Episode 90: Planet A Foods: Max Marquart & Jürgen Keil on surviving the CapEx leap, supply chain economics, and building a Corporate inside a Startup

In this episode, I sit down with Maximilian Marquart (CEO and Co-founder of Planet A Foods) and Jürgen Keil (former Cargill Executive and current Supply Chain Advisor) to discuss the brutal reality of scaling a deep-tech food company. Planet A Foods is renowned for executing on one of the hardest challenges in the industry: manufacturing its proprietary cocoa-free chocolate entirely in-house. Max explains why they were forced to build their own factory when legacy co-manufacturers refused to run their product, and why hiring a seasoned corporate supply chain veteran like Jürgen was the only way to survive the transition from lab-scale to commercial delivery. We also dive deep into Jürgen's 33 years of agribusiness experience, dismantling the myth of the "sustainability premium" and explaining why value chains must be designed backward from strict cost constraints.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Max’s exact math on why an expensive supply chain executive pays for themselves after preventing just two ruined 24-ton shipments.

Key Facts Planet A Foods:

Maximilian Marquart: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-maximilian-marquart-24a802107/
Jürgen Keil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juergen-keil-7ab34a31/
Website: https://planet-a-foods.com/
Headquarters: Germany
Goal: To build a next-generation food ingredient champion by manufacturing a proprietary, highly scalable, and sustainable cocoa-free chocolate alternative.
Milestone: Successfully transitioned from lab-scale production (100 grams) to fulfilling multi-ton line trials by building and operating their own vertical manufacturing facility in 2022.

Blurb:

Planet A Foods is building the next generation of ingredients for the global food industry. Through a scalable fermentation platform, we create resilient, future-ready B2B ingredient solutions that tackle the defining challenges of our time — climate change, supply chain disruption, and the growing demand for sustainable food at scale. Our ingredients deliver exceptional taste and cost efficiency without compromise, enabling food producers to reduce millions of tons of carbon emissions each year. We don't just adapt to the transformation underway in the food world — we're leading it. Our mission: protect the planet we love by making sustainable, high-quality ingredients the new standard for mass market products worldwide.