A large proportion of the Dutch population does not eat the recommended daily amount of vegetables. This was one of the reasons why Sean Patrick, Walter Zantinge and Pieter van der Manden founded VeggiHap.
Another important incentive was the amount of vegetable waste, each year 644 billion metric tons of fruit and vegetables are thrown away because they are not deemed good enough to sell in the supermarket.
VeggiHap
Start-up VeggiHap makes pasta from vegetables that would have otherwise been thrown away. The founders launched a crowdfunding campaign in December 2019 that enabled the company to move into a large production space. By 2020, VeggiHap had started selling its pasta in Rotterdam.
Pasta’s
According to the founders of VeggiHap, this wastefulness leads to an increase in the production volume of fruit and vegetables. This has a negative impact on biodiversity, as in the amount of nutrients in soil and water resources. The start-up develops products with the vegetables that are not sellable so that less vegetables go to waste. VeggiHap’s pastas are made out of vegetables for 50%. VeggiHap currently offers four types of pasta: beetroot fusilli, carrot radiatori, pumpkin zucca and spinach campanelle. The pastas are available on the company’s website and in selected stores.
Growing demand
The company has started another crowdfunding campaign to be able to meet the growing demand. They aim to raise at least 155,000 euros through this campaign. As of January 23, this goal had been achieved to the tune of 65 per cent.
One of VeggiHap’s customers is the packaging-free supermarket Pieter Pot, Pieter Pot, which Innovation Origins previously reported on.
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