We've met 5 vegan gamechangers.

And now we'd like to tell you about their innovative concepts.

July 30th 2019

About three weeks ago, we’ve attended one of the events of the Vegan Entrepreneurs network of The Netherlands. We really wanted to go here to see and hear about the new vegan-minded concept (-ideas) but were enthusiastic to tell about our own product innovation READY as well.

Next to 6 short pitches, of which we were one, we’ve all enjoyed a very delicious plant-based dinner (provided by the Plantastic Health Hub), speed-dated with other entrepreneurs and listened to an interesting presentation of Jeroen Willemsen about plant proteins.

Because we really enjoyed this evening and were super inspired by the other pitchers we thought of telling you about their amazing concepts in this month’s inspirations post.

Are you ready? Here we go!


Freggies

Mike Maduro, the entrepreneur who started Freggies is the son of a butcher and a former American-Football player. A fascination about food and its effects on health and performance brought him to the vegan lifestyle himself. After graduating he felt it was time to show others how the deliciousness of responsible snacking and started Freggies: a food company with a wide range of plant-based snacks. The current assortment of Freggies consists of so-called sides and meats.

The first are circular vegetable snacks in the form of fingers, balls, medallions and bruschetta. For the sides, Freggies uses leftover veggies and the leftover fibres from juice production to create tasty, protein-rich snacks.

The Freggies Meats are a range of fully plant-based meat-like snacks based on soy. The meats look and taste very real and it’s Freggies mission to offer food lovers an animal and environmentally friendly alternative.

The food of Freggies is available at different (vegan) food festivals. Tell us if you spotted them!

EAT.PEASY

Maaike Stift really enjoyed her job as Manager Product Journeys at Coolblue, a large e-commerce store. Still, though, she felt like she needed to do something with her passion for healthy, vegan food. She loves cooking for other people and noticed the need for simple, quick, but healthy meals from her colleagues. Something they could eat at work, or take home to enjoy after they hit the gym. A meal solution as well as an easy way to eat vegan. So, she started her plant-based meal service EAT.PEASY.

While still working at Coolblue, she started a pilot to test the service with her colleagues. She created a special EAT.PEASY fridge and dropped off fresh and healthy meals every morning. In this way, employees can pick up a meal whenever they like, and enjoy a balanced meal at every time of the day. By now, Maaike quit her job and is focussing on growing EAT.PEASY in Rotterdam. Good luck!

Lazy Vegan

It’s a great day to be a lazy vegan… the starter sentence when visiting the website of this Amsterdam-based company. Why? Well, because these frozen meals and meat substitutes are here to help busy, conscious people out by providing just what you need on a hectic day: a quick but nutritious meal.

Lazy Vegan has two types of products, namely frozen ready meals (provencale or Mexican) and frozen chunky pulled peez (natural or with Mediterrane herbs and spices), which they sell at the Dutch supermarket chain Marqt and Sainsbury’s in the UK. As a company that produces quick-but-healthy meals ourselves, we are very enthusiastic to see small and dedicated teams like this innovate.

Professor Grunschnabel

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice creaaam. This company is another real game-changer if you’d ask us. Professor Grunchnanbel is started by Pepijn Ornstein, who wanted to create the most delicious and creamy ice cream of the world, without the use of milk! Pepijn produced his first pints back in 2003 and right away, he used flavour combinations you surely wouldn't have thought of yourself.

Right now, in 2019, you can get Professor Grunschnabel ice cream at different big supermarket chains in the Netherlands, gas stations, eco supermarkets and restaurants. And if you’re very lucky, you will spot a cool pink truck on (food) events and be able to taste and buy their amazing flavours. What do you think of Cafe El Khatib, which is arabica coffee, cardamom and vanilla bean with a coconut milk base? Or Kyoto & Murasaki, based on cranberry, cassis, citrus, clove, cinnamon, pepper and coriander seeds. Yum!

Heel Seitan

Last but not least, there was Rozemarijn with her story about starting her vegan catering service Heel Seitan (derived from ‘hail seitan’). Rozemarijn is a philosophy student and was introduced to the vegan lifestyle by her boyfriend. She has always liked cooking and baking, so gladly approved the challenge of cooking different delicious vegan dishes when they started living together. By doing so, Rozemarijn discovered the fun of plant-based cooking and the art of making Seitan, a protein-rich meat-substitute based on wheat flour, water and spices.

Because she discovered that there aren’t many catering services who can create vegan dishes - for vegans or people with food allergies or intolerances - she decided to start Heel Seitan. Right now, Rozemarijn is working hard to grow Heel Seitan.

As you can see (or read :p), we’ve really enjoyed listening to the business stories of these dedicated entrepreneurs. We really loved the vibe of this evening and feel confident that with the mindset of these entrepreneurs, changing the food system into a more sustainable/durable becomes a lot easier.

Are there any vegan entrepreneurs you look up to? Feel free to send us a message if you want us to check it out!

Check out our other Inspirations posts!

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