March 03, 2020

Episode 04: Melchior Füglistaller - Bringing Edible Insects to European Plates with Essento

22 minutes

This episode explores edible insects! You may have heard of the Swiss company Essento. Essento is the Swiss-based pioneer in foods based on edible insects. Through Essento, you can find insect snacks, insect protein bars, insect flour and more. As crazy it might sound to some, their vision is to establish insects as normal foods on European plates. Edible insects have the potential to make your diet more diverse, sustainable and nutritious. Therefore, Essento establishes insects as an alternative protein source with a positive impact on you, your health, and our planet.

Melchior Füglistaller, Head of Marketing & Sales for Essento, joins the Impact Untangled show today. Melchior is committed to pushing forward the sustainable food revolution in order to create value for people and the planet. Being part of the board at Essento and having studied Business Management with a strong focus on Entrepreneurship/organizational design and sustainability, he is eager to have a real impact at Essento.

Melchior talks about Essento’s most successful products. People are slowly starting to get over their fear of eating bugs. It actually wasn’t hard to convince Swiss supermarkets to carry their products; Essento accomplished bringing an extremely innovative product into stores. Melchior says it is difficult for your food product to have a real impact in Switzerland unless you make it into a large supermarket.

Melchior also speaks about Essento’s partnership with a famous German burger company. The burger will be launching in sixty restaurants in Germany. Melchior says to understand what your partner wants and how you can add value, you need to make sure you know how you are going to fit into the partnership. Are you going to be able to meet their expectations?

Essento likes to learn by trial and error. They try this in terms of performance marketing and digital marketing. Each time they try something new, they are getting closer to understanding their customers. Stay tuned to hear Melchior talk about recruiting for talent at Essento, lobbying for insect consumption in Switzerland, and providing advice for people who are interested in entering startups in the impact space.

In This Episode