This month, the spotlight is on Leaft Foods: a New Zealand-based food-tech innovator developing functional ingredients and consumer products made from green leaf protein. We spoke to Ross Milne, the company’s CEO, to find out more.

Could you tell us about Leaft Foods’ journey and how the company came to be established? 

Leaft Foods emerged from a pivotal moment in 2014 when our co-founders, John and Maury Leyland Penno, attended a Stanford University innovation bootcamp that sparked their interest in how livestock farmers could move toward more sustainable food production methods while continuing to produce high-quality food. 

Maury had developed her business acumen through roles at prestigious organisations including Team New Zealand, Boston Consulting Group, and dairy giant Fonterra. Meanwhile, John combined scientific expertise as an agricultural researcher with entrepreneurial experience from co-founding and leading Synlait Milk as CEO. 

In 2017, their focus shifted toward a more radical concept: extracting high-quality protein directly from green leaves. This led them to concentrate on rubisco, a protein that exists in virtually every green plant on Earth and happens to be the planet’s most abundant protein. 

In 2019, the founding team was completed when I came aboard as CEO with a unique perspective and skillset. I'd spent my career engineering some of the world’s largest food manufacturing facilities for GEA, recently had embraced plant-based eating and was seeking to apply my expertise toward more sustainable food systems. 

While many companies in the alternative protein got caught up in market excitement and then strong economic headwinds in recent years, Leaft focused intensively on research, development and refinement, working quietly to solve complex technical challenges while maintaining a clear focus on commercial economic viability. 

Our ultimate goal is transformative: to create a new path to protein production by bypassing both traditional animal agriculture and seed-based plant proteins in favour of extracting superior nutrition directly from leaves. We view this not as an incremental improvement, but as the foundation for an entirely new approach to feeding people sustainably. 

Why rubisco protein?

Rubisco represents what has long been called the ‘utopia protein.’ It’s a truly amazing protein and it is present in every green leaf. Its abundance means we can build a more efficient food system that is a step-change towards a lower carbon future.  It’s a remarkable convergence of nutritional excellence, core food systems functionality and environmental benefits. It delivers an amino acid profile that exceeds whey protein, which is the gold standard for complete proteins, with all essential amino acids present in optimal ratios, including tyrosine, phenylalanine and tryptophan. 

Rubisco’s exceptional digestibility is another critical factor. As an enzyme protein built for biological activity rather than storage, it releases amino acids much faster than traditional plant proteins, delivering peak concentrations precisely when the body needs them most. This represents a shift from reactive nutrition (protein for recovery after exercise) to proactive nutrition (protein available during performance). 

Beyond basic nutrition, our Rubisco offers amazing functional properties that are desired in food matrices, such as its foaming, emulsification and gelling properties. This makes it ideal for food manufacturers seeking to replace egg whites or dairy proteins in their formulations. The environmental impact is also significantly lower than animal-derived proteins like whey, because we take the cow out of the system. 

The sustainability benefits extend to how our crops are farmed. Lucerne (alfalfa), which we use as our primary source, fixes its own nitrogen from the atmosphere, reducing fertilizer requirements. Its deep taproot system makes it highly water-efficient while improving soil structure and health. And unlike annual crops, lucerne grows year after year without replanting and can be harvested multiple times annually, maximising land productivity.

How does your technology to extract the protein from green leaves and turn it into a functional ingredient work? How does this tech address previous challenges associated with extracting rubisco protein? 

Most protein extraction efforts focus on maximising the yield of one component. Our breakthrough was recognising that we could optimise protein quality while creating value from 100% of the raw material.

The timing convergence was crucial too. We had access to New Zealand's world-leading food production and research expertise and our strong history in dairy. Equally important was having the team and resources to spend time testing and refining. This, in conjunction with our direct farmer relationships, helped us understand how the crop could really be integrated into a farming system. 

You recently launched your first consumer product, Leaft Blade. Why did you choose to target the performance nutrition category? 

We chose performance nutrition because it plays directly to Rubisco's greatest strength, which is speed. While traditional proteins are designed for recovery after exercise, we saw an opportunity to flip that model entirely with proactive nutrition that works before performance happens. Rubisco's enzyme structure means it delivers amino acids up to six times faster than conventional proteins. For athletes and fitness enthusiasts, this translates to amino acids flooding their system precisely when muscles send their ‘build’ signal during exercise, rather than hours later during recovery. 

The performance market was also the right fit for introducing something completely new. These consumers understand protein science, and they get concepts like amino acid profiles and absorption rates. They're willing to invest in demonstrable benefits and are quick to recognise when something genuinely works better. By entering performance nutrition where function matters most, we could showcase what Rubisco actually delivers rather than fighting preconceptions about plant protein limitations as other companies have.  

We're not just launching another plant protein. We're creating an entirely new category. The leaf protein category for consumer products doesn't exist yet, but we're defining and leading it.  

Are you developing products in any other product categories? What other applications would the ingredient be well-suited to? 

We're definitely seeing exciting opportunities beyond performance nutrition, particularly on the B2B ingredient side where Rubisco's functional properties really shine. Our B2B customers immediately grasp the potential when they see Rubisco's emulsifying, foaming and gelling capabilities in action. Because Rubisco behaves like premium functional proteins such as egg whites or whey, it opens doors in categories where plant proteins have traditionally struggled. We see strong potential in bakery applications where Rubisco's foaming properties could replace egg whites, and in dairy alternatives where its emulsifying capabilities could improve texture and mouthfeel. 

Because our products are highly functional, we're competing against high-value proteins like egg, rather than commodity plant proteins. This positions us well economically while solving real formulation challenges for food manufacturers. We're also exploring opportunities that leverage our zero-waste process. Since we extract value from 100% of the leaf material, not just the protein, we can create multiple revenue streams from a single input. 

Are there any notable market trends and consumer demands that your solution can tap into? 

The biggest shift we're witnessing is growing consumer sophistication around protein quality. People are moving beyond just counting grams of protein. They want to understand amino acid profiles, absorption rates and functional benefits. This education trend works in our favour because once consumers understand what makes Rubisco unique, the value proposition becomes clear.  

There's also some fatigue with traditional plant-based proteins. Many consumers have tried products that compromise on taste, texture or nutrition, and they're hungry for alternatives that don't force those trade-offs. Sustainability consciousness continues to grow, but consumers are becoming more discerning. They want genuine environmental benefits, not just marketing claims.

The clean label trend is also massive and accelerating. Consumers want ingredients they can pronounce and understand. ‘Protein from green leaves’ is inherently clean and simple.  

How have you seen the alternative proteins market evolve in recent years?  

The alternative protein sector has been through a complete cycle since we were founded: from explosive hype to significant correction, and now we're seeing a more mature, realistic phase emerging. When we began, the sector was experiencing massive excitement and capital influx. Everyone was talking about disrupting animal agriculture, and valuations were skyrocketing based on potential rather than proven fundamentals. A lot of companies got caught up in that momentum.

Then reality hit. The market realised that many alternative protein products were compromising significantly on taste, texture or nutrition compared to what they were trying to replace. Consumer adoption plateaued and investors became much more cautious. 

What we're seeing now is a more discerning phase. Consumers are moving beyond novelty and demanding products that truly deliver. It’s not enough to make sustainability claims. A product needs to deliver on performance, taste and value. I think the companies that survive this shake-out will be ones focused on fundamental breakthroughs, rather than incremental improvements. There's growing recognition that we need genuinely transformative solutions, not just better versions of existing plant proteins. 

What has been Leaft Foods’ biggest achievement to date? 

Our biggest achievement has been cracking the code that stumped researchers for over a century. We successfully extracted Rubisco protein on a commercial scale while preserving its extraordinary functional properties. We've proven the entire system works at a large scale, which is important to business growth and viability. Our 30,000 square foot facility’s current production is impressive, but it is also just the start of what we can do. We've also demonstrated that this breakthrough can deliver genuine value to both B2B customers and consumers. 

Have you faced any particular challenges on your journey? How did you navigate them? 

We've certainly faced our share of challenges, but I think our approach to navigating them has been key to our progress as a company. 

The biggest technical challenge was the fundamental extraction paradox I mentioned. This took years of painstaking work by our team of scientists and engineers. Timing the market has been both a challenge and an advantage. We started during the height of alternative protein hype, but rather than getting swept up in that excitement, we made a decision to stay heads-down building. That discipline paid off. 

The commercialisation challenge was also substantial. We're creating an entirely new category with leaf protein, so there's no established playbook. We had to figure out how to position something that doesn't exist yet. Our strategy has been to let performance speak for itself. 

What’s next for Leaft? Any exciting plans in the pipeline? 

We're at a really exciting inflection point with our current production validating both our business model and unit economics. From here, we map our journey to profitability as we take the next steps to scale up. On the consumer side, we're seeing strong early adoption of Leaft Blade among performance athletes and weekend warriors. The B2B ingredient business is moving forward too. We're working with partners across different food categories who want to leverage the functional properties of our protein. 

Our first strategic partnership we’re announcing on the B2B side is with Lacto Japan, a leading distributor of speciality food ingredients, to introduce Leaf Rubisco Protein to Japan's sophisticated food manufacturing sector. Through that partnership, we're already engaged with several of Japan's most important food manufacturers across plant-based foods, bakery products and sports nutrition categories. The early market validation has been strong. Lacto's team was impressed not just with the protein system itself, but with how well it performs in actual applications, meeting the exceptionally high standards that Japanese consumers expect.  

For aspiring food-tech start-ups, what valuable advice or insights would you share to help them navigate the challenges and opportunities in this dynamic sector?

Having weathered numerous cycles in the food manufacturing space, I'd say the most critical lesson is that fundamental economics always apply. In some periods, it may feel like they don't matter, but they inevitably come back to bite you. We've always maintained a long-term vision for Leaft that's helped us look through market cycles and stay focused on what actually matters.

I’d also encourage new entrants to the industry to be honest about their boundary conditions. We've always been clear on the yield targets we needed to hit for scale and the quality thresholds required for customer acceptance. Having clarity on these constraints forces you to find solutions that actually work commercially, not just technically at lab-scale.