehya
Oh, absolutely, we really, everything you see in the market is either gluten or soy based. And I can't, I tend not to like these mono-solution based products. It's like one or the other. And, we saw there's a gap in the market for everybody that really can't have gluten or soy. Well, there must be a solution out there. And that's what we developed is our plant-based chicken using pea protein. And we wanted to create something that is quite different.
Everybody's used to breaded products. Well, we want to give the consumer freedom to cook and enjoy their food. And to do that we created a plant-based chicken burger. And we have a whole lineup of extensions in this area coming out, coming out this year that basically, the consumer would take that they can bread it if they want it. They can do gluten free breading, if they want it. They can eat it as is. It's just like eating chicken. And this is how you get chicken anyway. You don't really buy it breaded, it's, if you want the meat, right?
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, yeah, right.
Ahmad Yehya
So, we wanted to give the consumer to experience, the opportunity to have an experience cooking their food.
Michael LeBlanc
So, you saw an opportunity on the shelf. Tell me about the development of the product. How many times did you, you know, did you produce it and then say, that's not quite right. I mean, tell me about that journey.
Ahmad Yehya
Yeah, so it took us three months to do that. And the iterations were, we're doing like three, four iterations a day. We, we were looking at basically using pea protein from the very beginning. We thought that, we saw, we thought this is readily available. And ideas that eventually it's going to be produced here in Canada. So, we wanted to have a product that we would transition from getting our pea protein from France to here in Calgary. So, we're in that position right now and we're shifting to that, which is great. We want to support local businesses.
But back then, the way we approached it is what, what is the texture, we put the specs, and we wanted to achieve every part of it. So, texture, to flavor, the cooking experience, every ingredient is a component, a building block, basically like Legos on how to deliver all these specs that we put forward. And pea protein is one of them. We used pea fiber, which is basically a byproduct of extracting pea protein. So, instead of using something else or other protein isolates, we use protein, pea fiber that helps deliver on texture as well with, with the pea protein, a texturized pea protein. And in the end, you end up with a product that is high in fiber. So, our chicken is like 21, 22 grams of protein, and four grams of fiber.
Michael LeBlanc
Now, was it your goal to make it taste as close to chicken as possible?
Ahmad Yehya
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc
Again, and, and how did you, how did you test it? Did you have a roomful of friends and said, okay, does this, you know, close your eyes, does this taste like chicken? Tell me about that.
Ahmad Yehya
Yeah, well, friends and family, family and all the staff, everybody on board is a tester. And yeah, literally, we they, they got to a point where the people were like, no, no, no, no, we were sick of testing.
Michael LeBlanc
You got it right. You nailed it. Move on.
Ahmad Yehya
So it, definitely we were very, we take a very fanatical approach to developing products. We want it to be as close as possible, and getting the right natural flavoring from our suppliers that you know is like no, no, no, we want it like tastes like this. Exactly how if, you know, chicken burger, that, and that's barbecued and we wanted to be free of X,Y, Z and so on. So, we go through a lot of trials, making sure that we get to the right product. And, the interesting thing is our Chick'n Burger, if you cook it in the Instapot it, you get a nice, strong chicken flavor compared to just barbecuing it, compared to just frying it on the pan. So, it's, it's very interesting. Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, I'm a big fan of Nashville Hot chicken. So I'd love to, I'd love to give it a try. Cuz I like to try different, different products in particular on the barbecue or whatever. So that's great. My, my partner, podcast partner, Sylvain Charlebois, calls your audience I guess flexitarians. In other words, they're not necessarily vegetarians, because they wouldn't be kind of jonesing for the taste of chicken. Is that, you know, when you developed it, is that what you were thinking, like people who would still like the taste of chicken, but would really have liked to have some different alternatives? So you think that's the market for you? Yeah.
Ahmad Yehya
I agree, yes. When we develop our products in general, we don't target vegans or vegetarians, or just flexitarians. We target everybody. We want everybody that is the average Joe, if they're interested in exploring it to try it out. Let's say they just sat at a family's table or a gathering and there was nothing else but this our chicken.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Ahmad Yehya
We want them to be able to try it and enjoy it.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, of course.
Ahmad Yehya
So, we don't want anybody being left out at the table.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, well, it's, it's a great approach. And, and by the way, I love your packaging, you guys did a really good job. You know, it's very attractive, very great. I think it'll really stand out on the shelf. So, congratulations on that. That's not easy, either. Right? It's one thing to get the product done. And its another thing to go through a bunch of iterations of packaging, yeah.
Ahmad Yehya
Oh, yes. And we developed the packaging in house. So we, early on, learned how to do every part of the business including design. And, we worked on this, so it's really it took a lot of work.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. All right. So, all these things take a lot of work. You've, you've learned how to make this. What, what lessons would you share for folks like yourselves who are developing products and creating, you know, products that are Canadian Grand Prix finalists level? What, what kind of two or three pieces of advice would you give the folks listening who might be thinking about doing the same thing, on your journey, what did you learn?
Ahmad Yehya
I think it's important to know not to compromise and say, 'Oh, this is good enough'. You need to get a wide sample of feedback from testing. And, a lot of people have different palates. And one person would say it's salty, the other person say no, it's fine. You can get so much feedback, and you need to be very analytical and objective. Leave your feelings and how you feel about the product and where it's at. Because, in the end, you're selling it to everybody, and you don't want to be on the market and get beaten up. So, you have to be very analytical. Take, and try to gather as much data and feedback as possible, as much as possible.
Michael LeBlanc
And it seems, I'm sure it's easy to get both emotional and passionate about your product, right. So, that's a really great tip, just to kind of separate your emotion and the development from the, as you said, the analytical what the results are, right.
Ahmad Yehya
Yes, exactly. And that goes for all our products that we're developing, and right now. So, we have quite a few things that we're, I think, if we can deliver this by summer this month, this year, will be just as revolutionary. It's very innovative.
Michael LeBlanc
So, you would describe your Chick'n Burgers kind of the flagship, and then you're developing products around that, is that your approach?
Ahmad Yehya
Yes, for the, for our plant-based meat line. So, we actually make desserts, we make the cheese alternatives. And we're working on plant-based egg, liquid egg.
Michael LeBlanc
Oh, fantastic. Well, it sounds like you've got a lot going on. I mean, you've gone through the rigors of being tested in the, in the Grand Prix. And, and listen, I wish you continued success and everything comes together for you in the awards later this summer and on the shelf. So, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on The Food Professor podcast.
Ahmad Yehya
Thank you very much, much appreciated.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, thanks for listening in to this episode and good luck to all the Canadian Grand Prix New Product Awards finalists. To see all the finalists and learn more about the upcoming Gala Awards on June 3rd, 2021, visit www.rccgrandprix.ca.
If you like what you're heard, you can subscribe on Apple iTunes, Spotify or on your favorite podcast platform. Please rate and review and be sure to recommend to a friend or colleague in the grocery, food service, or restaurant industry.
I'm Michael LeBlanc, Producer and host of The Voice of Retail podcast and a bunch of other stuff. Stay tuned for our next episode with my partner Sylvain Charlebois. Stay safe, everyone.