Funding Troubles: Dutch Plant-Based Cheese Startup Winds Down


4 Mins Read

Willicroft, a plant-based startup that evolved from a decades-old dairy company, has shut down after failing to meet its fundraising goals.

Dutch company Willicroft, famous for its bean-based vegan butter and cheese range, has wound down due to funding difficulties, co-founder Brad Vanstone has announced.

The startup, whose roots go back to the 1950s, had raised €2M from investors in 2022, and had opened a €350,000 crowdfunding round a year later.

“2024 was a tough year for Willicroft. After failing to meet our fundraising goals, we made the difficult decision to sell the company,” Vanstone wrote on LinkedIn.

“I said goodbye to this chapter of Willicroft by burying a small plaque in the Scottish Highlands – my grandparents’ and my favourite place on this planet,” he continued. “Willicroft, in its current form, was meant to last far longer. Nonetheless, it has been an experience I will never forget – one I feel privileged to have lived and one that has filled me with tremendous energy to build upon.”

willicroft kaas
Courtesy: Willicroft

2024 a ‘sobering reality check’ on the protein transition

Willicroft was founded in 2018 as an evolution of the dairy company founded by Vanstone’s father in 1957. With an ethos rooted in sustainability – the company’s CEO was Mother Nature – the brand’s products were available at retailers in three countries, and restaurants in several more.

The B Corp-certified startup’s latest product lineup featured Greek White, Italian Aged, Young Dutch, and Original Fondue cheeses, as well as a hard butter called Better – all made from ingredients like cashews, soybeans and white beans via fermentation.

“We came close to creating a self-sufficient business that balanced profitability with a positive impact but ultimately fell short. I take a great amount of heart in knowing that our recipes have found happy and trusted homes,” wrote Vanstone.

“Last year, in particular, was a sobering reality check on the pace at which our food industry is transitioning,” he added.

“A certificate my grandparents (a dairy farmer) received from the UK milk board illustrates this vividly: one of the Holstein Friesian cows on the farm produced 100 tonnes of milk across its lifetime. This is a staggering output for a single animal. By contrast, Willicroft, in its reimagined form, produced a little under 100 tonnes in total over our six-year existence.”

The company also had a wine and cheese store in Amsterdam called Kelder, which closed its doors in May 2023. Following Vanstone’s announcement about the business’s closure, its website has now gone offline too.

Non-dairy cheese has a major taste gap

Vegan cheese was the fastest-growing plant-based product in Spain, France and Italy, and saw sales hike by 7% between 2022 and 2023 in Europe’s six largest markets. At the same time, this is a very small category within the plant-based sector, taking up just a 3.6% market share.

Broadly, non-dairy cheese is a tough space. This is the one category perceived as most far away in taste and texture from its dairy-based counterparts, a challenge that has bred lots of competition among brands vying to fill this gap.

Large and established brands like Violife, Sheese and Bel Group’s Nurishh dominate the market, but consumers remain unconvinced by the current options on the market. Three in 10 Europeans aren’t familiar with fermented vegan cheese products like Willicroft’s, according to a 2024 survey of over 7,800 people. And 22% of those who’ve tasted them don’t consume them, highlighting a major gap in satisfaction.

willicroft cheese
Courtesy: Willicroft

While Willicroft was making strong inroads with its butter alternative, made from shea and coconut oil and fermented soybeans, its progress was likely impeded by the overarching financial challenges.

And these challenges are only compounded by pressure from the dairy lobby, which holds a sizeable influence over EU policy. Livestock production has received the bulk of the money available under the Common Agriculture Policy, despite animal proteins generating 84% of the EU’s farm emissions and 72% of its land, while providing only 35% of calories and 65% of proteins.

The contrast between the output of a single cow versus Willicroft’s entire existence “highlights the challenges we faced in scaling, the immense size and efficiency of the dairy industry, and the strain it places on animals within that system”, noted Vanstone.

“It remains far too difficult for companies driving positive change in the food industry to thrive. My next steps are uncertain, but I am determined to confront this challenge head-on in the coming years.”

Willicroft’s closure comes at a challenging time for Europe’s alternative protein industry. UK ready meal maker Allplants shut down in late 2024, while Swedish mycoprotein specialist Mycorena was rescued from the brink by Naplasol months before. Speaking of mycoprotein, industry leader Quorn posted pre-tax losses of £63M in 2023, a fourfold increase from the £15M it lost the year before.

And just this week, fellow vegan cheesemaker Vertage Foods was acquired by Misha’s Inc in yet another sign of consolidation in the industry.

Author

  • Anay Mridul

    Anay is Green Queen's resident news reporter. Originally from India, he worked as a vegan food writer and editor in London, and is now travelling and reporting from across Asia. He's passionate about coffee, plant-based milk, cooking, eating, veganism, food tech, writing about all that, profiling people, and the Oxford comma.

    View all posts

You might also like