Plant-Based Wellness Pioneer Organic Traditions Bags $10.5M to Plug North America’s Fibre Gap
Canadian plant-based wellness brand Organic Traditions has raised $10.5M in funding to accelerate its US expansion and advance the innovation behind its new Fiber Flow line.
As the GLP-1 boom ushers in a new era for fibre-packed foods, Canadian wellness company Organic Traditions has secured new funding to meet that need.
The Ontario-based firm has attracted $10.5M in funding from a group of strategic angel investors with expertise in CPG, retail, technology and operations, including executives and operators from FreshPet, Shopify, City National Bank, Frito-Lay, and Colgate-Palmolive.
Organic Traditions, which sells superfood and fibre-packed products, will use the capital to accelerate its US retail expansion, grow its e-commerce business, invest in the team and infrastructure needed to support North American growth, and advance the innovation behind its Fiber Flow line of supplements.
“We now have a crystal-clear vision, a real growth plan, the right people in the room, and an innovation pipeline we are so excited about,” Ally Mamalider, the company’s second-generation founder and CEO, said in a LinkedIn post.
Going big on fibre
Organic Traditions was started in 2000 by Mamalider’s father, Jerry Zeifman, who took inspiration from ancient wellness practices like Ayurvedic medicine and cacao rituals. The company modernises “time-tested ingredients” into convenient formats that support energy, immunity, gut health, sleep, and overall wellbeing.
Today, it’s one of Canada’s leading wellness brands, selling plant-based mushroom coffees, superfood powders and lattes, and fibre smoothies and supplements.
The latter is part of its new Fiber Flow range, which now leads Organic Traditions’s innovation pipeline. It comprises unflavoured, yuzu-lime and strawberry powder sticks for daily use, which contain 8g of fibre from acacia fibre and inulin, plus prebiotics and probiotics.
The ready-to-mix powders launched in Costco Canada earlier this year and sold out three times within the first two weeks of their online launch. They’re now set to grow by more than 200% over the next 12 months as the brand invests in clinical trials and line extensions via new products.
The range is designed to address one of the most significant nutritional deficiencies in North America. Most Canadians only get half their daily recommended intake of fibre, while 95% of Americans don’t eat enough of this macronutrient.
But interest in fibre-packed foods is growing, thanks to gut health documentaries like Netflix’s Hack Your Health, the 30-plants-a-week movement, online trends like fibermaxxing, and the rise of weight-loss drugs. Dietary fibre can trigger the body’s natural GLP-1 response, helping your gut bacteria produce short-chain fatty acids, which regulate appetite and keep you feeling full.
In the US, people eat 30% more fibre when they take GLP-1 drugs. And globally, active users of Ozempic, Mounjaro and their counterparts plan to spend 10% more on fibre-packed foods, 8% more on functional fibre products, and 2% more on functional gut health drinks.
This interest is amplified when it comes to supplements, with GLP-1 users set to spend 22% more on fibre supplements, 15% more on probiotics, and 14% more on prebiotics.
Revenue growth set to continue for Organic Traditions
“Organic Traditions is meeting a clear consumer need at the intersection of functional nutrition and convenience,” said Walter N George, president of OT Investors, which has backed the company.
“The brand has built meaningful trust with consumers over decades while also proving it can innovate quickly and scale across modern retail and digital channels. Ally and the team have a compelling vision for where functional wellness is going next, and we are excited to support that growth.”
Mamalider said the funding round – the company’s first ever – signalled an “exciting new chapter” but did not change the company’s core mission.
“For more than two decades, the brand has been rooted in the belief that real food can be transformative. This investment allows us to reach more consumers, scale the areas where we see the greatest opportunity, and continue making superfoods simple and accessible,” she noted.
The investment is a reflection of Organic Traditions’s commercial success in the wellness category. Over the last three years, it has experienced 70% revenue growth, driven by “product innovation, digital expansion, and brand evolution”.
It’s now forecasting a further 36% increase in revenue across Canada and the US over the next 12 months, including 82% growth across US retail – where it plans to roll out in 1,500 doors this year – and 64% across e-commerce.
Organic Traditions’s focus on fibre comes as many companies position the nutrient as the “new protein”, although demand for both continues to skyrocket. Its funding follows the $4.5M Series A round for British startup Myota, which is now expanding its prebiotic fibre supplements across Europe and the US.