For Wouter Duyck, entrepreneurship was a way to turn his life into an adventure.
“After three years in corporate, I felt the urge to go out on my own and start something that I could be really proud of, something that aligned with my values and would make me wake up every morning full of energy,” he told Vulcan Post.
Originally from Belgium, Wouter had been working at Bain & Co, a management consulting firm.
Outside of work, the Belgian has always been interested in promoting a healthy lifestyle, with his hobbies being ultrarunning, open water marathon swimming, and anything endurance-related.
But he noticed there was a real lack of healthy options in local supermarkets, especially when it came to snacking.
“When we found a superfood I had never heard of before, the water lily seeds that pops like popcorn and only grows in the Himalayan foothills, grown and cultivated by one of the poorest communities in India, I knew we had something worth exploring,” he shared.
With that ZENKO Superfoods was born.
Rooted in ancient traditions
The team’s R&D process is all about looking at ancient traditions.
“We start from what has been used and trialed for thousands of years, then we think about how we can incorporate it into today’s food habits,” Wouter explained.
The product he’s most proud of has also been the most difficult to create, Wouter pointed out.
He said, “The development of our ancient grain granola started in January 2023 and took more than a year to release because instead of our previous products where we were dealing with only one main ingredient and a natural flavouring component, now we had to deal with a whole mix of ancient grains and nuts and seeds.”
The team would use the help of friends to blind taste test the product over and over again.
“There’s so many superfoods that have been forgotten that can be transformed into delicious and healthy products, you just need a bit of imagination to get started,” Wouter said.
One ingredient is sorghum, which the team discovered during their travels through India. The ingredient was talked about with very high admiration by the locals, who would pop the sorghum into tiny popcorns and enjoy them with spices.
Seeing the potential, ZENKO launched it as a snack but used chocolate and honey instead of spices.
It’s only later that we found out that sorghum has actually been called the grain of the future and that it is part of the millet family which has been getting a lot of attention and support, even from the United Nations,” Wouter shared.
Adapting along the way
However, the sorghum product didn’t sell well in supermarkets. Marketed as “Ancient Grain Clusters,” it was positioned as a snack next to brands like Lays and Doritos.
“FairPrice Finest, one of our trusted retail partners, pulled it off the shelves after one year and we thought of discontinuing the product,” Wouter recalled.
But his team told him to rethink that decision. After all, the product was selling really well online.
Finding the discrepancy in offline and online sales odd, Wouter began to investigate.
“What turned out is that our online buyers didn’t buy the products as a snack, they used it as a cereal or as topping on their yoghurt,” he said.
Trying the product themselves, they realised how much better it tasted with yoghurt and milk. That’s how their granola product got started. They plan to launch a cereal version soon, too.
Taste is key
Hearing the term “superfoods,” you might be inclined to think they taste bad, or at least, uninteresting. However, Wouter wants to show that superfoods can actually taste amazing.
This is especially important as many have never heard of ZENKO’s ingredients such as water lily pops, sorghum, pearl millet, and finger millet. As such, the brand often hosts events where people can sample the products.
“We have a saying in the company that goes: ‘When they try, they buy’,” he said. “We’re very confident in the taste of our products.”
Taste, Wouter believes, is key. “Anyone can make a product with minimal and natural ingredients, but to make them taste good is a whole other thing. We really have to rely on the taste of the natural main ingredient.”
Similarly, he believes that the main ingredient needs to be the one that carries all the health benefits, as he doesn’t believe in additives that improve the health profile of a product.
“Most products today are made with tons of artificial ingredients, I’m not sure what the impact of those artificial ingredients will have on our body in the long term and I’m not quite sure if even those brands know,” he pointed out.
While there are more healthy snacks nowadays, Wouter thinks that most snacks in the market are still unhealthy. He pointed out that many are similar, with just different packaging and branding. He argues that many brands may use a contract manufacturer that sells the same product to many brands.
For ZENKO, though, the team has full visibility over the entire supply chain, sourcing the raw materials themselves and making them in their own factory.
“Our snacks celebrate the history, people, and place the products originate from. By educating people with the story behind our products we try to connect them with the source,” he said.
“We call this conscious snacking, where you care more than just the instant gratification but consider all implications on your own body and the traditions behind the product.”
Supporting farmers and our world
Currently, all the water lily seeds ZENKO uses are still popped in a manual way. Going forward, though, the team hopes to help the local population by making small modular popping machines that will allow them to create more output with less manual labor.
“Currently, we have one big machine that is mainly used for further research purposes, the next phase is to make it smaller and more affordable so it can be shared with the local farmers,” he said.
From there, they plan to automate the popping of ancient grains too. Especially with automation comes the worry that they could over-harvest or exploit the superfood resources.
However, Wouter believes that by promoting the local superfoods and purchasing their produce, farmers have a reason to continue growing the superfoods instead of replacing them for cash-crops like corn or sugar cane.
“Even worse, at the rate the staples are growing (corn, wheat, rice), they will use all of the land and there will be no superfoods left,” he pointed out.
It’s reported that out of roughly 6,000 different plants we once consumed as humans, only nine remain main staples today. Four of them account for 60% of worldwide calorie intake—rice, wheat, corn and potato.
Overreliance on so few products creates an imbalance in nature as well as our diets.
This is why ZENKO is doing its best to bring the spotlight back to these forgotten superfoods, one snack at a time.
- Learn more about ZENKO Superfoods here.
- Read other articles we’ve written about Singaporean startups here.
Featured Image: ZENKO Superfoods
