#MADEINHEC - Food for thought: Martin Habfast’s entrepreneurial journey from HEC Paris to Umiami

A Master’s degree from HEC Paris can unlock so many career paths and the trajectory you take very much depends on your professional goals and personal values. In this article we delve into the inspiring journey of Martin Habfast from HEC Paris to the co-founding of Umiami, a pioneering startup that produces plant-based chicken fillets, as well as his unwavering commitment to sustainability and the environment.

The HEC Paris experience

Choosing to study at the best Business School in Europe was quite simply a no brainer for Martin as HEC Paris really stood out in terms of international standing, academic rankings, and its unique program portfolio.

When reflecting on his time at HEC Paris, several highlights spring to mind. The first one being the phenomenal level of customization. With almost infinite options and possible combinations, Martin was able to go on an exchange program in Taiwan, benefit from internships and take a double degree in Management and Innovation with the Technical University of Munich. Martin is convinced that HEC Paris really is what you want it to be and that you can do almost anything when you graduate.

Another highlight was life on campus. For Martin, HEC Paris is much more an experience than just a school where you go to classes and campus life plays a key role in delivering that experience. The sheer diversity of backgrounds, ways of working and mindsets teaches you so much about how to collaborate with other people and enables you to develop strong leadership skills. 

The beginning of an entrepreneurial journey

Martin created his first startup, a tutoring company, with two of his classmates while he was at HEC Paris. By tapping into the influential networks of HEC Paris and other Grandes Écoles, their aim was to create a company providing both high end educational services and the flexibility of more inexpensive marketplace offerings. The experience taught Martin two very important lessons. Firstly, that entrepreneurship really is fun and secondly that getting the sales and marketing right is the number one priority when you launch a company.

He therefore wanted to learn from companies that are renowned for their expertise in doing exactly that. For his first internship he joined the key account management team at P&G. It was a fantastic school, but Martin wanted to be much more on the front of line of negotiating deals with clients. So, for his second internship he worked in business development at Google and then joined the sales team at Amazon in Munich, on a part-time basis, during his double degree. 

The inspiration to create Umiami

When he was student HEC Paris, Martin did an online test to measure his carbon footprint and discovered that he was emitting up to 8 tons of CO2 a year – three to four times higher than the recommendations of the Paris agreement. When he analyzed the main contributing factors, he immediately stopped eating meat and travelling by plane.

Meat production has a huge environmental impact and represents 15% of global GHG emissions. The idea behind Umiami was therefore to make it easy for people to reduce their meat consumption.  A wide range of meat substitute products have emerged in recent years, but the offer is almost entirely for burger patties, sausages, and meatballs. However, when you look at what people actually eat, the most consumed meat worldwide is chicken breast and there are no meat substitutes, mainly because technologically producing and recreating the texture of whole animal meat is extremely complex. So, Martin and his co-founders set about developing a unique technological process to align proteins and create the right fiber structure without compromising on the nutritional value or of the quality of the product. 

Launching and developing the company

Very quickly, Martin and his co-founders began prototyping to determine if they could develop the necessary technology to create the kind of products they wanted to produce. They developed some interesting prototypes, which clearly demonstrated a novel approach to protein texturization. This enabled them to raise a seed round with investors who understood the promise of what they were developing. Hiring a team of food scientists allowed them to step up their game in terms of technology and then building a small production facility enabled them to prove the concept on an industrial scale.

Umiami has grown at an impressive pace and now has 120 employees. In December 2022 they acquired a former Unilever plant near Strasbourg, completely revamped the site from scratch and started production in December 2023. Locating the factory near Strasbourg made real strategic sense. It reduces logistics costs to the UK and Germany, which are the two largest markets in Europe for these types of products and the wealth of food companies in the Strasbourg region also means that there is a strong talent pool for this specific industry.

Challenges and sources of satisfaction

As a co-founder, Martin’s role revolves around board management and representing the company with journalists and in the press. He is also in charge of company strategy and leads many different projects that require quick deployable resources. Ensuring that the strategy is cohesive is crucial. Communication is more complex with 120 employees, and you can quickly get into situations where people are not moving in the same direction and priorities are not aligned. Finding solutions and avoiding inefficiency form a key part of his role.

Growing as an entrepreneur at the same rapid pace as Umiami is a constant challenge. When Martin and his co-founders launched the company, they needed to be very good individual contributors and salespeople. A year and a half later, with 40 employees they needed to become good managers. Now that they are 120 and growing, they need to be excellent leaders who can inspire a vision and embark the organization on a large-scale journey. The learning curve has been steep and managing the sheer quantity of issues that can arise has at times been painful. For Martin, it’s not just a question of being resilient, but being able to drive forwards and being happy in that sort of context.

Leading a company that places such importance on sustainability and making a positive impact is a strong motivational factor. Creating jobs and seeing that people are happy in those jobs is what gives Martin the greatest personal satisfaction. The social and economic impact is particularly tangible when you work in an industrial sector that requires a lot of blue-collar workers.

Future aspirations

Plant-based meat represents just 1% of global meat consumption and Umiami is just a small part of that equation. Martin knows that to have a significant impact the company needs to grow and expand as quickly as possible. Umiami products already have a strong environmental dimension and emit 50% less CO2 emissions than chicken production. So, the more they can increase their sales the greater their positive environmental impact.

Most of Umiami’s products are currently sold outside of France, but the majority of the employees are French. Martin’s goal is therefore to internationalize the company. Umiami are opening an office in Chicago and are planning to hire around 8 people by the end of the year. They’re also hiring people in the Netherlands and in the UK. Umiami is therefore not only successfully transitioning from a pure tech company to a food production company, but from a French company to an increasingly international one.

Martin Habfast’s story is one of determination, commitment, and vision. His journey so far is a testament to his ability to stay true to his personal values, make a positive environmental and social impact and lead an innovative and successful company.

Find out more about the Master in Management & Innovation HEC – TUM