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Name: Hampton Creek

One-Liner Pitch: Indexing the world's plants to make healthier, more affordable and more sustainable foods.

You know you're onto something good when you're backed by Bill Gates, the world's wealthiest man, and Li Ka-shing, Asia's richest man. And if you're in the food business, it's a positive indicator when your products are distributed in some of the world's largest grocery stores, including Whole Foods, Safeway, Costco, Kroger, and AmazonFresh.

With distinctions such as Entrepreneur Magazine's "100 Most Brilliant Companies" and CNBC's "Disruptor 50 List," San Francisco-based food technology company Hampton Creek aims to replace the world's bizarre food chain with cheaper, more sustainable, healthier, and — dare we say — tastier options.

Hampton Creek was founded by Josh Tetrick less than three years ago. After spending more than seven years in Sub-Saharan Africa, he was inspired to do something that would make a large-scale difference in the world. "I had seen the realities of broken systems in education and healthcare while in Africa, and furthermore, I was raised with a dad who I could never convince to eat healthy, because he always thought healthy foods was just too expensive," he told Mashable.

Tetrick's early concept for Hampton Creek was one in which the sustainable and healthy option for producing foods was also, coincidentally, the most radically affordable option. "What would our systems for food look like if it was just easier to do the right thing?" he asked. Tetrick bet it would look a lot like his growing startup.

Hampton Creek indexes the world's plants, categorizing data about each species and its varietal. By categorizing a plant's molecular properties and using its predictive models, Hampton Creek can predict what a given specimen could be used for in the kitchen. Out of the thousands of plants it has classified, the startup has identified 13 that can be used to make world-changing foods, two of which it currently uses on the market: A varietal of Canadian Yellow Pea used in its Just Mayo eggless mayonnaise and a varietal or sorghum used in its Just Cookies edible cookie dough.

Tetrick's team began its food revolution by flipping the egg industry on its head. With some refreshing perspective, he points out how absurd it is that the 1.8 trillion eggs laid by chickens each year are produced in what may be the most archaic way possible: Ten chickens in a rusty cage, often given genetically-modified feed and never taken out of their small confines to exercise, or just live. Hampton Creek says its method for producing egg-like, plant-based foods is, in fact, 48% more cost-effective than traditional eggs.

Hampton Creek's team of computational and molecular biologists could be off using their skills to discover new drugs, but they're using those same methods to discover new foods that could have bigger impacts on the world. Replacing eggs is a start, but imagine a world where we don't depend on billions of chickens to produce one of our staple foods. Tetrick is thinking much bigger, though.

"We started with the conventional chicken egg for a lot of reasons: Environmental protection, food safety, animal welfare. We decided to use plants instead," Tetrick says. "But we've started identifying plants that have properties that are superior to the conventional sugar cane. We're identifying plants that could replace some of the not-so-good food dyes. We're identifying plants that are hyper-efficient sources of protein that we could potentially distribute through the World Food Program [the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger]."

All in all, Tetrick's company is targeting multiple multi-billion dollar markets, the $9 billion egg industry just being the first up.

In 2015, Tetrick says Hampton Creek will choose its next product space to move forward with — whether it be a plant-based sugar replacement, highly-efficient protein source, or all-natural food dye. "When you expand your vision from just using soy or corn [as much of the food industry has done], into the 400,000 or so plants in the world, you end up finding really awesome things, and hopefully things we can be smart enough to use to make food better," says Tetrick.

Hampton Creek's office Image: Hampton Creek

Hampton Creek has raised more than $30 million to date and has a team that is 62 strong and growing. It has already indexed more than 4,000 plants from 41 countries around the world, ignoring 92% of the 400,000 out there, as many plants don't fit the healthy and sustainable ethos of the company. The company has a new facility that is 80,000 square feet — just big enough for its big mission to change how food is made for millions of people.

The startup is launching its products in Walmart on September 24 and recently signed a distribution partnership with Compass Group, the largest contract food services company in the world, serving around 4 billion meals per year in offices, factories, schools, hospitals, and other locations in more than 50 countries around the world.

As it so happens, Hampton Creek is also the mayonnaise provider for the now famous potato salad Kickstarter campaign. It will be flying out Chef Ben Roche, who joined the company in July, to help dish out the goods at the potato salad party taking place in September in Columbus, Ohio.

For those wondering if Hampton Creek is the latest exclusive, high-end food provider out there, look no further than the fact that its products are even available at Dollar Tree, a place no luxury product wants to end up. That's because the startup operates on the idea that the best food should be accessible to everyone.

"You could rip out the hearts of the people who work here, and their hearts would be that [message]," says Tetrick. "It's very important to us that we live that. It's not just meant for the people who shop at their local natural grocery store. It's meant for everyone, everywhere."