“Vegan is the new sushi,” say Ida Högberg and Rebecca Carlsson, Founders of Gigafood – a new catering service in Stockholm. Vegan food is often ridiculed and outcast in our local culinary culture. Their goal is to take something that is seen as strange and even a little extreme to a level where it becomes as common and as acceptable as the Swedish meatball.
Gigafood launched in Stockholm just two months ago. Within the first 48 hours of their website going online, the catering company received orders for 513 items before they had even moved into their kitchen. Since then, the two Founders have delivered meals to conferences, government ministers, and even the Swedish royal family.
“Giga means billion. That’s why we are called Gigafood. In the coming years, we will become 10 billion in the world. Reducing emissions to zero is our biggest priority. Animal agriculture is the primary driver of countless environmental challenges that we see today. It is possible to reduce our consumption to planetary boundaries by moving to plant-based diets.”
With backgrounds in cooking and environmental politics, the two make a good pair to drive forward a new trend toward mainstream veganism. Although they are not full-time vegans themselves, they both subsist on vegetarian diets and stand by their belief that reducing meat consumption in favour of plant-based foods is an important step in creating a more sustainable future.
Their business model is well thought out. Bypassing a bricks and mortar store allows the customer to order online and means the kitchen can invest more money into providing a high-quality meal from organically-sourced ingredients. A critical look at the company also reveals that their ethos of sustainability doesn’t end at the plate. Meals are packaged into compostable containers that biodegrade in just 90 days, and food deliveries are made by cargo bike. Although they limit ordering from small-scale suppliers, the idea behind this is that the framework becomes much easier to scale. The downstream effects of their catering service are minimal.
It feels more natural now for Ida to develop new recipes for their menu, but it hasn’t always been an easy task. “I had an assistant and we had a lot of olives and she wanted to make a tapenade with zucchini. We mixed it and it looked like sheep haggis. We couldn’t serve it and it looked awful. When you make a recipe, sometimes it gets good and sometimes it gets bad. That’s how you work your way forward.”
Ida and Rebecca hope to build concept stores in Sweden before launching their brand abroad. Scaling Gigafood internationally will increase both the social and environmental impacts of their work. “We want to pioneer a new food culture that is tasty and fun and breaks all norms when it comes to what boring vegan food looks like,” says Rebecca. “It can’t just be vegan food. It has to be the best food you’ve ever tasted.”
I had the chance to try their menu while hosting Sustainergies Cup with Skandia Fastigheter at Impact Hub Stockholm earlier in the year. Spiralized zucchini noodles with Thai dressing and satay sauce were delivered to our office with tiny containers of fresh coriander and small pink leaflets. Although I would have preferred it to be a little hotter in terms of spice, it was worth the wait and I’m sure they will only get better from here.
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AUTHOR
Cathy Xiao Chen is the Community Manager at Impact Hub Stockholm. With a background in food sustainability, she advises and connects startups with collaborators to maximise impact.