Hummus from Switzerland? Of course! Anik Thaler, co-founder of “fyn.food”, tells us about the idea of producing vegetable proteins in Switzerland, protecting farmers against crop failures and what the start-up has to do with a meat processing company.

Anik Thaler, Veganuary is over, but the trend remains. More and more Swiss are replacing animal proteins in their diet with plant-based alternatives. Do these have to be imported from abroad?
On the contrary, in Switzerland there is a great potential for the cultivation of plant proteins, such as chickpeas or fava beans. Since the demand was lacking in the past, very little vegetable protein for human nutrition has simply been grown in Switzerland until now and consequently imported.

Tobias Vogel and you, Anik, have responded to the increasing demand and founded the start up fyn.food. Can you tell us a bit more about your teambuilding and the idea?
During my studies of agricultural sciences at the ETH, I intensively dealt with plant protein cultures and without further ado produced my own hummus from Swiss chickpeas. This was very well received in my environment and the idea arose to make a business out of it. This is where Tobias comes in. Through his business studies at the HSG, he has the necessary knowledge to build a start up. Together we established contacts with Swiss farmers, producers and sales channels and pushed the sale of our Swiss hummus.

And quite successfully at that! The fyn.food hummus is already on the shelves of all Swiss Altnatura stores, various local stores and online stores. To make this possible, you depend on your suppliers. What is particularly important to you in your dealings with your partners?
At fyn.food, we maintain a transparent and intensive exchange with all of our partners. We negotiate together what happens to the products and at what prices. This is definitely a rarity in the current agricultural system. In addition, we share the potential cultivation risk with our producers.

You enable the farmers to hedge against the risk of crop failure?
Exactly. With our 101% initiative, 1% of the sales price of our hummus goes into risk insurance for innovative Swiss arable crops. This is important because the cultivation of a new type of crop, such as chickpea, still involves many uncertainties and the know-how must first be built up in Switzerland. We would like to create incentives to cultivate plant proteins through this hedging.

“fyn.food offers farmers new sales channels and fair prices for their plant-based products. The cultivation of plant protein crops in Switzerland should be profitable in the long term and sustainably – maybe one day even more than the production of animal products.” – Anik Thaler, Co-Founder fyn.food

fyn.food is thus making an important contribution to further increasing the production and supply of local and plant-based proteins in the future. What else do you think is needed to reduce the consumption of animal products?
Education is an important aspect. Plant-based diets should be increasingly seen as a simple approach to combat climate catastrophe. We try to use our knowledge to help farmers and consumers switch to more climate-friendly alternatives.

Did you have to do exactly this educational work with one of your partners, the meat processing company Angst AG?
Perhaps hard to believe, but: No. Angst AG is very aware of the current trend towards plant-based nutrition. The collaboration created added value for both sides. We can benefit from existing machinery and expertise for production and, conversely, they achieve new marketing channels and expansion of the product range through us. In this way, they too can be a part of the change to an increasingly plant-based and local diet.

As the saying goes, “together is better”. Some of the partnerships are in place. How else do you envision the future of fyn.food?
We are pursuing two business cases with fyn.food. On the one hand, we want to produce delicious new products such as burger patties, falafel or spreads for our customers and thus offer a wide range of products in B2C. In addition, we are currently entering the B2B sector. We would like to take the leading position in the raw material cultivation of plant proteins and supply other companies with plant-based, Swiss protein.

Wow, there is definitely no shortage of ideas. How can STAGE UP support you in this endeavor?
We are currently working on optimizing and establishing our processes in the area of logistics and storage. We are looking forward to receiving professional input from the experts. We are also looking forward to exchanging ideas with other founders. Who knows, maybe this will lead to new, innovative product ideas!

…It seems that it would be worthwhile to scan the shelves attentively for new products from fyn.food in the future. Merci for the interview and good luck for the future!

Anik Thaler                  Tobias Vogel                 Website                       Instagram