Juicy Marbles co-founder and chief brand officer Vladimir Mićković is an anomaly among his food-tech start-up peers.
The tattooed, floppy-haired CBO speaks on a video call from his “secret lair” in Slovenia, where the business is based. He has an almost manic, but infectious, laugh and often talks in metaphors: “Right now, we’re the Minecraft of meat, but in 10 years we’ll be the Halo – but with better graphics.”
Mićković is also slightly scatty, though he admits he’s very tired from work and has a lot more to do before his day ends. Often, he’ll criticise what he says as being subjective, even though he’s detailed a broad and varied argument.
He’s also a creative, shaking up what is still an emerging sector that’s been flooded with product and suffered the subsequent consequences – a market downfall driven mostly by oversaturation and a difficult financial climate.
Juicy Marbles, through Mićković and his business partners, has grown up in less than four years from limited financial resources – “$7m from a seed fund which in food industry terms is peanuts” – to a position of near financial stability.
This is why Mićković is something of a paradox. He’s fun, daring, intelligent, business savvy, revolutionary… a sensible rebel.
“If I were an outside observer [of Juicy Marbles], I’d say it’s going well,” he explains when asked how the business is going. “We’ve been more or less successful in hitting our goals and the challenge that’s been presented to us has proven to be a blessing in disguise.”
The challenge and the blessing? Just as Juicy Marbles launched, the category began to dry up and so too did the hefty investments it enjoyed just a few years before. This meant Juicy Marbles didn’t have the luxury of vast cash reserves. But that was a good thing, as the business is robust as a result.
“We’ll break even at the end of this year. There’s still two months to go, but it does seem that way.”
Juicy Marbles' NPD
“This has been no easy fete. You have to do it with not such a big team and with very little investment. Every decision you make, you have to make sure it’s responsible and [gives] a good return. The margin of fault is so small, there’s an anxiety in almost everything you do.”
It has also brought the business closer to its consumers. The newly-launched Bone-in Ribs product was Juicy Marbles’ first product created, from the beginning prototypes, with community feedback. As a result, a more “visceral” product has been developed that “anecdotally, people say is the best we’ve made”.
Although, he concedes “taste is subjective, but I would say it’s our best product”.
It is more expensive than the two other products Juicy Marbles currently has on the market: Thick-cut Filet and Whole-cut Loin. The added cost is down to the production line not making it as efficiently yet, meaning the volumes can’t yet be reached.
Overall volume output isn’t an issue for Juicy Marbles, which makes around 1.5 tonnes daily from its Slovenia facility. This is then exported from warehouses to the US, UK, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden.
There are 60 people working for the business now and plans to grow the workforce, production and customer base to other countries. But sensibly.
“The main thing is to remain stable and keep the business fundamentals strong,” he says. “We aim to start series A fundraising next year. We feel like we’ve proven we know how to run a business, even when the category was shrinking, we were growing.”
The circumstances Juicy Marbles faced on its journey to today are preferred by Mićković, who says he’d rather the struggles and stress than having to live up to the “crazy valuations” some of his competitors had to do.
Juicy Marbles’ lot in life worked out well for the business as it had to work harder than others to prove its worth to consumers. “Pre-pandemic, if someone liked the smell of a product, it could raise $500m – I’m exaggerating. But it was crazy numbers.
“I feared that approach, because it didn’t seem rooted in reality. I was seeing valuations of companies that didn’t have revenues and I didn’t get it. At some point, in five years, they have to become that value somehow.”
Juicy Marbles, however, has “a realistic gauge of how we can scale,” says Mićković. “We’ll be in two-and-a-half times growth on last year and next year two-times that.”
Staying healthy is the focus, which will help continue the growth curve Juicy Marbles has seen, but “without the focus on vanity revenue. That will enable healthy growth for 2026 onwards – we’re on very fertile ground and determined to not lose the fundamentals”.
Juicy Marbles' business strategy
The company will remain independent for the foreseeable future. “It’s still our baby,” he says.
Though it will expand into other countries including Germany next year, Spain, Italy and France – “the countries that have strong food cultures”, because Mićković is a foodie at heart and talks with true passion about the emotion it conjures.
Juicy Marbles' next big NPD, which he’s less secretive about than one might expect, “is going to be a more affordable product”, he reveals.
“What everyone is waiting for Tesla to do is a Model Two that’s cheaper. We’re working on making a whole cut that’s not as expensive as the original.”
Juicy Marbles’ strategy was never to make premium pant-based meat whole cuts, he says. “The only reason our prices are high is because of the economies of scale. In the future, I don’t think it [alt meat] should be dirt cheap, but it should be affordable to most people.”
The future of plant-based for Mićković is affordability and realism. Casting his mind back, he criticises the sector’s approach 10 years ago with its claims of a vegan society by now. “That was wishful thinking.”
It did result in a flooded market, which caused the later contraction of the market, Mićković believes. “I attribute the disappearance of all these products to the [recent market] contraction,” he says. “That’s because there was never an indicator telling me the category wasn’t or isn’t viable anymore.”
So what else is next for the category?
“What I see in the next five or 10 years is the price of animal meat will rise and data shows it’s rising faster than inflation – I realise I can’t be objective. But it [meat] is a subsidised business and running on a low margin.
“Plant-based meat is going to continue going down in price and it should already be lower, but because of the subsidies it’s roughly on par with meat.”
It’s hard to argue with Mićković’s vision of plant-based’s future. It’s a sensible assumption based on trends already seen. It’s clear, too, that if he has anything to do with it, Juicy Marbles will be part of that story.
