There is a version of this brand that could have been manufactured closer to the Gulf. There are competent facilities in Turkey, in Egypt, in South and Southeast Asia that could have produced to an acceptable standard at a lower cost and with a shorter supply chain. We chose not to use them. This is the full explanation of that choice.
When we began looking for manufacturing partners in 2024, we started with a clear criterion: the facility had to be the best in the world at what it does, not merely capable. That criterion, applied honestly, led to Germany and the Netherlands. Both countries have spent decades building the most advanced plant food manufacturing infrastructure on the planet — not as a byproduct of other industries, but as a deliberate investment in food science and processing technology.
German corn processing operates at a level of precision that is difficult to overstate. The flat, thin-pressed corn cake format requires exact moisture control, exact temperature management across the extrusion, and exact surface contact time to achieve the texture that makes the product worth eating. Too much heat and the crisp loses its lightness. Too little and it does not achieve the clean snap. The margin is measured in fractions of a degree. German facilities have spent thirty years optimising for that margin. We did not want to teach a new facility to work at that level. We wanted to be inside a facility that already operates there habitually.
"We did not want to find the cheapest place that could make what we needed. We wanted to find the best place in the world."
The Netherlands is the world leader in pea protein processing for one specific reason: the Dutch food technology sector identified pea protein as a strategic category in the early 2000s and invested accordingly. The country's university research institutions, its food processing companies, and its agricultural base all aligned around the development of plant protein technology. The result, twenty years later, is a cluster of facilities with capabilities that no other region has yet replicated at scale.
The specific challenge of pea protein extrusion is texture. Yellow split peas have a high starch content alongside their protein. In most processing environments, that starch produces a dense, slightly gummy result — the texture that makes most protein snacks feel like a compromise. Dutch processing technology has solved this through a combination of precise moisture removal, controlled extrusion temperature, and specific die geometry that allows the product to expand into a genuinely crisp format. The flavour precision of our Rosemary & Sea Salt and Harissa & Pomegranate SKUs is delivered in a texture that is indistinguishable from a premium corn crisp. That outcome requires Dutch technology. It does not happen elsewhere.
We were asked, more than once during the sourcing process, whether we had considered manufacturing closer to the Gulf. The answer is yes. We considered it thoroughly. The conclusion was that the gap in capability between the European facilities we selected and the nearest alternatives was too large to accept — not because the alternatives were incompetent, but because our specification was high enough that the gap was material.
A snack that is 85% of what it should be is not a premium product. It is a product with a credibility problem. The Arabian Gulf market will identify that problem quickly. The only way to launch a brand in this region at the standard we intend is to use the best manufacturing infrastructure available. That infrastructure is in Germany and the Netherlands. That is why we are there.
European food manufacturing carries a specific credibility signal in the Gulf market. EU food safety standards — traceability requirements, ingredient documentation, facility hygiene certification, allergen controls — operate at a level that exceeds most other regulatory frameworks. When a product carries EU manufacturing provenance, a Gulf consumer or buyer can infer a baseline of process integrity that simplifies the trust-building process considerably.
We did not choose European manufacturing for the marketing story, though the story is true and we tell it plainly. We chose it because it was the right decision for the product. The marketing story is the consequence of the decision, not the reason for it. That distinction matters. Consumers who eat well are good at identifying brands that reverse the order — that choose a story first and find a product to fit it. We are not that brand. We have the manufacturing decision, and the story follows from it honestly.