Tag: Event

In 2012, Alver Co-Founders Mine Uran, a recognized protein expert, and Majbritt Byskov-Bridges, an economist, met at the Women’s International Networking (WIN) Event in Rome in 2012.

Three years later, their paths crossed again when Majbritt was researching sustainable funds for a client, and Mine had just discovered Golden Chlorella, the most disruptive protein source she has found to date.

The right people, the right time: What started at WIN became a WINning partnership, indeed! When worlds collide, magic happens. Networking events like this are fantastic because chances are high that you meet like-minded people who share the same vision.

That is why, the two Alver founders, after having participated several times in the WIN Conference over the last few years, decided to partner with the event for its 22^nd anniversary edition.

This year, the iconic WIN Conference is taking place on 2 – 4 (5) October 2019 in Athens. Participants will gather at the Divani Apollon Palace & Thalasso Hotel for the 22nd anniversary edition of the pioneering leadership experience for company executives, managers and entrepreneurs.

WIN is a pioneering leadership experience for company executives, managers and entrepreneurs. The unique 3+ day conference features an innovative and interactive program and is not only about the magical energy, the creative approach or the ease of connecting, it is also about conscious business and practical application.

The conference proposes an outstanding roster of world-class speakers, carefully selected plenaries, workshops and forums that are designed to provide useful and diverse learning opportunities, with the aim of expanding possibilities in all aspects of your life.

Mine and Majbritt will be speakers and share insights in their startup journey with the audience. Beyond that, there are many reasons why you should participate in the WINConference! You will:

• prepare yourself for the future
• find the spark to start new projects and the readiness to take on new roles
• feel inspired, calm and nurtured
• discover how to create the companies you want to run, work for and buy from
• gain insight into evolving career opportunities
• get access to an impactful community of support and meaningful connections
• attain clarity of purpose and enthusiasm for developing your feminine, authentic and global leadership style
• return with a clear and focused vision, ready to accelerate your contribution to the world…

The organizers at WIN are passionate about offering practical tools to help you prepare for the future, express your creativity, nurture your authentic strength and develop new competencies.

At WIN you will meet other amazing and aware women and men; all conscious decision makers and pioneers in their respective fields. These are solid individuals who make things happen in the world in a completely new way.

Here’s a call for you to join them. A powerful network of influence awaits you! Register today to join the Global WINConference for a truly unforgettable experience: www.winconference.net

About Alver Founders: Mine Uran and Majbritt Byskov-Bridges

Mine Uran is a globally recognized expert in protein. She is an industrial engineer with an MBA and has led teams at Unilever and DuPont (receiving the Marketing Award in 2008). In 2013 she was headhunted for the position of Head of Protein at Nestlé. In 2014, Mine was invited to the White House to discuss the future of sustainable protein.

Having spent years reviewing different sources of protein, from animal and plant, Mine has come to the conclusion that Golden Chlorella is the protein of the future. This is why she decided to leave Nestlé, to found her own company and to concentrate specifically on the development of micro-algae, which she believes, will help solve the increasingly worrisome protein issue the world faces today.

Majbritt is an economist with an MBA. She started her career on the trading floor at Morgan Stanley, moving on to strategy consulting at Monitor/Deloitte and has spent the past 10 years building the Guardian Wealth Management office in Switzerland. Majbritt has been part of shaping the Alver strategy and supporting Mine’s dream for a more sustainable world.

About Alver Golden Chlorella

Mine Uran (CEO) and Majbritt Byskov-Bridges (COO) founded Alver Golden Chlorella in September 2016. The Swiss startup specializes in the development and production of finished food products with vegan protein, predominantly derived from the microalgae Golden Chlorella.

Alver’s mission is to provide highly nutritious, tasty, healthy foods to help feed the world’s growing population while respecting the environment. Golden Chlorella is a sustainable, 100% natural, gluten and lactose free vegan source of protein. It is truly distinctive and innovative because of its neutral taste and lovely golden color which is achieved through a natural fermentation process.  In fact, Golden Chlorella is the most sustainable protein source available today as its production does not require arable land, only water, light and a little sugar.

The breakthrough has been the innovation of removing taste and colour typically associated with algae products to make Golden Chlorella the incredibly versatile product that it is. Golden Chlorella is a game-changing ingredient in the food industry as it can easily be added to all foods without disrupting consumers’ eating or cooking habits.

It will help reduce animal protein and make a large positive environmental impact globally. This unique product is effectively taking micro-algae from a complement to an easy-to-use daily ingredient that will improve both our health and carbon-footprint.

Alver was launched in 2016 with a very successful crowd-funding campaign that contributed to the brand’s notoriety beyond Swiss borders. Since then, the young, innovative company has already been distinguished with numerous awards:

• Grand Prix Generation Entrepreneur 2018, Switzerland, 1st prize, 2018
• Switzerland Mass Challenge Acceleration Program 2018, EIT Food Award, 2018
• Agri & Co 2018, Fribourg, finalist, 2018
• Start-up innovation challenge, Frankfurt, Best Natural Ingredient 2017

From Basel to Zurich, via Baden, Locarno Lausanne and Geneva… Manor is present in the most attractive locations in Switzerland and is an integral part of the daily lives of many of its inhabitants. The Manor Group includes 61 Manor department stores, 31 Manor Food supermarkets and 29 Manora restaurants across the country. In total, Manor stocks over one million items from around 2,800 suppliers worldwide. Of these, around 690 are local producers who deliver seasonal and local produce to the Manor Food markets. We are very grateful to be able to propose Alver to shoppers at Manor!

Alver Golden Chlorella Tastings

Every Thursday, from 11:00 – 14:00, come to taste our delicious products with Alver Golden Chlorella at the Food Market in Manor Genève Cornavin! Freshly made smoothies that are supercharged with vegan protein from microalgae for that extra boost throughout the day! If you don’t manage to stop by our stand you can simply take a smoothie with Golden Chlorella from the display.

Did you know: Golden Chlorella contains 30% protein (meat has 25%) and is rich in potassium, magnesium, zinc, and vitamin B. Chlorella is mostly known for its immune system boosting properties and for cleansing the body, especially from heavy metals. Other benefits include cognitive, eye and skin health. It is also known to reduce the need to snack as well as to promote weight loss, lower blood sugar and cholesterol.

Like to the smoothies, that you will be able to taste at Manor, Golden Chlorella can easily be added to all your favorite everyday foods without altering their taste. The protein powder derived from this highly nutritious aquatic superfood is taste-and odorless! You can read about all the benefits of Golden Chlorella here >>>

Fun fact: the company name “Manor” is a contraction of the founders’ names Maus and Nordmann.

The history of Manor begins at the end of the 19th century – indicative of the later development of the company – in French and German-speaking Biel. This is where the brothers and wholesale dealers Ernest and Henri Maus make friends with their customer, retailer Léon Nordmann. In 1902, the three far-sighted businessmen join forces to open the “Léon Nordmann” department store on Weggisgasse in Lucerne. Encouraged by its success in Central Switzerland, the Maus Brothers, whose wholesale business Maus Frères was headquartered in Geneva since 1901, are encouraging their customers to open their own department stores.

The company name Manor – composed of the name Maus and Nordmann – was created around 1965 to build a new corporate identity. Since 1994, all the department stores in German-speaking Switzerland that belong to the company have been renamed Manor, and since September 2000 all the stores in western Switzerland and Ticino as well.

Today, Manor AG is headquartered in Basel and a subsidiary of Maus Frères Holding in Geneva.

According to CNN Money, Switzerland is a leader when it comes to innovation and female entrepreneurs are at the forefront. This summer, CNN Money Switzerland is highlighting startups founded by female entrepreneurs in a special series. They teamed up with www.startupticker.ch and handpicked those businesses with strong Swiss roots but an international outlook. One of the featured startups is Alver. Co-founder and CEO Mine Uran was invited over to Zurich for an interview with Ana Maria Montero.

What is SWISS START-UP TOUR by CNN Money Switzerland all about?

This is what is says on www.cnnmoney.ch: “Let CNNMoney Switzerland introduce you to the emerging companies making their mark in Switzerland and beyond. We travel across the country to track down female CEOs who have been recognized for their distinctive vision and ability to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs. Discover the challenges and lessons they’ve learned, the hard choices they’ve had to make, and about that one moment when they knew that they had made it. Food engineer Mine Uran prides herself on upending conventional wisdom: She launched Alver, her superfood start-up, at age 50; rejected the advice that she needed to hire a man in order to raise more capital; and dared to turn down VCs over term sheets that didn’t suit her. This is her story.” Full interview in this video >>>

Mine, you are a food engineer who has been looking for the last 20 years for the ideal, non-animal super protein. Now this seems to be a long time looking for something so specific, what brought this on?

I started my career in the food area, and more and more realized that animal proteins are not very sustainable in the long-term. The reason I have looked into micro-algae today is also for the land use. Because today our land use per capita is decreasing. Not only because of the growing population but also because of the urbanization. Currently, we are using only 12% of the arable land and it will be reducing. The land use per capita is very important this is why I decided to look into the sea. As the sea covers about three quarters of our planet, I looked into microalgae as a source of sustainable protein.

Okay, so it sounds like your motivation is really much more about sustainability than it is about health, for example. Or both?

It is both. As we know, well as we started to figure out over the last few years, too much animal protein over the long term, is really not that healthy for our body. To find sustainable protein, which is also healthy, was my aim. Microalgae naturally contain 60% of protein, but also a lot of minerals and vitamins. Especially our microalgae contain also Carotenoids, so it is a very healthy food that can really feed the world.

Talk to me about the market for this kind of microalgae products!

Okay, algae are commonly knows as a healthy product. But the problem is the taste. That is why we grow microalgae in an environment that prevents them from developing this typical algae taste. Ours tastes natural but neutral. And because of this neutral taste, it can be added to any food without altering its taste. If you want to eat pasta, you eat pasta, if you want to eat sauce, you eat sauce… no taste of algae!

That sounds like you have to overcome this issue of perception, right? Because people perceive that algae is going to taste terrible. How challenging is it to convince people otherwise?

It is challenging for us, which is why we do a lot of tastings. This summer, we will do a lot of tastings with smoothies at COOP. So if you are at COOP, look out for our products and taste them in a smoothie. You will definitely be surprised!

Now the main ingredient, I guess, is something called Golden Chlorella, a 100% natural algae that is yellow and comes as a kind of powder. Walk me through: how it becomes that! How do you get the algae out of the sea and into the products?

Okay, so the baby algae we found in Holland, in sweet water. But then, we started to grow it in a very good, closed environment to make sure it grows healthy and that only microalgae are growing, not other bacteria. In addition, we keep the algae away from light and only use sugar as a feed. Growing in the dark, it doesn’t develop a green color. And it develops carotene, which gives it this nice yellow color.

This sounds quite complicated. Is it a complicated process? And is it expensive?

No, it really is not complicated. You just grow it with sugar and dry it. It is not an expensive process either. The cost is only high at the moment because the quantities we produce are small. Once we grow, the cost of production will significantly reduce with volume. And this is what we are doing now: we want to extend our production capacity. That is also why we are looking for an investment of 3 Mio. So, if somebody wants to do something good for the world, just call me!

So this is where you are with your funding at the moment: you are looking for 3 Million Swiss Francs in order to start scaling.

Yes, that’s right. That will allow us to scale and once we can produce large quantities, the price can be reduced to just CHF 2 per kilo.

That really is not a lot. And talk to me about your searching for funding. What kind of investors are you looking for? Do you go for venture capital, for private investors or just any kind of investment at this stage? And how do you go about finding funds?

No, we really are looking for investors who are interested in making a long-term investment and also want to do something good for the world. For me, it is not a question of getting this money and then selling the company 5 years later. It is a long-term investment. It is a 10-year plan that I have, not a 5-year plan. So maybe Alver is less for venture capitalists and more for family offices and private investors who want to make a long-term, sustainable investment. We started with crowd funding, with private people. We raised CHF 250’000 two years ago which allowed us to develop the product. Now we finished our second seed-funding round and obtained 1 Mio. from a person that is a business angel. This money will allow us to develop our marketing and to increase the notoriety of our brand. To this day, we have 12 different products: powders, bars, soup, pasta and sauces… and then for 3 Million, well, this is the next round.

How much independence do you have?

Well, to be honest, we refused some well-known venture capitalists when we saw their term sheets. Because my focus, my goal is not to make money but to do something good for the world. We need money, yes. And we will make money, but this is not my primary goal.

And do you find that the fact that you are a woman has any influence when it comes to investment and looking for funding?

Yes! When we were first going out and looking for funding, because we are two female founders, someone told us “You need to get one man into the team to raise more money.” Which we didn’t do… But that’s okay. Those are all perceptions. I always worked against perceptions.

Alright, so no men. It’s a fully female team. And is there anything in startup that you consider company policy?

For us, the philosophy is… we are really looking for sustainability-focused people. They need to have this feeling and sense of urgency to do something for the Earth.

You are a vegetarian, right? So you are really living the talk as we say. And now you produce this superfood. We hear this and that about superfood. Honestly, how much of it is just hype?

Yes, I am vegetarian and it’s good; really satisfying. Now with regards to superfood, I cannot speak for the others, only for our products. We are very open and transparent. We always share our nutritional information; there is a full page of nutritional profiles of our products: the minerals and vitamins they contain, which micro materials, like leucine or carotene…even our amino-acid profile is perfect. Just to give you an idea: why do you think the life expectancy of Japanese women is so high? Because they eat microalgae! The Japanese diet contains a lot of microalgae. In Japan, Chlorella is even considered a food of national interest.

So Mine, after managing teams at Unilever, DuPont and more recently, as Head of Protein R&D at Nestlé, working for the man – or woman – you decided last September to just leap out on your own. What motivated this? Why did you decide that Now, it’s time?

Well, I turned 50. And I thought to myself, I have another 10 or 15 years of work; this is a good time. I have three kids; all of them are grown-ups now. Time to step up and do my own thing. I always had this on my mind, so the moment my life became a little less complicated I felt it was the right move.

And your family is super proud and supportive? Do they all have to eat your microalgae?

Yes, absolutely. They are very supportive. As for food, yes, they are really happy with it. We had some just yesterday. I prepared a Mexican salsa with microalgae. We also have vegans in the family, so we had a veggie burger. But of course with veggie burgers, the protein is missing. So we added a sauce with microalgae in order to have a balanced meal, with 12% protein.

At the end of the interview, Ana Maria Montero tried our tomato sauce with Alver Golden Chlorella. How did she like it? Click through and find out here >>>

Thank you so much, CNN Money Switzerland for having us, and Startupticker for all the support.

Events are always a fantastic opportunity to meet. We would like to take this occasion to thank all those who followed our invitation to Food Zurich! We really enjoyed our joint dinner at tibits. Bravo to Reto Frei and his team for the delicious menu with algae that they concocted especially for the evening!

Before dinner in the beautiful Flower Room at tibits bistrot, Myriam from petit-grain-de-blog briefly interviewed Alver Co-Founder & CEO Mine Uran. Here is the transcript of their conversation:

1.) Mine, you are one of the founders of Alver and can look back on a career of over 20 years in protein research. What is it about proteins that fascinates you so much?

Proteins are the really important building blocks of our body and our nutrition. They are complex and fascinating at the same time. One protein is not like another. Proteins consist of 12 amino acids. These amino acids are different in different proteins and all have different functions. It is the importance to human nutrition and the complexity of proteins that have always fascinated me.

2.) You decided to leave corporate culture and become an entrepreneur with Alver. How did you experience this change and did something fundamental change in your life?

*Laughs* Yes, a lot is different! There are no other departments, you are alone with your partner. When we started, we were only two. There is no marketing department, no product management department, no human resources department, no legal department … so you really have to do everything yourself. But first you have to learn about all these things and also about yourself. It’s a fascinating journey. Very exciting. I really love everything I got to experience over the last two and a half years.

3.) Alver specializes in products with vegan protein, primarily based on the microalgae Golden Chlorella, but they also offer products with protein from mung beans and peas, among others. Is this the future of Alver: diversifying the portfolio and finding more and more plant protein resources?

Alver is a producer of high protein vegan foods. The idea is to offer truly vegan products. As long as it is not animal protein but vegetal, for us it is worth exploring and bringing it to market. We started with Chlorella because it is the most sustainable product. On the way to making the foods in our range, like our fantastic Protein Pasta, for example, we found that we need a different kind of protein to balance the nutritional value. For that reason, we also added protein from mung beans…

Many thanks to Myriam (www.petit_grain_de_blog.com) for taking the time to talk to Mine and to Avieta Claessens (www.avietaclaessens.com) for the nice photo.

All Alver products, information on ingredients and nutritional values as well as recipe ideas for vegan and vegetarian dishes with Alver Golden Chlorella, Golden Bean and Golden Pea can be found here >>>.

For media professionals: please send requests for interviews with Mine Uran or Majbritt Byskov-Bridges to media@alver.ch.