Those Vegan Cowboys

Protein transition loading… 🔋 Meanwhile, please enjoy this portrait of Margaret taking Het Steen by storm. The Flemish government asked for some research and hey presto: turn out Flanders has a sizeable plant-forward food industry. Mostly thanks to ‘King Alpro’ who have a whopping 1.000 Flemish folks milking soy beans full time. But there’s a good bunch of pioneering adventurers at work too (howdy!), working hard to make the Flanders government’s ambition of 60% plant-based protein in 2030 come true. A future not only vegan cowboys will fiercely look forward to, but Flemish animals too. The study also points out the obvious: it’s hard to change our eating habits. It makes the task only clearer: we need animal free follow-ups that are just as tasty and preferably healthier and cheaper, simple as that. To make it happen, there’s a lot more pioneerin’ to do, and for that some well-placed pecunia 💰 can make all the difference - especially for the younger companies. Funding can in fact launch the entire sector into growing 6 to 15 (!) times bigger by 2035. We are so lucky to have this support from VLAIO , among others. It makes the impossible possible, and that’s just what we need to keep Flanders a wonderful place to live, love & eat cheese in. Thanks VRT & Vincent Merckx for highlighting this study. #vlaanderendenleeuw #greendeal #eiwittransitie #VlaamsDepartementOmgeving Next Food Chain Bond Beter Leefmilieu ProVeg Belgium

“I can't help but pay extra attention to the frame that has been used. VRT emphasizes the development of the cheese and the sustainability benefits. VTM takes a bit of a shortcut and shows a grazing bull calf (?) in the middle of the item. A voice over tells the viewer 'Just say goodbye to this romantic image.' At Those Vegan Cowboys we make cheese without a cow because we see this ‘romantic’ image differently.” After welcoming two national news outlets to the ranch, our CEO Hille van der Kaa points out some striking learning points from the resulting features. As a newspaper pro (from a farming family), Hille knows how newsrooms work. And appreciates the sincere efforts every journalist we meet makes to understand the complicated things that we do - and the different perspectives on our work. Also, it’s a good reminder we’ve got to keep doing this part of our work, too. The why & how of our work needs clear explainin’ and we accept the challenge 🤠 We’re deeply grateful for all your support on this wild adventure towards a kinder world in which farmers thrive, there is plenty of healthy food for all, artisanal cow-free cheeses are ripened to perfection, and every being is living its best life surrounded by nature. Now that’s what *we* call a romantic image. Are you with us?

One of the perks of working closely together: you get to be genuinely thrilled about each others successes. Today we're doing a special celebratory lab dance 🤠 for our research partners Formo and the world in general. Formo CEO Raffael Wohlgensinger Ⓥ just shared 2 major bits of good news: 1. They bagged a whoppin' $61M in Series B funding (!) which will help speed up the roll-out of cow-free cheese tremendously 2. They launched their absolutely delicious (yes, we tasted it) Frischhain fresh cheese nationwide at REWE in Germany. No cows, just koji cultures 👌 Fantastic, partners! Our sincerest congratulations & we cannot wait to load our bagels, carrot cakes, sandwiches + everything else with heaps & heaps of Frischhain 🤠 👌

Howdy VRT NWS 🤠 It was Super Stainless Thursday on Belgian national TV & radio! The big news of our first cow-free camembert, feta and mozzarella had lab cowboys starring on VRT late news, VRT online, VTM news, Radio 2 & VRT nws podcast Het Kwartier. Thank you Pascale Mertens for letting our Iron Lady Margaret 🐮 sparkle in this bespoke TV item ✨ hope y’all will enjoy the grand tour by our Chief of Staff Belinda Hunziker! #vrtnws #vrtlaat #pascalemertens #koelozekaas #thosevegancowboys #gent #gentnieuws #precisionfermentation

VRT smelled cheese! 🧀 Vincent Merckx got Lana, Annabelle & Hille to open up about: - the quality of our cheese 👌 - ⁠the partners we’re working with 🍕 🍔 - ⁠first reactions from the traditional cheese biz (they surprised us!) 🤠 - ⁠how often we have wine & cheese parties in the lab 🍷 https://lnkd.in/ey6qXBY2 Any other questions? We’re here to help! 👇

🧀 New breakthroughs a’coming! 🐮🦾 Real casein. Real cheese. Stainless steel cow. Sound on if you like some Boss with your mozz. Which one would you wanna try first? #thosevegancowboys #plantbasedcheese #precisionfermentation #duurzamezuivel #cheese #vlaio #eitrisingfoodstars

Yippee-ka-yay, it’s our CEO ‘The Indian’ Hille van der Kaa right there in the Food100! 🤠 Hille has been Those Vegan Cowboys’ backbone, brains, spirit animal, work horse and cheerleader since the start and we’re lucky to have her as our CEO since early 2024. Not only is this place on the Food100 a well deserved recognition of her tireless work for cow-free cheese: she also single-handedly upped the number of vegan cowboys in the list by 100%! Congrats chief from all of us in the lab & beyond 🫶🤠🐮

One summit. Three cowboys. And a whole lotta stainless steel cow (sound on for ambiance 🌵) And a panel discussion, too: our CEO Hille van der Kaa will sprinkle cowboy secrets like confetti in the Future Food-Tech Wednesday 13:55 talk on scaling up 🚀 (hosted by the inimitable Floor Buitelaar) Next to Hille you can meet & greet our treasured Chief of Staff Belinda ‘Two Faced’ Hunziker, and Margaret of course. You’ll also be one of the first to develop a secret handshake with our new Chief Commercial Officer. Who might this be? All we can reveal now is that it’s a true cowboy who knows his way around a tractor… 🚜 Let us know if you’ll be there & drop by our EIT Food RisingFoodStars club house for some rootin’ tootin’ honky tonkin’ and perhaps some talkin’ about partnerships. 🧀 Because now that we’ve got microbial casein, what are we gonna do with it? https://lnkd.in/dktuX_x #FFT #FFT2024 #FutureFoodTechLondon #ThoseVeganCowboys

So far couldn’t find him on LinkedIn (please tag him if you do!) but - thank you Menkay, this one hit home. Soon we hope to say: glad we came to our senses. In the meantime, let’s make the sensible choice ever easier. Because once the food is just as good, with the peace & freedom of our fellow beings fully intact, the old ways have come to an end. 🤠 Do give Menkay.ig a follow on Insta & Facebook, former dairy business owner & creator of this original video. Master at pointing out the strangeness in our old patterns, truly, simply, clearly. https://lnkd.in/ezmETCaq https://lnkd.in/eciBTcYk #menkay #sustainablefood #davidattenborough #leonardodicaprio #tobeymaguire #thefutureisvegan #thosevegancowboys

Feast your eyes on this Italian bombshell 🍕 100% Made by Margaret 🐮🦾 🤫 We can’t say much but our mozzarella is in fact commissioned by a mysterious big player in the pizza business. Kind of a big deal. 🐮 Because if it all works out, it’s a matter of life or death for the cows ‘n’ calves involved. They’d be free to go while millions of pizza fans wouldn’t even know the difference (score!) 🤠 And so, we’re adding another clap, jump & turn to our lab dance, for this is exactly the kind of impact we’re going for with our stainless steel lady Margaret. 💃 Do a lil’ dance with us in the comments if you’re feeling frisky!