NEW TECH FOODS

It’s easy to get caught up in the news and activities of the industry’s global giants, but what about the smaller firms pushing boundaries with bold ideas? In this instalment of start-up spotlight – which celebrates lesser-known companies and their innovations – we speak to Daan Raemdonck, CEO and co-founder of Koppie, a coffee alternative company made from fermented pulses.

Koppie’s approach to creating a coffee alternative using fermented pulses is innovative. Can you walk us through the R&D process that led to the development of your proprietary ‘Koppie Bean’?

From the start, we set out to create a “coffee bean,” believing this would help both industry and consumer adoption: just swap out coffee beans for our Koppie bean, and use it like you’re used to. This of course significantly limited the base product options and automatically made it a single ingredient play. Technically, you could recreate a bean from powders, but we decided against that.

We then conducted a broad screening, based on numerous elements: sustainability, local harvests, known allergens, product size, as well as price obviously.

The next step was trialling it with our technology in mind, and validating the final product with taste experts. This is how we arrived to pulses and our current prototypes. The beauty here though is that our technology does the heavy lifting, hence, we can review the above criteria depending on the region we’d be operating in.

For instance if a certain pulse is more prominent or fitting with that climate, we could switch to that pulse with almost equal product performance.

What makes your fermentation and roasting technology unique, and how scalable is it for wider commercial production?

To our knowledge, we’re the only company selling a fermented and roasted bean which is still a bean at the end and which fits existing machinery/home equipment.

So the end-product in itself is a unique story. Beyond that, of course there’s elements in our process which are novel and unexpected, hence the patentability. As you’ll surely understand, we’re not in a stage where we can share what these elements are.

Taste is everything in the beverage space. How did you ensure that the Koppie Bean met the sensory expectations of traditional coffee drinkers?

Quite soon, we realised we needed experts, which started in conversations with local coffee bars, but expanded to the collaboration with the ZHAW – Coffee Excellence Center.

Whenever we do a significant product update, we ask a Q-grader panel (coffee specialists/sommeliers) to rate and review our end result. Not only do they critique our product as if it was coffee, but they also share where it falls short, which in turn helps us improve again for next time.

Now, there is an interesting contradiction in what the “speciality coffee” scene would describe as good coffee versus what the average person might describe and like as “coffee”.

This has given us quite a challenge in terms of development. This is where we’ve set an “ideal flavour profile” for ourselves as a target, and are actively collaborating with our partners to see what could happen.

You've focused on seamless integration with existing roasting, grinding and brewing infrastructure. How important was this in terms of gaining traction with industry partners?

While I can't speak on behalf of our partners directly, their expertise is in blending, roasting and getting it to the end-consumer in the best possible conditions. So it was only logical for us to ensure our product could integrate seamlessly into those existing processes, enabling them to do what they do best, potentially better than we could ourselves.

That said, we’re also prepared to offer a roasted version ourselves, particularly for partners such as ingredient companies who may need that option.

With sustainability becoming a core focus for manufacturers, can you elaborate on how Koppie’s environmental footprint compares with traditional coffee, and how you communicate that value to potential B2B partners?

Sustainability has been the reason why we started our project in the first place. It’s only after reading about coffee’s sustainability impact that we decided to see if we could fix it and stumbled across a lot of research which indicated highly likely supply-demand imbalances in the future. Picking pulses is not only a driver from a taste point-of-view, but also because they are great crops and can flourish locally.

We have yet to conduct our own full scale LCA, but there are clearly learnings out there in the market, and they are all very similar.

Knowing that 70-80% of the emissions of coffee are linked to growing conditions, that gives you a lot of the information you need to know.

We definitely communicate this towards our partners, and some are very receptive to it. Sometimes that’s because they already have a more sustainable coffee range, sometimes with carbon offsetting or it’s because they’ve made ESG promises around emissions reductions. In both cases we can help them in a very easy wat to achieve their goals, while providing the consumer with a good product.

Given the volatility of coffee supply chains, how do you see your product helping roasters and retailers future-proof their portfolios?

There’s two elements to that question in our view:

First, price volatility, this is basically what any corporation (and consumer) wants to avoid. Price swings make it difficult to look ahead and disrupt existing business. As climate change worsens and the effects become more pronounced, these swings will only become more frequent. Hence, inherently in the future of coffee you’ll get more volatility. We can help overcome at least part of those swings and provide stability in cost.

The second element is pure supply access. If demand continues to grow as expected we might end up with a 4 Mio Tonne coffee gap by 2030, according to a recent World Coffee Research article. That means, all companies active in coffee, will be struggling to fulfill their demand.

One of the worst things for any business – except if purposefully created – is not being able to fulfil an active consumer demand. Hence, either they find ways to secure supply, like Ferrero has done with hazelnuts for example, by moving up the value chain. That in turn would bring massive change to the way we grow and farm coffee. Alternatively, they could look to solutions such as ours to complement the supply of coffee and reduce their own risk.

This is the core of our offer to our partners: reduce volatility and ensure price stability and availability, no matter the shocks on the coffee supply side.

You're already in discussions with roasters and retailers. What has the response been from more traditional players in the category? Are you seeing openness to hybrid blends?

To our slight surprise, yes there’s an openness, also with more traditional players. It’s often forgotten, but there is already a significant coffee alternative industry: for example, Nestlé sells blends with chicory in France, Lavazza is selling orzo in Italy.

The idea of 'alternatives' is in that sense not new, the difference now is the level of rigour and technology we’re bringing to the table to ensure the product actually tastes great and fits your typical ritual and behaviour.

Most often, we find it’s the partners who propose a hybrid solution. This, again, makes a lot of sense given the core business and capabilities of the partners.

How important is it for foodtech start-ups to align with upcoming regulations such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and how have you approached this from day one?

Regulation can be one of the strongest drivers of change for any industry. As a start-up, it’s therefore essential to stay up to date of what’s changing.

We believe EUDR is a positive evolution, although like all regulation, comes with some headaches and questions on application. While it definitely poses challenges for farmers, traders and coffee roasters, it’s unlikely to be enough of a driver to push them into our direction.

It’s just one more reason to consider us: it’s local, no threat of deforestation and farmers are fairly compensated. In coffee, these are labels that companies typically pay extra for.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in bringing Koppie to life, and how did you overcome them – particularly when it came to investor buy-in or scaling your tech?

There’s still a million things that have to go right before this really is an established 'business,' so in some ways I think the most difficult parts are still ahead of us really. Looking back though, I think there’s been moments where we simply wondered whether the technology would ever deliver what we were trying to create.

Those moments where you experiment, you try, you review, but you seem to be stuck in a certain area where you don’t want to be. Especially in the start, investing our own money and working for free, that was difficult to get through and keep believing.

The same is true in the investor game. It can feel extremely random at times seeking the investment, and it’s definitely a journey with ups and downs.

In the end we were lucky to find partners who believed in us, and who perfectly fit our criteria of what we’re looking for. It could’ve just as well ended up on the other side of the coin and we wouldn’t have this conversation.

What advice would you give to other early-stage food and beverage start-ups working on novel ingredients or products – especially when trying to balance innovation with commercial viability?

Be fair to yourself, and to your business when you’re calling it quits. Most start-ups fail. It’s better, I think, to agree upfront with yourself and those who matter such as your partners, when you might throw in the towel.

Especially if you’re working on a novel technology, which can be hit or miss, I think it can drive you crazy if you just keep going. Having the peace of mind that you’ve set a clear deadline will help.

When it comes to technology I’d like to refer to a quote from Annick Verween who manages the VIB Biotope accelerator programme: “Don’t love your technology, love your customer instead”.

Love your sales pipeline, love the end-consumer whose problems you are – hopefully – solving. The technology itself is a means to an end, not a goal. While it’s exciting to keep diving deeper and deeper into the tech, that’s dangerous if you’re not yet sure about your product-market-fit.

The coffee category is steeped in ritual and heritage. How have you navigated the challenge of innovating without alienating consumers who value tradition?

I’m not sure we have already navigated that to be honest. We have a product that comes quite close to coffee. Most people will drink it with gusto.

We’ve had numerous 'that’s much better than I expected' or 'I’ve had way worse coffee'. Those are the moments that make any product developer beam with pride.

I’m sure there will be a group of 'purists' that wants nothing to do with us, and that’s totally fine. Again, we’re not against coffee, we’re actually trying to futureproof the ritual that is so beloved to many.

Our business case is built on the belief there’s a consumer out there, open to trying a product that tastes well, is local, and brings sustainability benefits at a fair price.

Finally, what’s next for Koppie? Are you planning to explore other applications of your fermentation tech, or will you remain laser-focused on transforming the coffee experience?

We’ve just started, we don’t have the luxury not to focus in our view. Of course we’ve explored mentally where else we could take the technology, and we see options.

However, we fundamentally believe in focus on the core, especially in this stage.

Perhaps with the next investment round, extensions or add-ons will become an option, but for now it’s all about coffee.

Anything else you would like our readers to know?

The whole reason we started this project was due to an Oxford University Study on the footprint of food products.

I almost couldn’t believe it when I read that coffee was the number 3 foodstuff CO2 emitter by kg. That statistic continues to baffle people when we share it, so I’d love to give it more attention here as well.