Meet the Co-Founders of Better Nature: “Our tempeh produces 94% less CO2e than the equivalent portion of beef”
Meet Christopher Kong, Fabio Rinaldo, Amadeus Driando Ahnan-Winnarno, and Elin Roberts, Co-Founders of Better Nature
1. Describe your startup in two sentences?
Better Nature is the world’s leading tempeh brand and food tech company. Our mission is to help people live healthier lives by taking tempeh into the mainstream.
2. What gave you the inspiration?
We were all inspired to start Better Nature for different reasons but the inspiration for me started with one of our co-founders – Elin! We studied at Oxford University together and were in the same college. She was so passionate about plant-based eating that she not only convinced me but basically half our entire college to go vegetarian! That said, as a varsity athlete, I was very mindful of what I ate and needed a high protein diet to support my sporting endeavours. Going into supermarket stores, all I could find was either tofu or processed meat alternatives. Tofu was fine but difficult to learn how to cook, lacking in texture and nutritionally quite poor. Meat alternatives such as Quorn were easy to cook and had a meatier texture but contained artificial ingredients that I didn’t feel comfortable eating often. I was struggling to find an all-natural plant-based source of protein that was nutritious, easy to cook and had a meaty bite. That was until I met Driando, another co-founder of Better Nature, who introduced me to tempeh – a fermented food that originated in Indonesia (where he’s from) over 300 years ago. The rest, as they say, is history!
3. How did you meet?
Elin and I met whilst we were at Oxford University. We were both studying at the same college.
Driando and I met whilst we were at university too but through a conference called the GapSummit which was hosted at the University of Cambridge in 2018. Driando was doing his PhD on tempeh fermentation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst at the time and I was in my final year of uni. Had it not been for this conference which brought students from leading universities across the globe together, we probably wouldn’t have ever met!
Fabio has an academic background in Food Science and Human Nutrition so was fascinated about tempeh after he travelled to Indonesia on holiday. When he returned to the UK, he reached out to Driando who co-founded the Indonesian Tempeh Movement – an NGO all about growing the awareness of tempeh – and asked how he could get more involved with tempeh. Fabio was then introduced to me, and we managed to convince him to join us on this crazy adventure!
4. What has been your greatest success to date? And your greatest challenge?
Our greatest success to date is securing a nationwide listing in 350 stores with a major UK retailer, launching at the end of May! We can’t disclose the name of this retailer just yet but this listing is the culmination of more than 3 years of hard work to grow the brand and the awareness of tempeh to a point where the UK’s largest retailer felt comfortable giving us an opportunity to put tempeh and our brand on their shelves. Though it’s not our first major retail listing (we’re currently available in REWE - Germany’s second largest retailer) it’s our first major UK retail listing and should catalyse our growth into other major retailers in the UK and abroad.
Beyond securing a listing with the major UK retailer in May, we’ve also confirmed another major UK retail listing and will be launching into all of their stores in September and are in late-stage discussions with a few other major UK retailers for a launch later this year. Now is an incredibly exciting time at Better Nature and it is a testament to the effort that we’ve invested into the business.
Though we’ve come a long way since we launched the brand in January 2020, our greatest challenge is growing the awareness of tempeh. Tempeh is still quite a niche food product but it truly deserves to be better known as it’s so healthy and delicious! Of course, launching into major retailers will certainly help, along with some big plans we have to push our distinctive brand far and wide, but we’re not stopping there. We are currently working on a new range of tempeh-based products to expand the use cases of tempeh and to make it even easier for customers to incorporate tempeh into their daily meals. Watch this space!
5. What kind of impact is your business having and how do you measure it?
The impact we have in Better Nature can be categorised in three primary buckets: 1) People's health; 2) Social impact; 3) Environmental impact.
Working together with My Emissions, we conducted a full carbon footprint life cycle analysis (LCA) of our products from farm to fork. What we found was that not only were they all awarded My Emissions’ top ‘A’ rating for their extremely low carbon footprint, but our tempeh also produces 94% less CO2e than an equivalent portion of beef, making it an incredibly sustainable source of plant-based protein.
By keeping a record of all of the tempeh we sold to the market, we found that we would have offset almost 3,000 tonnes of CO2e from the food system (equivalent to 36,000 return flights from London to Dublin) if everyone ate our tempeh instead of beef in 2022. Given that we are on track to grow 400% YoY, we are on track to offsetting almost 12,000 tonnes of CO2e in 2023.
Beyond our sustainability efforts, we also donate 1% of our total revenues to supporting Yayasan Usaha Mulia (YUM) – a charity based in Indonesia that’s focused on alleviating childhood malnutrition. We measure and track our impact on this front by routinely evaluating YUM’s impact reports through on-site visits.
6. How has Covid affected your business?
When we launched Better Nature in January 2020, right before the pandemic, we had no idea what was in store for us. Though Covid certainly wasn’t ideal, it forced us to be creative about the sales channels we used to distribute our tempeh products and how we raised the profile of tempeh.
In addition to selling via retailers, we doubled down on our own ecommerce store and quickly launched on Amazon. Not only did these sales channels grow significantly during the pandemic, they also allowed us to reach customers all across the UK and abroad, lifting the profile of tempeh and growing our brand’s awareness.
Since the end of the lockdowns, we’ve shifted our focus back towards growing our sales via retailers and foodservice outlets but we’re still very active on Amazon. We are the UK’s highest-rated tempeh brand with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot. We are also one of Amazon’s best-selling meat-free brands and have been awarded Amazon’s Choice for tempeh.
7. When you were little what did you want to be when you grew up?
CK: An inventor!
ER: A popstar (don’t judge me)
ADA: An inventor and (not or) a musician
FR: A vet!
8. If you weren’t doing this, what would be your plan B?
CK: I would most likely either work at another sustainability-focused startup or attempt to be a professional runner, or both!
ER: I’d probably be working in brand/marketing strategy for another mission-aligned business or studying to become a clinical psychologist.
ADA: I would be full-time musician and a food science-preneur consultant who helps scientists develop Indonesian traditional foods into sustainable ventures at global scale.
FR: I would likely work for a company producing positive impact on animal welfare (such as an ecotourism guide, to merge my love for travel).
9. What would you save in a fire?
CK: A handmade photo diary that I made for my girlfriend to celebrate our 2-year anniversary.
ER: A folder where I save cards, letters and mementos from my loved ones.
ADA: If answers like ‘family’ are not allowed, then it would be my fire-proof safe with all the legal documents in it.
FR: My passport and my pet if I had one.
10. Who is your role model/ greatest influence? And why?
CK: My Mum. My parents split up when my brothers and I were quite young so my Mum single handedly raised all three of us growing up with no financial or emotional support from my father. Her work ethic, unwavering optimism and boundless emotional support despite the circumstances are nothing short of extraordinary!
ER: My grandpa. He was the most wise, knowledgeable, kind, generous, brave, self-aware, hilarious and humble person I’ve ever known. He was also one of the most content and fulfilled, so I feel very fortunate to have his example to follow. Even though he’s no longer with us, he guides me every day.
ADA: My Mum. My chance to survive as a foetus in her womb was only 55% due to hemorrhagic pregnancy. But instead of aborting me, she improved her lifestyle dramatically to increase the survival rate through healthy eating, yoga, meditation, stress management, and keeping bed-rest until giving birth. She was an employee at a food company then. After dedicating years to take care of my brother and myself, she continued pursuing her ambitions: getting a Master’s Degree in Biotechnology at the age of 47, getting a PhD in Public Health at the age of 52, and co-founding the Indonesian Tempe Movement in 2014 with my grandfather and myself.
FR: 2 Italian men whose names are Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone. They were 2 magistrates who had become leaders of the fight against Italian Mafia, and were both murdered in 1992 by savage mafia bombs. They have taught an entire generation to have the courage to rebel and react to injustices.
11. What is your happy track?
CK:
ER:
ADA:
FR:
12. What are your company values?
At Better Nature we have 3 values:
1. Better for all, not a few.
2. Be better bound.
3. Honesty is our better policy.
13. What are you most looking forward to in 2023?
CK: Launching into our first major UK retailer! I can’t wait to see our tempeh range hit the shelves in retail stores up and down the whole country.
ER: I think it has to be the big retail launch in May. The feeling of seeing our products on the shelf will be like nothing else. I can’t wait to celebrate and reflect on all we’ve achieved… before we get back to work to ensure it’s as big a success as it can be!
ADA: It would be seeing the new products that have been researched and developed intensely being mass-produced. R&D aside, it would be spotting our products sold at large retailers in the UK and in Europe of course!
FR: 100% launching in our first major UK retailer, hands down. Swing by a major supermarket in the country where I live and see our products standing beautifully on the shelf, wil be the greatest testament of what we believed being possible since day 1!