Andfoods isn’t trying to win the plant-based food battle in the supermarket aisle. It wants raving fans in Asia’s busiest kitchens.

The New Zealand startup is turning black gram, also known as black mung bean, into whipping cream. Its pitch to chefs is that dairy-free shouldn’t mean settling for second best.

On this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, co-founder Alex Devereux explains why winning over the person holding the whisk could be a smarter business than chasing shoppers.

Devereux learned the food service trade at Fonterra, supplying ingredients to businesses where taste, consistency and price determine whether a product earns its place in the fridge.

After leaving dairy for technology roles, an invitation from Icehouse brought him to Massey University’s Riddet Institute. There, he and fellow Fonterra alumnus Leon Clement tasted a plant-based whipping cream that stood out.

“We knew the markets, we knew the dynamics and what customers were looking for in that kind of product,” he says.

The science tackles an awkward problem: beans taste like beans.

Replicating the taste and texture of dairy

Riddet researchers developed a fermentation process that strips out those sharp flavours while retaining black gram’s natural creaminess and ability to foam. Combined with coconut oil and other ingredients, it becomes a cream that, Devereux says, delivers dairy-like taste and texture.

There’s a practical selling point, too. He says the whipped cream holds its shape longer in hot conditions, a useful attribute for cakes and desserts in tropical markets.

But clever science doesn’t automatically win kitchen space.

Andfoods employs a chef in Singapore to demonstrate the product alongside its distributor. The aim is to talk chef to chef, showing how it performs rather than delivering a sales pitch.

“Chef-led sales is the most effective way to win this type of business,” Devereux says.

Get the product right and customers tend to stick around, without the marketing bill needed to build a supermarket brand.

Andfoods has secured Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands as a customer, with Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand on its expansion list.

Its model also departs from the familiar Kiwi export recipe: retain research and intellectual property here, but manufacture in China, closer to customers.

Having raised $4 million, Andfoods is seeking another $7m to fund growth, with culinary cream and cold foam products in development.

The ambition isn’t simply to replace dairy. It’s to become the cream chefs choose.

Listen to Alex Devereux on The Business of Tech streaming on iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.