当艾伦·斯坦哈特（Aylon Steinhart）和托马斯·鲍曼（Thomas Bowman）首先形成日食食品时，他们制定了真正的重制植物性乳制品的计划。
They launched their ice cream in late 2019, with the plan that their creamy dessert would first win over restaurant diners, then spread into retail and other dairy products. The pandemic spoiled those plans, leading Eclipse to改变其上市策略with an early emphasis on direct-to-consumer business, leading to retail stores.
但是枢轴起作用了，Eclipse的分销同比增长2,100％。随着与大流行有关的用餐限制掉落，餐饮服务也又回来了。Eclipse上周宣布其冰淇淋是starring ingredient in the first plant-based milkshake在Smashburger的全国餐厅连锁菜单上。
今天，该公司宣布了超过$40 million Series B funding round。CEO Steinhart said Eclipse will use these funds to expand distribution of its ice cream, work on marketing and messaging, and invest in R&D to help it go from a plant-based ice cream company to a full-service plant-based dairy provider, with products in several different categories.
“This is Eclipse as a platform,” Steinhart said. “It's a dairy platform for creating basically any dairy product. We're exceptionally excited about our ice cream product that's in market today — and there's many other things in the pipeline.”
The funding round was led by Sozo Ventures, a firm with strong ties to Japan that Steinhart said will help Eclipse eventually expand into the Asian market. Forerunner Ventures, Initialized Capital, Gaingels and KBW Ventures also participated in this round, which Eclipse says brings its lifetime funding to more than $60 million.
Steinhart表示，尽管Eclipse仍在建立冰淇淋品牌，但该公司计划从明年年初开始推出完全不同的基于植物的乳制品。他认为，这些资金可以帮助蚀改变基于植物的乳制品细分市场，因为其过程和产品与竞争对手的乳制品不同。Steinhart指出，将近十分之七的人是乳糖不耐症，Eclipse使用其技术和配方来制作所说的东西比传统的乳制品更像是传统的乳制品。
“A lot of people are gonna say, ‘[Eating] it also felt better on my stomach. And it didn't require any sacrifice,” Steinhart said. “And, ‘It changed the way that I thought about what plant-based means.’”
The secret sauce: Chemistry and manufacturing
Unlike other plant-based dairy companies, Eclipse didn’t start out wanting to turn a single ingredient into a dairy substitute. Instead, Steinhart said, it started out with the desire to put together a basic platform that could be used to remake many dairy products.
Eclipse的木薯，土豆和玉米的配方奶粉是其成功的秘诀的一部分。斯坦哈特said it can give products a similar taste, texture and mouthfeel as dairy counterparts. The same blend works for any plant-based dairy product.
The reason this blend works so well as a stand-in for dairy goes beyond the way that the ingredients come together, Steinhart said. The blend can actually be made to behave like dairy. Casein proteins naturally organize into large clumps called micelles, which gives dairy a lot of its taste and function. Steinhart said he and Bowman realized if they could make plants form micelles, they could unlock many of the secrets of dairy.
“And that's exactly what we did,” Steinhart said. “We figured out a mechanical process. It's not like expensive biotech or anything like that. It's a mechanical process with plant components.”
在开始Eclipse之前，Bowman在Eat Just工作，当时被称为Hampton Creek。他帮助该公司设计了其以前的植物性蛋黄酱和敷料以及饼干面团。鲍曼（Bowman）有使用植物蛋白使某些东西完全不同的经验，并与之合作，以便它可以扩展。
斯坦哈特said Bowman literally stumbled on Eclipse’s process one day when he was mixing together a blend of ingredients. The mixer made sounds that were more clunky than the whirring he expected, and Bowman found that the blend had literally separated into curds and whey, which is a common function of dairy.
Bowman soon realized that he hit the jackpot by finding the plant-based blend and process that could create an entire line of dairy alternatives. Better yet, Steinhart said, it was made with relatively inexpensive ingredients and known processes. Eclipse would be able to take its ingredients to any processing plant that makes the dairy equivalents and could have its plant-based version made.
“This is Eclipse as a platform. It's a dairy platform for creating basically any dairy product. We're exceptionally excited about our ice cream product that's in market today — and there's many other things in the pipeline.”
艾伦·斯坦哈特（Aylon Steinhart）
Co-founder and CEO, Eclipse Foods
他说，这种多功能性有助于Eclipse以价格与乳制品冰淇淋竞争。他说，对于消费者购买食品，制造商需要满足的最重要方面是口味，价格和可用性。
“Our goal is to take substantial amounts of market share from conventional dairy,”斯坦哈特说。“而且，我们唯一能够做到这一点的方法是，如果我们还可以以健康的利润率获胜。而我们这样做的方法是要拥有一个真正非常有效的过程。”
但这不仅适用于Eclipse的冰淇淋。Steinhart表示，该公司制造的所有其他物品（从奶油到奶酪再到饮料）也可以在制造乳制品版本的设施中进行处理和生产。
每个人都喜欢冰淇淋
Eclipse has successfully turned its plant-based dairy base into all kinds of products, including many kinds of cheeses, cream, desserts and yogurt, Steinhart said. In fact, the company hastalked about its cheesemaking ability自2019年以来。
尽管有这些能力,斯坦哈特th说ere are some very clear reasons Eclipse decided to launch its brand in ice cream. It’s a dairy product that stands on its own. Cheese, butter and cream cheese are popular dairy items, but the majority of the time, consumers eat them with something else.
他说，冰淇淋也是各地消费者都对此充满热情的东西。这是人们会长排以在各种天气中站立的食品类型。斯坦哈特说，冰淇淋“占据了很多思维空间”，并指出，消费者在Eclipse Ice Cream上的良好体验可能有助于平滑尝试从植物性乳制品品牌中尝试更多物品的道路。
“People just don't trust that the products are going to taste very good,” Steinhart said. “And so we said if we set out and create one of the best ice creams that someone has had, plant-based or not, then they're going to trust us for their milk and their yogurt and their cheese and all these other products.”
随着冰淇淋的销售和分销的增长，该品牌已成为冷冻甜点和植物性细分市场的知名数量。斯坦哈特说，其中很大一部分是因为Eclipse非常专注于创建优越的奶油植物性冰淇淋。Steinhart说，由加利福尼亚大学（伯克利大学）进行的盲目味道测试将Eclipse与最畅销的乳制品冰淇淋品牌之一进行了比较，发现73％的Eclipse认为Eclipse与乳制品一样奶油。
斯坦哈特said Eclipse’s success in taste tests and in foodservice shows that it is taking the right approach. The company wants to beat dairy at its own game, he said. Steinhart said there’s incredible white space for non-dairy ice cream — only 3% of options are plant-based — and increasing exposure to the category both in foodservice and restaurants can help grow its market share. Plant-based milk is the most mature category in the segment and captured去年所有牛奶销售的16％根据Spins的说法，基于植物的食品协会和好食品研究所。但是，十分之八的消费者仍在选择奶牛。
But plant-based dairy as a whole is progressing. Steinhart likened it to the move toward electric-powered cars. Today, there aren’t many electric vehicles on the roads, but automakers around the world are developing and building them, and cities and businesses are investing in infrastructure to charge them. It’s beginning to seem like an inevitable change, and the question isn’t whether there will be more electric cars on the road, but when it will happen.
“It's that inflection point, and I think plant-based dairy in general is getting to that inflection point,” Steinhart said. “I think that we will keep releasing products that help the market get to that point.”
