Sunfed took New Zealand's Chicken-free Chicken into Coles Australia

Sunfed Foods makes plant-based meats in New Zealand, led by its Chicken-free Chicken product.

That pea-protein 'Chicken-free Chicken' — a whole-cut texture, not mince — could win supermarket shelves across the Tasman

$10M Series A led by Blackbird Ventures, with Sir Stephen Tindall's K1W1 and the Crown-backed New Zealand Venture Investment Fund

Co-founded by Shama Lee, Sunfed had become the largest of New Zealand's plant-based startups, backed by Sir Stephen Tindall, with local sales good enough to fuel the Series A.

The Coles launch came as the US fake-meat boom peaked: Beyond Meat's 3 May 2019 IPO listed at $25 and closed at $152.48 for a $10.1B market cap. Lee's stated aim was to 'create a brand new protein industry that will be commercially viable for farmers'; still on the to-do list were Beef-free Beef, Bacon-free Bacon and an Air New Zealand menu slot, where the carrier was then featuring the Impossible Burger in business class.

Australia offered a supermarket partner (Coles) large enough to test whether New Zealand-made whole-cut products could travel beyond a home market of five million.

Local manufacturing in Australia removed the logistics cost that would have made a $12.99 pack uncompetitive at scale.

The Series A's investor mix — an Australian lead fund plus Crown capital — tied the expansion to patient strategic money rather than a quick flip.

For plant-meat startups the constraint is rarely demand but manufacturing: entering a second country means moving the factory before the shelf space means anything.

As of the June 2019 launch, Sunfed was scaling production into Australia with Beef-free Beef, Bacon-free Bacon and Air New Zealand distribution on its roadmap.