An interview with Jamie Chapman, founder of M*lkman, one of Forward Fooding’s top 500 Food Tech startups.

Jamie Chapman, founder of M*lkman

It’s time to put a face to the name…

We asked our FoodTech 500 top-runners to give us a bit of insight into how they started out as a company and their thoughts on the role of technology in Food innovation. Meet Jamie, the mastermind behind M*lkman, the first alternative milk to be sold in glass bottles. Let’s see what he had to say.

So tell us a little bit more about you! Where did the idea for your FoodTech company come from?

Jamie: At the time of starting M*lkman I was running a couple of smoothie stalls on Brick Lane. The amount of plastic waste I was creating by using Tetra packs was something that really didn’t sit well with me. There was also a whole load of gunk in the milks I was using that I couldn’t even pronounce, so I decided to make it. It was literally in the shower the same morning as I tried my first batch that I came up with the idea to bottle it and sell it locally for the ever growing vegan market.

I spent the next few weeks at my desk job doing pretty much nothing else and we launched on April fools days with a fake flyering campaign around Hackney alluding to a borough wide ban on dairy milks.

How is tech central to your business?

Jamie: Tech is essential to what we do. From taking orders, promoting and now manufacturing. We’ve combined a very old practice with modern twists and the marriage works great. We’re able to push an older, cleaner, more sustainable delivery method to a newer, younger audience and use tech to aid this.

Why do you think it’s important to see the food industry embrace tech?

Jamie: It’s essential. For us it’s about consistency in the product and also reaching the largest number of people. Using tech allows us to work remotely whilst still controlling operations at our production unit, so as to increase our market and convert more people to our service.

Want to know more? Check out M*lkman’s full profile here.

Congratulations again to M*lkman for ranking 9th in the “Food Delivery” category of the Foodtech 500 list.

To find out who else made it into the FoodTech 500; the top Food Tech companies in the world, click here.

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