Tomorrow's Bites with Andrés and Sjacco

What happens when the trends disappear? Tim Dekens, founder of The Change Starts, shares how his brand went from riding the peak of the plant-based wave to rebuilding its identity beyond labels. In the early days, bold content featuring elite plant-based athletes gave the brand rapid traction. But when public interest shifted, the message no longer landed. That’s when the real work began. Tim expl...

How to sell ritual tea in a world that only wants convenience? In this episode of Tomorrow’s Bites, we sit down with Sergey, a curious nomad who went from underground DJ culture to building one of Europe’s most ambitious tea movements. After spending years traveling deep into China, learning the language, living with farmers, and sourcing from abandoned plantations and ancient wild tea trees, Serg...

What actually changes when you spend a full year talking to the people trying to fix the food system? In this New Year’s special episode of Tomorrow’s Bites , Andres and Sjacco sit down for their final conversation of the year to reflect, honestly and openly, on what 12 months of deep conversations with founders, farmers, scientists, and system-changers have taught them. This isn’t a highlight ree...

What if the biggest risk for your startup isn’t product, funding, or scaling, but talking about the wrong thing? In this Build in Public episode of Tomorrow’s Bites, we zoom in on one of the most uncomfortable (and crucial) questions founders avoid for too long: Are people actually waiting for what you’re building? To unpack this, we bring in Elise Bijkerk , a marketing and food transition expert...

What if the real food crisis isn’t calories, but diversity? In just the last century, we’ve lost 75% of global crop diversity , and today 90% of our food comes from just 15 plants . The rest? Slowly disappearing from fields, diets, and cultures. In this episode of Tomorrow’s Bites , we sit down with Kamogelo Thumankwe , founder of Tsarona , an African superfood brand with a mission that goes far b...

Vanilla is one of the most complex and labor-intensive crops on the planet. Each flower is pollinated by hand. Each pod takes months to cure. And for decades, Madagascar has dominated the market. But what if the best vanilla of tomorrow comes from somewhere else? In this short episode, we talk with Godfrey Kiwumulo , founder of Vanilla Point in Uganda, about why his country might be the next globa...

What if the real battle for our food future isn’t in the fields, but in the market system itself? In this episode of Tomorrow’s Bites, we sit down with Dr. Caspar Krampe, Assistant Professor at Wageningen University and co-founder of VGreens, to unpack the hidden dynamics shaping today’s agrifood industry. From the struggle between big corporations and startups, Caspar reveals why change in food s...

Many purpose-driven food brands are rich in values, but struggle to connect with customers. In this episode, Roos Roelofs , founder of OlvLimits and regenerative olive farmer, shares how she had to shift her communication approach. At first, she focused on scientific facts and sustainability data. But she quickly realized: data doesn’t sell olive oil. Emotions do. Now, Roos leads with storytelling...

What if you spent 38 years developing pesticides, only to later realize the industry never told you the full story? That’s exactly what happened to Herb Young , a retired plant pathologist who spent nearly four decades in industrial agriculture before discovering the science Big Ag had ignored all along: soil health, microbes, and nutrient density. In this episode of Tomorrow’s Bites , Herb shares...

What if you could follow a startup’s evolution in real time, as it happens? Welcome back to Build in Public, the monthly Tomorrow’s Bites series where we sit down with Andres Jara, co-founder of Favamole, to document the highs, lows, and lessons of building a food startup from the ground up. In this second episode (recorded in Barcelona) Andres reflects on a month of tension, focus, and growth. Fr...

What do you do after creating the UK’s first alcohol-free beer? If you’re Steve , you take your creativity, your culture, and a few family recipes, and you turn them into the world’s first Asian snacks sold in beer cans. In this episode of Tomorrow’s Bites, we sit down with Steve, co-founder of Curry Smugglers , to explore his journey from the fashion industry to brewing and now to reinventing an...

Most agtech startups want to help farmers. But many miss a fundamental truth. Technology doesn’t move at the same pace as nature, and innovation that works in theory often fails in the field. In this short episode, Thomas Gent , regenerative farmer and founder of Gentle Farming, shares what most startups overlook when trying to support sustainable agriculture. → The mismatch between tech expectati...

What does it take to turn your expertise into influence, and your passion into a movement? In this episode of Tomorrow’s Bites , we sit down with Wendy , a food scientist turned content creator who’s built a community of over 500,000 followers by blending science, storytelling, and creativity. From developing plant-based baking mixes to going viral with tofu recipes, Wendy shares how she built a p...

What if you could follow a startup’s evolution, not through press releases, but in real time, as it happens? Welcome to Build in Public , a new series from Tomorrow’s Bites where we sit down every month with Andres Jara , co-founder of Favamole , to document what it really takes to grow a food startup from the inside out. In this first episode, Andres joins Sjacco and Andres to reflect on Favamole...

What if the next big climate solution didn’t come from a lab or a boardroom, but from a student space farming challenge? That’s exactly what happened to Morgan and Feodor , two students from Wageningen University who joined forces with others to rethink food for astronauts, and ended up creating a breakthrough that could change farming here on Earth. Their idea, AstroGel , is a biodegradable, seaw...

What if your first idea... isn't the right one? That’s exactly what happened to Tälist, the alt-protein recruitment company co-founded by Pia Voltz. After dozens of interviews with founders and ecosystem players, Pia and her team realized the real bottleneck in food innovation wasn’t product development—it was people. Tälist first launched as a boutique executive search firm. But it quickly hi...

What if the innovations designed to feed astronauts on Mars could solve food security challenges here on Earth? In this special Tomorrow’s Bites episode, we sit down with Bart van Meurs, director of Division Q, and Charlotte Pouwels, analog astronaut and space mission leader, who both served as jury members for Wageningen University’s Student Challenges. Together, they reveal how the technologies...

What happens when your startup grows faster than your mission? For Rodrigo García , co-founder of Notpla , the answer is not as simple as “scale faster.” When you’re trying to replace plastic with seaweed-based packaging, ambition isn’t enough. You need to reinvent entire systems, change how people think about waste, and balance speed with integrity. In this short episode, we explore the tension t...

To revolutionize farming we need a solution that will change the life of farmers. That’s exactly what Daniel Reisman set out to do. After leaving behind a career in sales and a plan to start his own farm, Daniel co-founded Collie, a startup that’s rethinking livestock management with virtual fencing technology. By replacing physical fences with sound and vibration signals, Collie helps farmers mov...

How do you validate a startup idea without spending a cent on tech? By being scrappy, fast, and obsessed with solving a real problem. In this 8-minute episode, we hear how Tessa Clarke and her co-founder tested Olio with just a WhatsApp group—and how a simple food share (a bag of shallots!) unlocked their conviction to go all in. Instead of raising capital for a perfect product, they built an MVP...

What if the future of farming wasn’t measured in harvests, but in centuries? In this episode of Tomorrow’s Bites, we sit down with Peter Michel Heilmann , a lifelong change-maker who has helped launch global sustainability movements and is now focused on one bold mission: building a 1000 Year Vision movement to secure the future of family farms. Peter believes farmers are the stewards of our land,...

What if the biggest barrier for food entrepreneurs isn’t funding, branding, or even product-market fit? It’s access. Access to kitchens. To community. To systems that work. In this short episode, Sami Simreen, co-founder of Kico Kitchen, shares how his team turned a failed zero-waste restaurant plan into a thriving co-working kitchen for food entrepreneurs in The Hague. He unpacks the invisible st...

What if guacamole didn’t need avocados at all? When regenerative farmer-turned-food-innovator Andres Jara found himself in the middle of Tuscany without access to avocados, he stumbled onto a recipe that could shake up the food industry: FavaMole. Made entirely from European-grown fava beans, it uses 100x less water than avocados, has a fraction of the carbon footprint, and still delivers the crea...

How do you bring clean drinking water to the places the world forgets? With Ulf Stenerhag , Co-Founder of WayOut , we explore how a bold idea turned into a decentralized water system that can serve the 1 billion people who still lack safe water access. But the real innovation isn’t just technological. It’s about flipping the narrative: delivering premium water solutions to low-income communities,...

Coffee is the second most traded commodity on Earth, and one of the most destructive, but what if it didn’t have to be? In this episode of Tomorrow’s Bites , we sit down with Sebastian, founder of Slow Forest, to explore how coffee farming can go from extractive to regenerative, from deforestation to reforestation. Sebastian shares how his team is rebuilding a supply chain that prioritises agrofor...