In 2017, Aylon Steinhart wanted to break into the plant-based food industry. Previously, he cofounded a software startup that had nothing to do with food.

He says he “saw the light” as to the significant impact one could make in the plant-based food industry and wanted to be involved. He spent the next eight months trying to break into the industry but came up empty. The industry was tiny at the time with limited opportunities.

Impossible Foods and Beyond Burger were competing in this emerging industry but were just rolling out their products.

At the same time Steinhart’s job search was coming up empty, a large food conference was about to take place. All the plant-based food companies that Steinhart found inspiring planned to be there. He felt he had to go—if he could just get in front of the people something would happen, was his thinking. The problem was money. He was young and between the conference fee, airfare, and lodging, it would cost several thousand dollars to attend. Rather than give up, Steinhart decided to go for broke. He went to the conference website and looked up the contact information for all the companies in which he had an interest. He sent cold email messages to about 50 companies offering to work at their booth for free in exchange for them paying his way to the conference. First day, no responses. The second day resulted in a batch of no responses. About a week went by and he received two yes responses. Two companies agreed to pay his way to the conference in exchange for the work he promised. Steinhart picked a company, went to the conference, and networked like crazy. He met the executive director of the Good Food Institute, the leading nonprofit promoting plant based foods. The Good Food Institute decided to take a chance on Steinhart and hired him to help start their innovation department. According to Steinhart, that was the break he needed—and that is where it all started.

Discussion Questions:

1.How has Eclipse Foods established a unique position in the ice cream industry?
2.What are Eclipse Foods’ primary sources of competitive advantage? In your judgment, is the firm’s competitive advantage sustainable? Why or why not?
3.What barriers to entry has Eclipse Foods created for potential plant-based food competitors?
4.What are the ways that Eclipse Foods can conduct ethical and proper forms of competitive intelligence to learn about potential competitors entering the plant-based dairy industry?