Making it through Tyson Foods’ “shark tank”
Sprnddale, Arkansas — At the second annual Tyson Foods Demo Day, Santtu Vekkeli, representing his firm SuperGround, joined ten other entrepreneurs with an emphasis on sustainability. On a whim, Mr. Vekkeli entered the worldwide competition, having no idea how far he would get.
Tyson chose SuperGround, a firm located in Helsinki, Finland, as one of the 11 entrepreneurs to present their ideas to judges on July 11 at its headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas, after whittling down applications from 15 different nations.
Day of Demo
According to Mr. Vekkeli, the day of the event was quite demanding, with a packed agenda that included networking, interviews, and back-to-back socializing.
There were others who arrived prepared besides the contestants. Executives at Tyson also completed their homework. They had pointed questions for the startups as they entered the sessions.
SuperGround entered the discussions with a plan: to make things straightforward. It turns out, though, that simplicity isn’t always easy.
“When you’ve been working on something every day for years and then you try to compress it into 10 minutes, it’s always hard to keep things simple,” Mr. Vekkeli stated.
Still, the tactic was effective. SuperGround was recognized by Tyson as one of the top four businesses to get a mentorship opportunity.
Mr. Vekkeli said, “I’ve been consulting from Finland for projects that have happened in the US and I’ve been working in the US food system for quite some time.” However, this was very lovely—it was like seeing things from Tyson’s perspective.
They were providing us with so much information—such fascinating data—that I’m happy I was chosen. It was wonderful that they were so transparent and eager to share with us, as sometimes businesses are quite closed off to outsiders. They were also really interested in learning. But if you don’t share, it’s difficult to learn.
Right down to the bone
SuperGround distinguished itself from its rivals by demonstrating how their technology directly affects conventional meat processing.
Mr. Vekkeli said, “There are a lot of different companies in the food startup space, and very few of them are actually working in the traditional meat industry.” Additionally, if they operate in the conventional meat sector, they almost always have some kind of software that makes their jobs simpler. Alternatively, they frequently have really high tech medication or animal health items. For a startup, traditional meat industry processing technology is really quite uncommon, which is what sets us apart, in my opinion.
SuperGround employs a variety of machines to transform tough materials, such as chicken bones, into a nutrient-rich paste that can be used with classic dishes like sausage, chicken, and fish.
Mr. Vekkeli stated, “It’s easy to kind of glue it to almost any other recipe because it’s kind of a paste with a lot of collagen.”
The nutritional value of hard tissues is similar to that of muscle. Muscle contains 15-20% protein, compared to 15% in bones. Proteins absorb the paste and the nutritional value doesn’t change.
The paste has a deep, meaty taste and offers all the nutritious advantages of muscles.
The good news is that it essentially has a flavor profile when we make the paste out of it.
“We’re using hard tissues like bones,” he said further. We tenderize them, and the process of preparing bone broth essentially involves much the same steps. The exterior of the bone structure is being stripped of its protein, and the bone itself—which consists entirely of calcium phosphates—is really very soft. Thus, it is rather simple to ground soft bones into a very smooth paste with a flavor similar to that of beef broth.
Aistila, a division of the University of Turku in Turku, Finland, tested the paste made by SuperGround. The institution tested 101 participants’ blind palates to determine how they responded to varying amounts of the substance in chicken.
According to the survey, people preferred the nuggets with the most bone paste much more than the nuggets without. It was believed that the ones with the paste had more flavor, salt, and meat.
Regarding customers’ perception of meatier nuggets, Mr. Vekkeli remarked, “This is my favorite thing because technically there was less meat because you have less fillet and more bone paste.” However, because chicken breast fillet has very little flavor, it tasted meatier.
Check your attitude
The belief in the business that eating bones is unhealthy is one of the main obstacles preventing SuperGround from being successful.
“I believe that when you start working in the poultry industry, just like in the fish industry, everyone teaches you to be afraid of bones because they can be a biting hazard,” Mr. Vekkeli stated. Therefore, you only actually consider bone to be something you wish to get rid of.
SuperGround has persuaded a few Finnish businesses to reconsider the inventiveness of using bones in food items, despite processors’ reluctance to do so. These pilot firms want to use SuperGround’s nutritious paste in newly developed protein product offerings in order to introduce it to the market.
“This will help it move a lot faster for the next one because they can look how did the first one do and just copy the concept of the products, marketing, PR, and everything,” Mr. Vekkeli stated. “The first products will be in stores very soon here.” “It will be easier now that we have the first larger customers’ experience,” the author says.
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While the first two pilot firms are located in Finland, Mr. Vekkeli made hints that SuperGround is now working to introduce its technology to a third pilot company outside.
For a food tech business, getting the first clients to take a chance on a novel idea is a sales challenge.
Mr. Vekkeli observed, “The problem is that everyone aspires to be the second because they want someone to experiment, be the prototype, and learn by doing.” They just utilize all of that knowledge to make their own investment after that.
Mr. Vekkeli expects a spike in sales and investor interest once the first pilot firms begin to market items using the bone paste. Many businesses are holding off on making their own financial leap until they see how well the idea is received by customers. However, Mr. Vekkeli believes that when the pilot run’s findings become known, about thirty enterprises will be ready to make the leap.
Professionals in the meat sector are interested in SuperGround because it promises a big, immediate environmental effect.
“You have to make the change immediately; you have to change what you can change, which is making the current system more efficient,” Mr. Vekkeli stated. “You have to wait 50 years if you wait for people to change their diet. However, you must act immediately to alter the environmental effect if you choose to do so.