Purely Plantain: A Non-Nutty, Or Spud Centric Idea

Packets of the 3 Purely Plantain flavours

In the middle-of-nowhere (in Ecuador), Stefania was sitting in a café, munching a light, yet crunchy, fried-veg snack, where she had a ‘light bulb’ moment that lead to the birth of Purely Plantain.

As a health-conscious fitness fanatic, Stefania was disappointed with the UK snacking landscape, faced with a lousy choice of spuds, nuts or synthetic-extruded ‘nonsense,’ so she set out to create crunchy, snack-worthy plantain based chip brand/product.

Plantains are the humble cousin of the ever popular banana. In some parts of the world, they are already a popular and versatile street food, brimming in beneficial fibre, potassium, magnesium, vitamin A and vitamin B6.

The innovation wasn’t creating a plantain-based snack: that had already been done before. The real innovation was to take a great, South American local snack and repackage it to appeal to European consumers, with European textures and flavours: Wild Garlic, Nice & Spicy (chilli) and Sea Salt.

Purely Plantain is low in salt and sugar, gluten-free, plant-based, non GMO, only seasoned with natural herbs & spices and has 30% less fat than traditional potato crisps.

Environmental concerns are a key driver for Purely. They produce their snacks in Ecuador – to maximise local expertise, authenticity and to support the local economy.

In May 2020, Purely Plantain secured investment from health-conscious pioneer Scott Livingston (Westlab). The investment will help Purely to launch their new 30g ‘me-time’ pack.

“Even though Lockdown has been a positive/energizing experience for us in terms of online sales uplift (+29%), we knew that our original packaging came up a little short in terms of : shelf impact, conveying our proud South American ties, our vibrant/clean deck persona. OUR new look packs have closed that loop and resulted in a significant sales uplift.”
Stefania Pellegrino, Co-founder of Purely Plantain

Purely Plantain can also boast a bunch of award wins and short-listings, including: