Munich Startup: What does Plant Magic do? What problem are you solving?
Sebastian Brecey, Plant Magic: We want to make a small contribution to healthier eating and more sustainability in the food sector with our vegan and functional superfood lattes. To achieve this, our products must above all integrate well into our often stressful everyday lives and taste delicious at the same time. Only then can healthy eating become a permanent part of our lives.
Munich Startup: But that already exists, doesn’t it?
Sebastian Brecey: Only half. Our flavors like matcha, chai and Co. can be found in most cafés today. However, our special recipes are additionally based on functional ingredients from around the world that have been used for centuries, for example in Ayurveda or traditional Chinese medicine, or are known as adaptogens and nootropics. This special blend makes our drinks unique and the perfect support in everyday life. Furthermore, our products are either ready-to-drink (bottles) or ready-to-shake (powder). This fits the realities of modern target groups. Plant Magic fits everywhere: at home, in the office or on the go.
Incidentally, our Plant Magic lattes have excellent nutritional values, are 100 percent natural, without artificial additives and in the best organic quality. They are free of added sugar and have a long shelf life unrefrigerated.
Plant Magic emerged during Corona
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Sebastian Brecey: The idea for Plant Magic emerged during the pandemic: During this period, we focused more on nutrition and privately tried many new healthy, sustainable and functional foods and ingredients. During lockdown, our favorite cafés also had to switch to purely to-go operations. Suddenly, the special latte creations were only available to take away in cups.
That’s when the idea for Plant Magic came to us: milk alternatives combined with delicious recipes and functional ingredients that we all know from our favorite cafés, but which are also suitable for on the go or at home. A healthy drink with functional benefits (focus, balance) for in between.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Sebastian Brecey: One of our biggest challenges was definitely our market test in 2021, when we still produced our products ourselves in small batches every week, filled them and then delivered them fresh to around 25 local supermarkets in the Munich area. We built the production machines for this ourselves, and through the weekly iterations we learned an enormous amount. This gave our products the final polish for serial production.
More vegan convenience products to follow
Munich Startup: Where do you want to be in one year, where in five years?
Sebastian Brecey: Our lattes were just the beginning. We will develop more vegan, functional and above all delicious convenience products that will help people throughout Europe in their everyday lives to eat more healthily and sustainably.
In the short term, however, our goals are also focused specifically on our newly launched instant latte powder. It’s now available alongside our bottled drinks and is great for home use. This is a great and exciting step for our company.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced the Munich startup location so far?
Sebastian Brecey: Munich is important to us not only personally because it’s our home. As a founding location, it proved to be a great choice! There is a strong ecosystem in the food sector: Both in terms of development and the exchange among numerous food startups is very valuable – people help each other and are there for one another. The network here offers a good environment.
Munich Startup: Risk or security?
Sebastian Brecey: As a startup founder, our answer is of course tending toward “risk”. Every startup is a risk. It’s more about constantly reassessing the risk and then quickly and flexibly adapting the strategy to the current market situation.
