UmaMeats makes hamburgers and sausages with seaweed added to them. By enriching the meat with seaweed, the startup replaces fat with fibres and healthy nutrients, creating healthy, tasty, juicy burgers and sausages. Most
of which used to go to the canteens at various companies that wanted to offer their staff a healthier diet. Until the coronavirus crisis struck, and the canteens closed. Then the founder of the startup Mendelt Tillema lost 95 per cent of his turnover from one day to the next.
The founder of the startup Mendelt Tillema lost 95 per cent of his turnover from one day to the next
Tillema studied Plant Sciences and developed a fascination for seaweed, a natural crop for providing a healthy food source without using any extra land. He developed his company in 2018 with the help of Startlife, and he had two products and a market. Then along came Covid-19.
Tillema has used the past year to make further improvements to his seaweed products. He has worked on a better combination of seaweeds for flavour, and for even higher nutritious value. He also worked on creating a smarter production process and improving the supply chain. A Consumer Sciences student is currently doing a
study aimed at identifying the best communication strategy for UmaMeats to follow. UmaMeats is located in the Starthub in Plus Ultra II, and that gives Tillema access to a large network. Recently, for example, he was able to
pitch his seaweed burgers to 40 buyers from German food companies who were visiting the campus. as