Klaus Mitchell, founder of Plant Based News on publishing niches and the impact of Veganuary
Last year over half a million people across the globe decided to give up eating meat and dairy products and embrace Veganuary.
What began as a grassroots movement in the UK has now gone global and played a major role in the growing popularity of plant-based diets. Veganuary has also been a catalyst for brands experimenting with plant-based products. Visit one of the many Facebook groups dedicated to veganism and you can read often heated discussions about the merits or otherwise of the plant-based offerings from McDonalds, Burger King and many other food producers.
Another place that would-be vegans visit for more information about the diet, culture and lifestyle they are considering embracing is Plant Based News. The UK based media company emerged as a YouTube channel over six years ago and since then has spawned other social channels, a very popular podcast and a website that has a huge global readership.
The company recently took investment to fund its expansion plans and has, like many other expanding indie publishers, largely eschewed advertising as its main route to monetisation.
We spoke to founder Klaus Mitchell to find out more.
What was the inspiration behind the launch of Plant Based News? And how did you grow the title?
Shortly after graduating from UCL with an MSc in Genetics of Human Disease, I started Plant Based News as a social media channel in 2015. It was predominantly a YouTube channel featuring videos of me talking about all things plant-based from inside my parents’ greenhouse. Each video would start with, “Hi, this is Klaus from the greenhouse!”
I noticed that there wasn’t a portal out there collating plant-based content, so my motivation at the time was to share useful information about plant-based health and nutrition, while also finding a community of like-minded people. As I realised the power of social media to reach wider audiences, I started setting up social pages on Facebook and Instagram (and registered plantbasednews.org which was inactive but taking email addresses).
In 2016, I was lucky enough to be invited to a plant-based health conference in California, hosted by Vegsource, where I was able to interview leading plant-based health professionals in the field for PBN’s social media. I had no idea at that stage where it could lead to and in fact, in those early days, I didn’t even tell my parents for a long time about my secret project. It was only once I had a sizable number of subscribers that I started sharing the content with family and friends.
Through the platform, I was able to meet some incredible people, most notably Robbie Lockie, who came on as a co-founder and levelled up the game in so many ways. Together we founded the company Plant Based News Limited. In many ways, PBN has always been a grassroots movement, which has grown steadily and organically alongside the wider movement.
Are you entirely self-funded?
We did a fundraising round in October 2021 and raised one Million Pounds. The reason why we decided to raise money is because we had ambitious growth plans. We want to continue our growth trajectory and reach even more people with this important message of health sustainability and ethics.
What are your growth plans? Are there any new ventures you can tell us about?
Aside from growing our audience on multiple different platforms such as Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Linked In, Tik Tok and our website, plantbasednews.org, we are also putting together an original series which we will launch on a mainstream streaming network at some point, hopefully in the next couple of years, as well as monetising our platform currently.
Do you think mainstream media is starting to take veganism more seriously? Do you envisage that established publishing companies might launch rivals to you in the future?
I think the mainstream media is talking more about climate change and the deleterious effects of animal agriculture. I don’t think they are talking about it enough. As veganism picks up and there’s more and more vegan options in markets, restaurants and shops, there will be more coverage. This is the change we need for the health of our population, the health of our planet in terms of preventing future pandemics, reversing the climate crisis, and of course more people speaking up about the horrors of animal agriculture from an ethical standpoint.
And how global is your audience? Is there a country where you have a growing audience that surprises you?
Our audience is predominantly in North America but we have a global reach including demographics in Europe, Australasia and elsewhere globally.
How do you balance cultivating a mainstream audience, which might be 100% vegan while also catering for those who are passionate and committed to the cause?
In terms of our reporting we are always journalistic and often I tell the team, “imagine your non-vegan uncle was reading this.” We want to reach out and seem credible to people that aren’t necessarily fully aligned to the vegan lifestyle at this stage. If we can have an open conversation, be journalistic and appear credible to them, then I think we have got a chance of really making a difference.
How has Veganuary impacted your business? Do you see significant growth each January?
Veganuary is a great initiative. We work them each week to help disseminate and amplify their message. What’s really excites me about Veganuary is not just the individuals signing up for the Veganuary challenge, but the corporate outreach they do each year and the multiplier effect that that has because it encourages more brands to get on it. There’s a huge amount of momentum, now we see it in supermarkets and shops, everywhere.
What is your main revenue stream? How have these evolved over time?
At the moment it’s client services. We provide advertising, marketing, influencer marketing, creative services, ad management, performance marketing to a number of brands in this space. We are working hard to monetise our platform at the moment because obviously we reach so many people each week but it’s not really being optimised to be monetised.
What impact if at all do you think the pandemic had on your business?
In terms of the impact the pandemic has had on our business, we’ve had our challenges, people working from home and not having the office for a while, but we are a tech company so we don’t need a factory or a specific location so it’s been fine for us. It’s meant that companies have increasingly turned to digital ways to promote their products so I think we’ve definitely grown since the pandemic, exemplified by the fundraiser and the amount of impressions we reach a month. We are really looking forward to the future because there’s an enormous tailwind in the space and I’m proud to be a part of it with my business partner, Robert Lockie.
