BC Business
he company hopes it can halt our reliance on cows.
Bettermoo(d)’s milk product is manufactured in Canada
Across North America, sales of dairy milk have been declining for some time. That’s not a surprise to anyone who’s been in a grocery store lately and seen the numerous options for almond and oat milk occupying shelves.
Vancouver-based Bettermoo(d) has spent about a year working on joining the ranks of the likes of Almond Breeze and Earth’s Own with its proprietary blend of herbs and oats.
The company’s slogan—”what a cow eats and a human needs”—informed the way it developed its product, which is based on the herbs and vegetables that cows ate before the time of mass livestock production.
“We thought we could do something really unique here and try to incorporate a lot of those flavours from the natural growing cows,” says CEO Nima Bahrami. “What they eat really does impact the flavour of the milk, and their environment plays a role. So we wanted to come up with a brand that can bring you that unique flavour and taste without that damage to the environment and the animals themselves.”
Bahrami is looking to get Bettermoo(d)’s shelf-stable (meaning it doe sn’t need to be refrigerated before opening) Moodrink in stores by fall. But his plans to advance a dairy-free future don’t stop there.
“One thing we thought would be a unique thing about our company is that we don’t want to just be another alternative milk provider,” says Bahrami, who was born in Tehran and moved to Vancouver with his family at the age of nine. “We want to be a dairy replacement brand that’s able to provide consumers with all their needs for dairy products, but plant-based.”
Moodrink is the first step in that quest, but Bahrami is developing a yogurt (Moogurt) and butter (Buetter), as well as cheese, ice cream and sour cream alternatives.
The Bettermoo(d) founder has an MBA from Cardiff University in Wales and is working alongside a team of advisers and food scientists to manufacture the company’s products in Canada.
“We’re trying to make it inclusive for everybody, and not just necessarily targeting vegan people,” he says. “Anybody that wants to make a change for themselves or the environment, animals, all the various reasons people have for that.”