Swiss meatless food start-up Planted produces mouthwatering kebab, pulled pork and chicken dishes from peas, rapeseed oil, water and B12, a key vitamin people conventionally get from animal-based foods. In May 2020, the company opened an office for communication and marketing in the southwestern German town of Konstanz, a mere 72 kilometers from its headquarters in Zurich. Three months later, Planted moved that office a further 802 kilometers to Berlin, increasing its Germany-based workforce from four to ten.

Later in the year, German supermarket chain EDEKA introduced planted.chicken products to its outlets in the southwest of the country. As a direct result, the Swiss start-up began looking seriously at the feasibility of setting up a production facility on German soil. “The German market for plant-based food is very competitive due to its sheer size, but if you succeed in Germany, you will succeed anywhere,” says Planted cofounder Pascal Bieri. “Also, Switzerland and Germany have a shared appreciation for quality and there’s an abundance of talent in Berlin.”

A German production facility, Bieri explains, would be able to source its main ingredients, pea protein and pea fiber, tariff-free from within the EU. That’s not the case with their existing plant in Zurich, which, when sourcing from the EU, must pay Swiss import tariffs.

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