Foodbeast Venture’s First Investment Is A Gen Z Hummus Brand—Here’s Why – Foodbeast
Media corporations like to say they believed early in a model. Foodbeast determined to place precise cash behind the idea.
This week, Foodbeast introduced its first transfer underneath its newly shaped funding arm, Foodbeast Ventures, by taking a stake in Habiza, the fast-rising hummus model that just lately turned the top-selling hummus at Erewhon. On paper, a media firm investing in a shopper model isn’t precisely novel. In observe, the way in which this got here collectively says so much about the place Foodbeast thinks meals media is headed, and why Habiza made sense as the primary wager.
Foodbeast founder, Elie Ayrouth (left) and Habiza founder, Jonothan “Jono” Srour
The origin story begins with doubt. Specifically, Foodbeast co-founder Elie Ayrouth’s.
“I’ve pretty openly hated packaged hummus for years,” Ayrouth instructed me. Before agreeing to any assembly, he drove to Target, purchased a bath of Habiza, opened it in his automotive, and ate it together with his finger. “If it wasn’t good, I wasn’t taking the meeting. With something as personal as hummus to a Lebanese guy, I didn’t want to platform some nasty shit.”
It handed what each Ayrouth and Habiza’s founder Jonathan “Jono” Srour referred to as the finger check. And that element issues greater than it sounds.
Habiza founder, Jonathan “Jono” Srour
For Srour, the finger check isn’t a gimmick. It’s how hummus is judged at dwelling throughout a lot of the Middle East. You dip your finger in, search for graininess from improperly broken-down chickpeas, verify viscosity, then style. Too thick and it’s pasty. Too free and it falls aside. The purpose is a exact steadiness between creamy and structured. “That’s the whole thing,” Srour defined. “With perfect breakdown. No dots.”
Habiza exists as a result of Srour couldn’t discover that steadiness on grocery cabinets. Before retail wins or being Erewhon’s top-selling hummus, the issue he wished to resolve was fundamental. Most packaged hummus didn’t style proper to him. The texture was off. The branding and communication didn’t convey something thrilling to the class. “Ingredients are important,” he stated, “but taste, texture, and how it’s presented were the real gaps.”
When Foodbeast first reached out, the connection was informal. A cellphone name. A manufacturing facility go to. Mutual curiosity. When Ayrouth realized Srour was fundraising, he joked, “Bro, let me get in.” Srour wasn’t positive if it was a joke. He texted Ayrouth later that night time to ask. The reply got here again inside minutes. A joke it was not.
That second shifted the dialog. What began as a possible angel verify changed into one thing broader. Srour didn’t simply want capital. He wanted infrastructure, storytelling muscle, and a companion who understood how fashionable meals manufacturers truly develop. Ayrouth, together with Foodbeast companions Chris Abouabdo and Marc Kharrat, didn’t wish to be passive buyers providing discounted companies on the aspect. They wished alignment.
Photo: Habiza
What emerged was Foodbeast Ventures, constructed on what Ayrouth describes as a easy framework: half knowledge, half intestine. Foodbeast’s viewers reaches over 100 million month-to-month impressions. Their company arm, led by Kharrat, Foodbeast’s longtime content material lead, works day by day with social-first meals manufacturers. Over time, that publicity turns into sample recognition. What travels. What sells. What packaging stops a scroll. What coloration background makes hummus extra clickable in social movies.
Habiza already had proof factors. The model grew 333 p.c in a single 12 months. Despite restricted distribution, it posts one of many highest unit and greenback charges of sale in its class. Its basic hummus ranks among the many prime unit velocities in pure retail, and it has turn into one of many fastest-growing refrigerated hummus manufacturers within the channel. Expansion into divisions of Albertsons, Giant Food, and lots of extra are already underway.
But numbers alone weren’t sufficient. When Ayrouth visited Habiza’s facility, he seen particulars that don’t present up on spreadsheets: chickpeas stored chilly, cooking strategies that mirrored dwelling kitchens, tahini that tasted proper. Srour made the deliberate choice early on to spend money on U.S.-manufactured tahini utilizing white sesame, sourced from a producer with prime FDA rankings. Overseas tahini carries contamination dangers and inconsistent high quality. This wasn’t cheaper, however it scaled higher and guarded the product.
Photo: Habiza
Scaling texture, not provide chain, turned out to be the toughest half. Srour obsessed over eliminating graininess whereas sustaining profitability at quantity. Small-batch mixers. Borrowed concepts from peanut butter milling and mashed potato processing. Endless testing. “We treated it like a puzzle,” he stated. The result’s what Habiza now confidently calls the creamiest hummus you’ll eat, constructed to carry its integrity at scale.
That obsession is what made Foodbeast lean in. “We’re all some shade of Lebanese,” shared Ayrouth. “The hummus we grew up with was homemade. Packaged hummus was a joke. When we tried this and stopped laughing, we knew we wanted in.”
The partnership goes past fairness. Foodbeast will act as Habiza’s artistic and strategic companion, serving to the model behave like a media firm in its personal proper. Short-form sequence. Recurring characters. Expanding hummus past a dip into an on a regular basis use case. Srour sees this as category-building, not simply brand-building. “If this works,” he stated, “hummus becomes something you use everywhere, for everything.”
That ambition displays a broader shift. Legacy meals manufacturers are struggling to maintain tempo whereas small founders construct in actual time, with audiences watching intently. Clean labels are not a differentiator. They’re baseline. The instruments to disrupt meals can be found, and the gatekeepers aren’t as locked as they as soon as had been.
So is that this about Habiza, or about Foodbeast redefining what a meals media firm can do?
The reply lives someplace within the overlap. Foodbeast isn’t strolling away from storytelling. It’s doubling down on it, this time with pores and skin within the recreation. Habiza simply occurs to be the primary model that made a seasoned skeptic pull over in a car parking zone, open a bath, and eat hummus together with his finger.
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