An AI-powered own-label manufacturing platform has launched in the UK, with funding from an investment group backed by Tesco.
Keychain enables retailers to “design and produce their own-brand products from scratch” and tap a network of more than 2,000 local manufacturers.
It has indexed more than 500,000 British products ahead of launch, so retailers can quickly mimic and improve upon consumer favourites, and access the manufacturers behind them.
“Private label is growing rapidly, more so than any other category in grocery, but most retailers are still managing fragmented, manual systems at a time when supply chains are more complex and regulations are tightening,” Keychain co-founder & CEO Oisin Hanrahan told The Grocer.
“It connects every stage of product development, from design to sourcing and compliance, so they can bring great products to market quicker while staying ahead of regulatory change. We’ve already seen major retailers cut launch times by months, and the same opportunity exists in the UK,” he added.
Keychain is used by eight of the 10 largest retailers in the US including 7-Eleven and Whole Foods, it said, while seven of the top 10 CPG companies, including General Mills, already use Keychain “to accelerate product development and respond more effectively to market demand”.
Manufacturers pay based on how they use the platform and the features they need, while brands – be they major players or startups – get free access to the manufacturing network.
“The goal is to make Keychain valuable to companies of any size, whether you’re launching your first product or managing thousands around the world,” Hanrahan said.
The company this month secured £7.5m in new funding from investors including W23 Global, a fund backed by Tesco, Ahold Delhaize, Woolworths Group, Empire Company Limited and Shoprite Group. It follows a Series B funding round in August.
Since launching in 2024, Keychain has raised $78m in venture capital and built a network of more than 30,000 manufacturers and 20,000 brands and retailers. Hanrahan said in the US, brands and retailers post more than $1bn in projects per month.
Keychain’s UK platform already features more than 2,000 local manufacturers, the company says. There is a waiting list of more than 1,000 brands and retailers waiting to use the product before its official debut, Keychain says.
The platform’s expansion into the UK will be led by its GM Europe Alan Metcalfe, formerly marketing director at Red Bull and MD of vitamin and protein bar brand Fulfil before its acquisition last year by the Ferrero Company.
The company – which has also secured funding from General Mills, The Hershey Company, Schreiber Foods, and Rich’s Food – opened a Dublin office in September, marking the start of its expansion into Europe.
“We already work with several of the world’s leading retailers, including several with major UK operations, so expanding into this market was a natural next step,” Hanrahan said.
While there are rival solutions in the UK market, “very few are built specifically for private label or connect the entire product lifecycle from idea to shelf in one platform” Hanrahan said.
The proprietary platform “gives retailers clear insight into how existing products are made, helping them reproduce or improve on those formulas with trusted manufacturers, as well as enabling them to create entirely new products from the ground up, using AI to recommend the best production options to meet their goals for quality, cost and sustainability”, he explained.
“Most retailers are still using a mix of legacy tools, spreadsheets, and email chains to manage what’s now a global, AI-driven supply chain. We built Keychain to go beyond what’s already out there,” Hanrahan added.
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