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, Sergey is now on a mission to bring real tea culture back to Europe.
This is not a story about trends or convenience. It’s about obsession, patience, and starting over.
We dive into:
And much more...
From scaling tea houses across countries to convincing farmers to stop fertilizing their land, Sergey’s journey reveals what it really takes to build a values-driven business in one of the world’s oldest supply chains.
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😊 The Guest: Sergey Shevelev
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 reel. It’s a distillation.
Drawing from more than 30 long-form conversations, they each bring six lessons—twelve in total—that challenged their assumptions, reshaped their thinking, and revealed uncomfortable truths about food, startups, sustainability, and human behavior.
They unpack questions like:
Listen now to start the new year with clarity, perspective, and hard-earned lessons from the frontlines of agri-food.
If you’ve been part of this journey, thank you. And if you’re building what comes next, this episode is for you.
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We know that hour-long conversations might be too long, so we have distilled a lesson from each conversation in 2025 and compiled them into an e-book for you. Download the e-book with 32 unique lessons here.
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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 with years of corporate and global experience, to sit down with Andres Jara, co-founder of Favamole. Together with Sjacco & Andrés, they dissect Favamole’s value proposition live, no pitch decks, no filters, no safe answers.
This is not a branding theory episode. It’s a real-time founder intervention.
We explore:
If you’re building a food startup, impact brand, or mission-driven product, and you’ve ever struggled to explain why someone should care, this episode will hit close to home.
And if you want to know more around marketing, here is the episode with Elise Bijkerk itself.
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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 beyond nutrition. Born and raised in Botswana, Kamogelo shares how her personal roots, climate justice work, and lived experience led her to build a business that fights biodiversity loss, empowers smallholder farmers, and challenges the global food system’s obsession with trends and monocultures.
We explore:
Why indigenous crops like Bambara groundnuts and tiger nuts could be key to regenerative food systems
How European consumer choices directly shape what farmers grow in the Global South
Why Tsarona is not trying to create the next “superfood hype”
And much more...
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😊 The Guest: Kamogelo Thumkawe
Look into the company: Tsarona
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 global hotspot for high-quality vanilla.
We discuss:
→ Why Uganda’s climate gives it an edge.
→ How regenerative farming supports better flavor and soil health.
→ The hidden labor and value behind a kilo of vanilla.
In just 10 minutes, we challenge the story behind every spoonful of vanilla, and explore a new one growing in East Africa.
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 systems is so complex, and why both Goliaths and Davids need each other more than they think.
We explore:
And much more…
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.
In this 10-minute segment from our original conversation, we talk about:
Why logic isn’t enough to win hearts
The power of emotional connection in food branding
How purpose-led founders can find their voice
A must-listen for any founder who wants to make people feel their mission and not just understand it.
In 10 minutes, this might change how you speak to your audience.
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 his eye-opening journey from the chemical labs of Big Ag to running his own regenerative citrus farm in Florida. He explains how understanding soil life transformed not only his farm but also his beliefs about food, farming, and health.
You will find in this episode:
Why the term “regenerative” was never once mentioned in his 38-year career
How industrial farming practices quietly destroyed soil health
The shocking difference in nutrient density between regenerative and conventional fruit
How microbes (not fertilizers) build flavor, resilience, and nutrition
What happens when a lifelong scientist applies research rigor to regeneration
And much more...
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😊 The Guest: Herb Young
Look into the company Squeeze Citrus LLC
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. From chasing listings and building social capital to confronting imposter syndrome, we get a raw look at what it really means to keep a mission-driven food company alive.
We explore:
Listen now to join Favamole’s journey, month by month, challenge by challenge, and see what it really takes to build a regenerative food brand in public.
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😊 The Guest: Andrés Jara
Look into the company Favamole
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 entire snack category. From branding born out of a customs joke to packaging inspired by sustainability and nostalgia, this is a story about turning memories into movements.
We unpack:
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😊 The Guest: Steve D Sailopal
Look into the company Curry Smugglers
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 expectations and seasonal farming→ Why soil and systems thinking can’t be rushed→ What it really takes to build trust with farmers
And finally, what regenerative farming needs most from innovation partners.
In 7 min, you’ll hear directly from someone who lives the complexity of farming change.
Listen to the whole conversation here
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👥 Linkedin
📸 Instagram
🌎Website
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 personal brand that educates, inspires, and empowers people to cook from scratch.
We explore:
How to grow your online presence as a food founder or expert
Why personal branding is the most underrated business tool in food innovation
How to create content that feels authentic and builds real trust
Lessons from burnout, virality, and staying consistent online
Why founders should build their brand before their product
And much more...
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😊 The Guest: Wendy The Food Scientist
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’s latest wins and setbacks: getting listed with major wholesalers, refining their messaging, and navigating the long road of scaling a regenerative food business.
We unpack:
Listen now to follow Favamole’s journey as it unfolds, month by month, challenge by challenge, and discover what it really means to build a meaningful food startup in public.
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, seaweed-based hydrogel designed to replace peat, the world’s most widely used plant substrate, responsible for massive CO₂ emissions and soon to be banned in the EU. What started as a concept for Mars missions could now help greenhouses transition to more sustainable practices.
In this special episode in collaboration with WUR, we explore:
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😊 The Startup: The HAB
Look into WUR Student Challenges & Rethink Food Challenges
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 hit a wall: the service wasn’t scalable or affordable for the very companies they wanted to serve.
So they pivoted.
In this short, Pia shares how they shifted from 1:1 recruitment to building a matchmaking platform—complete with AI tools, a job board, and a curated talent pool—to support startups at scale.
She also opens up about what most hiring platforms get wrong, and how Tälist is rethinking recruitment to make it faster, more inclusive, and better for the planet.
In 9 minutes, you’ll learn the power of listening, letting go, and designing for real needs.
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 tested for farming in space, like hydroponics, vertical farming, and AI-driven monitoring, are already shaping the future of horticulture and sustainable food systems on Earth.
We explore:
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😊 The Guests:
Look into WUR Student Challenges
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 that every mission-led startup eventually faces:
How do you stay true to your values while scaling impact?
Rodrigo shares what they’ve learned along the way.
From navigating investor expectations to redefining product success.
In 8 minutes, we dive into the messy middle of building something that matters.
Listen to the whole conversation with Rodrigo here.
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👥 Linkedin
📸 Instagram
🌎Website
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 move cows with an app—saving hours of labor, improving soil health, and making regenerative practices more practical.
In this episode of Tomorrow’s Bites, Daniel shares the story of Collie’s beginnings, from scrappy prototypes strapped to cows’ necks to convincing skeptical farmers that the system really works.
We explore:
And much more...
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😊 The Guest: Daniel Reisman
✅ Their Work: Collie
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 that was only slightly better than WhatsApp. But that was enough.
What followed was a surprising twist: people loved the idea so much, they had no food to share.
So they launched the Food Waste Heroes program. And now, 135,000+ trained volunteers are redistributing food across communities.
From idea to impact, this is the mindset every founder should hear.
In 8 minutes, you’ll see how the best startups begin. With simplicity, speed, and strangers.
Listen to the whole conversation with Tessa here.
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👥 Linkedin
📸 Instagram
🌎Website
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, yet they are trapped in broken financial systems that leave them asset-rich but cash-poor. His solution blends regenerative agriculture, innovative financing, and long-term trusts to protect farmland, empower farmers, and keep value in rural communities for generations to come.
We explore:
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😊 The Guest: Peter Michel Heilmann