Vegan cheese producer Bandit raises $1.5m in seed funding round

Plant-based food producer Bandit, formerly known as Conscious Cultures Creamery, has raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round.

The company makes vegan cheeses that use cashews as their base. Bandit’s signature cheeses include Maverick, a “cave-aged, double cream camembert-inspired bloomy rind,” and Barn Cat, a “cave-aged, vegetable ash ripened cheese with an ash inlay”. The brand also produces a variety of seasonal cheeses.

The company’s seed funding round was led by venture capital firm Prime Movers Lab.

Gaetano Crupi, Prime Movers Lab partner and Bandit board member, said: “The Bandit team is pushing the boundaries of cultured, plant-based milks, producing the most compelling vegan cheeses on the market. We have been looking for a dairy-alternative investment, and at the end of the day, Bandit just tasted better than anything else we tried.”

Crupi added: “They make delicious plant-based foods that will find broad acceptance among chefs at elite restaurants as well as [with] the average American consumer shopping the aisles of their neighbourhood grocery store”.

Bandit plans to use the investment to continue scaling up its production processes and growing its consumer base. The brand’s plant-based cheeses will be available from a number of new grocery stores in Northern California, Texas and Illinois in the coming months.