Future Food with Analisa Winther

Regenerative ocean farming has been identified as a key solution to climate change. It’s the practice of growing seaweed along with several kinds of shellfish like oysters and mussels not just to feed people, but also to heal the oceans. HavHøst or OceanHarvest is an NGO helping communities throughout the Nordics get set up with toolkits to grow, harvest, and eat from the sea without harming nature or existing underwater ecosystems. In this episode, Joachim Hjerl shares how a crazy idea of growing 20 oysters in Copenhagen's central harbor became a movement of blue community gardens. 

• 7:30 An intro to regenerative ocean farming 
• 14:30 Growing a network of community-supported farms
• 23:00 Working with policymakers to enable solutions 
• 36:00 Creating a market to support supply
• 43:00 Cultural acceptance around new foods 

If you liked this episode, check out this podcast with Hatch from Norway on innovations within aquaculture (farming in water). For more conversations, join our community on Instagram or check out other episodes on www.nordicfoodtech.io.

Björn Öste founded Oatly with his brother Rickard in 1994. Fast forward to today and Oatly IPOed in May 2021 at a value of $10 billion. But how did this startup from Lund, Sweden become the world's leading alt-milk brand? In today’s episode, we cover Oatly’s startup journey from the early academic days focused on lactose intolerance to the development of their famous barista strategy. We also cover the brothers' other entrepreneurial endeavors to develop food with clear health benefits. 

• 5:00 How Oatly started
• 18:00 Nailing branding and product-market fit
• 41:00 Tips for entering the US market
• 47:00 Aventure and developing science-backed ventures
• 57:00 The story of Good Idea - sparkling water that reduces blood sugar 

Episode Transcript 

Related Links and Episodes

More Nordic startup stories

Chr. Hansen on using microbes to stop food waste

How Nick’s developed high-tech, good for you sweets

Vivino’s Founder on creating the world’s biggest wine marketplace

How Arla is using blockchain to track their milk

More interviews from Sweden

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Diego Prado is the Head of R&D at Alchemist Explore - the research and development arm of restaurant Alchemist focused on making new dishes and conducting scientific research on products and techniques that create future building blocks for gastronomy. Alchemist was founded in 2015 by Rasmus Munk and introduced a new approach to gastronomy called Holistic Cuisine, which looks at the whole instead of the parts. In this episode, we explore how the Alchemist brings artists, designers, engineers, researchers and chefs together to challenge food as we know it.

• 10:20 An intro to Holistic Cuisine
• 14:40 Restaurant Alchemist vs the R&D Test Kitchen
• 22:30 Academic papers as a foundation for new dishes
• 28:30 What food will look like in space
• 38:30 Eating invasive species from jellyfish to butterflies

For more conversations, join our community on Instagram or check out other episodes on www.nordicfoodtech.io.

Carlsberg’s Together Towards Zero program consists of four major ambitions - ZERO carbon footprint, ZERO water waste, ZERO irresponsible drinking, and a ZERO accidents culture. Tenna Skov Thorsted leads Carlsberg Denmark’s sustainability efforts. Her job is to ensure that these targets are met and that they create value. Join us as Tenna shares how sustainability at Carlsberg works in practice and how they collaborate to get there.

• 4:00 The organizational structure of sustainability
• 6:30 The Together Towards Zero campaign
• 12:00 Where ideas come from
• 16:00 Examples around water and packaging
• 35:00 Carlsberg Research Laboratory

For more conversations, join our community on Instagram or check out other episodes on www.nordicfoodtech.io. Your host, Analisa Winther, always appreciates hearing your feedback, thoughts, and key takeaways!

The Nordic FoodTech Podcast spotlights individuals and organizations who are creating the future through food. In this episode, the Host and Creator of the podcast Analisa Winther is interviewed by radio and podcast personality Andreas Graulund. Listen in as Analisa explains how and why the show started, her background, common themes, how guests are chosen, and so much more.

To get in touch with Analisa, connect on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Like the show? Help keep the Nordic FoodTech Podcast running by becoming a subscriber here.

Over 10 years ago, Heini Zachariassen and his co-founder Theis Søndergaard founded Vivino because they were frustrated by not knowing which wine to buy. Today, Vivino’s 50 million users can purchase nearly 13 million wines from around the world. The Vivino community has scanned over 1.6 billion wine labels, written 72 million reviews, and given 204 million ratings on 13.5 million bottles of wine. In this episode, Vivino Founder Heini Zachariassen shares the startup’s story of how they disrupted the wine industry.

• 6:30 How Vivino started
• 10:30 The first MVP - staying lean and frugal
• 16:15 The technology and community behind Vivino
• 30:30 The moment Vivino found product-market fit
• 40:00 Lessons in leadership 

For more conversations, join our community on Instagram or check out other episodes on www.nordicfoodtech.io. Your host, Analisa Winther, always appreciates hearing your feedback, thoughts, and key takeaways!

The story of Nick's begins in 2014, when a Swedish serial entrepreneur with a background in mechanical engineering was diagnosed as pre-diabetic. Niclas Luthman had to change his diet, but he still loved and craved sweets. This led to him tinkering around in the kitchen and creating a line of "better for you" snacks and sweets that have no added sugar, gluten, or palm oil. Nick's products involve an enormous amount of R&D. enabling them to achieve new food feats like offering an ice cream with 70% fewer calories than other leading brands. Nick's recently closed $30 million in funding, launched its ice cream in 4,000 stores across the US, and has expanded into 15 European markets. Tune in for this startup's how I built this story. 

• 9:30 How Nick's started 
• 17:00 Building every ingredient from scratch
• 23:00 The power of a good team in an emerging industry
• 32:00 Developing innovative products from science
• 42:00 Advice for scaling in Sweden vs the USA

Episode Transcript 

Related Links 

More FoodTech startup stories

More interviews from Sweden

Meet the investor that backed Oatly and N!CK’S

Why Oatly’s Founders are now working on functional foods

Respecting heritage diets as we look to the future

What a diet that’s healthy for people and the planet looks like

Liked this episode?  Subscribe to the show for a few dollars a month to support the creation of more content like this. We also invite you to join our community on Instagram

The C40 network consists of 97 cities representing 700+ million citizens and one quarter of the global economy. The mayors of these cities are committed to delivering on the most ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement at the local level and C40 supports them in collaborating effectively, sharing knowledge and driving meaningful, measurable and sustainable action on climate change.

In today’s episode, I speak with Zachary Tofias who serves as the Director of the Food and Waste Program at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. We discuss the ins and outs of how C40 works, the power of cities to create change, why networks matter, how to spread good ideas, and examples of how cities are taking bold climate action.

• 2:30 What C40 is and how it works
• 7:40 Why cities can have big food system impact
• 11:15 How good ideas spread across cities
• 30:00 The big opportunity around food systems
• 36:00 How to establish a network

Share your feedback and thoughts or discover new episodes on Instagram @nordicfoodtech.

My guest today is the internationally renowned love matchmaker Lemarc Thomas who is based in Stockholm. A life-long student of psychology, Lemarc learned through his studies and interactions that love is at the core of human behavior, and that helping someone become aware of how they love not only improves that individual’s life, but transforms many, if not all relationships connected to that person. In today’s conversation, we focus on the lessons that can be learned from love matchmaking when it comes to building stronger relationships and collaborations throughout the food system. 

• 6:00 The blurred line between our professional and personal selves
• 7:00 Values and needs as predictors of long term relationships
• 22:20 The 3 layers of being in a relationship
• 40:00 What it means to do business with love

Share your thoughts with us on Instagram @lemarcthomas and @nordicfoodtech

In 2016, Peter Juul Regnersgaard and his co-founders realized that most gum is made with a plastic core. This launched a hobby project, which turned into a business to see if a plastic-free gum could be made. It took the founders 472 prototypes until they finally perfected the recipe in their home kitchens and launched True Gum, which is now sold all across Europe. In this episode, Peter shares the company’s startup story from going up against industry conglomerates to building a brand and setting up a factory with no prior startup or food production experience. This is a story you won’t want to miss!

• 2:30 Why gum is an environmental problem 
• 17:50 Why True Gum set up their own factory
• 39:00 Finding product-market fit
• 37:20 Sourcing and making plastic-free gum

For more conversations, join our community on Instagram or check out other episodes on www.nordicfoodtech.io. Your host, Analisa Winther, always appreciates hearing your feedback, thoughts, and key takeaways!