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Meet Maizly: The Startup Behind the World's First Corn Milk

At Plant Based World Expo, Sean A. Russell stops by the Maizly booth and asks the obvious question: corn milk? Co-founder Tim Leclercq explains how a COVID-era career pause turned into a four-year project to build it.

Turning Corn Into the Hero

Corn has a rough reputation in the food world, tied to corn syrup and GMO crops. Tim and his co-founder saw an opening instead: after testing 120 iterations, they built a milk around corn fiber, chosen specifically because it delivers a mild, complementary taste rather than overpowering a cup of coffee the way oat or almond milk can.

A Massive, Underserved Market

By Tim's numbers, about a third of the US population identifies as flexitarian, and many avoid plant milks purely over taste and aftertaste. Maizly is positioned to win over exactly that group. The brand is already on shelves at ShopRite, MarketBasket, Hannaford's, Redner's, and about 250 independents in the Northeast, with a recent expansion into Texas through Albertsons United.

• Available on Amazon and at maizly's own website nationwide
• Distributed through ShopRite, MarketBasket, Hannaford's, Redner's, and Albertsons United
• Corn uses less land and water per ton than most other plant milk crops

Tim points to rising rates of lactose intolerance and allergen sensitivity as reasons more shoppers are actively looking for alternatives, and argues corn's environmental footprint, low land and water use per ton, makes it one of the more sustainable crops available.