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Press Release

01 September 2022

The Protein Brewery appoints
Sue Garfitt as CEO

Highly accomplished industry leader, instrumental in creating the plant based movement

Breda (the Netherlands), 1 September 2022 – The Protein Brewery, an innovative developer of fermented fungal food ingredients, today announces the appointment of Sue Garfitt as CEO. The former Alpro CEO will be leading the next stage of the Company’s development as it prepares to go to market.

The Protein Brewery’s mission is to support food manufacturers producing healthy, nutritious and sustainable foods. Our hero product is Fermotein®, a versatile food ingredient which is rich in fibre and protein and is made from a wide range of globally available, water efficient and non-allergenic crops, which will allow for commercialization around the globe on a local scale.


To support this next step, The Protein Brewery’s first commercial scale-up brewery is under construction and expected to be ready in the second quarter of 2023. With the completion of this new brewery, current production capacity - from the company’s pilot plant - will significantly increase from 100+ kg per week towards 3,000 kg per week.


Most recently, Garfitt was CEO of Alpro (acquired by global food company Danone). She established Alpro as the plant based pioneer and leader across Europe, delivering year-on-year double digit growth and spearheading the plant based food revolution. She has extensive leadership experience in the food sector and successfully built, led and grew sustainable organizations. Garfitt started her career at PepsiCo and further developed her commercial skills at New York Bakery, successfully pioneering and growing the bagel brand in the UK.


“We are incredibly pleased that Sue has accepted the position as CEO of The Protein Brewery. She has broad and quite unique experience, from both the food sector in general and, more specifically, an impressive track record in pioneering in the plant based field, setting the scene for what plant based is today. Sue knows how to bring a story to market and grow the business. We are confident she will be successful in driving The Protein Brewery forward in supplying scalable, smart, and sustainable food ingredient solutions, contributing to feeding a growing population towards 10 billion people in 2050,” says Chair of the Board in The Protein Brewery, Bente Korsgaard Andersen.


Commenting on her appointment Sue said: “I am excited to be joining The Protein Brewery at this pivotal moment in the company’s development. I look forward to working with an enthusiastic and smart group of colleagues to further accelerate the company’s position in championing fermented fungal food ingredients across the globe. Wim de Laat (founder of The Protein Brewery) has done a break-through job in identifying and securing the fungal strain and downstream processing technologies and continues to finetune an easy-to-operate, zero-waste brewing process. We are well positioned to deploy our scientific capabilities and prepare for the next stage of bringing Fermotein® and other alternative protein solutions to the market. I am confident that we, supported by our committed investors1, can significantly impact global food producers’ journey towards providing healthy, nutritious, and sustainable foods.”


Garfitt is a native of the UK and a graduate of the University of Portsmouth.
   

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For further information:

The Protein Brewery
 

Claire Verhagen; tel: +31 (0)6 5051 6325
corporatecommunications@theproteinbrewery.nl

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