Photo: Helena Majewska Edén
Welcome to Founders Loft, tell us more about your company
Hello! Thank you so much – we are so inspired and excited to have been accepted into the Founders Loft!
SHI – Svensk Hampaindustri AB is a startup company within FOODTECH & CARBON FARMING that contributes a product that is not only healthy for people but also climate-friendly. We are currently the only company in Sweden that offers the Swedish food industry larger volumes of pesticide-free, Swedish-grown, EU-certified industrial hemp seeds and its various fractions that are processed in our hemp foodtech factory in Sweden, while our residual streams are sold to industries in need of switch from fossil to bio-based inputs and thereby contribute to carbon sequestration and increased soil health.
Our primary business is between field and industry where we/SHI focus on the technology, the machines and the processing that takes place in our HAMPA-FOODTECH-FACTORY. There, integrated under one roof - we produce different "fractions"/raw materials/ingredients of EU-certified industrial hemp's unique seed, which we sell in large volumes B2B to the food industry:
Raw unshelled hemp seeds
Hulled hemp seed
Cold pressed hemp seed oil
Ground press cake
Crushed hemp seed
Roasted hemp seed
Vegetarian capsules with cold-pressed hemp seed oil containing Omega-3, Omega-6, Omega-9
Our residual streams become bio-based carbon sequestering products. For example, we sell the stems that are left over after we harvest the seeds to garden companies that today use peat.
Since just a few weeks ago we established that we will also sell smaller packages directly to customers via the fantastic trading platform Mylla.se and we already sell our cold-pressed hemp seed oil B2B to the Clean Beauty Industry.
Our intention is to become one of the leading players in the growing hemp market in Sweden and solve Sweden's need to become self-sufficient in food that is grown completely without both pesticides and irrigation, with seeds that have the same protein structure as eggs and soy. And with a tribe that can produce the same products as cotton, forest and crude oil. That is the beauty of the rotation crop hemp - that it is grown without pesticides - regardless of whether it is conventional or organic - and we can see that this can contribute to enormously large and good environmentally friendly results. Because we will contribute to the fact that all conventional farmers who grow with us will reduce their consumption of pesticides by 100% (!!)
We set up strategic collaborations with farms around Sweden, organic and conventional (which we then differentiate in our facility) that we supply with seed that we import from the EU - and then buy harvested seeds from the farms that we refine in our hemp factory .
Who are you and the team behind the startup?
Clara Norell, Founder and CEO, Anders Thunegard, Senior Agricultural Advisor and co-founder Tarja Kälvelid, Senior Financial Advisor and Investor.
I am a visionary, an entrepreneur, basically a civil engineer with a background in sustainable urban development. I have shared my life between South Africa and Sweden since 2003 and that is where I became interested in hemp and then as a sustainable building material. I am also a certified hemp lime builder and since it is sustainability that drives me in everything I do, I have chosen to dedicate myself to developing the Swedish hemp industry.
Anders today runs a farm on Gotland consisting of agriculture and forestry as a 19th generation farmer and has over 20 years of experience working with hemp.
Tarja has over 30 years of experience as a leader in banking and finance and contributes with capital raising, board work and scaling the company.
What made you apply to Founders Loft?
Tarja, who in addition to being part of SHI is a growth coach and investor, has worked and is working together with other companies that had the privilege of joining the Incubator. She has told us about their travels and spoke so warmly of Founders Loft so for that reason it felt only natural to apply. In addition to that, the incubator's track record looks very good for companies that have really succeeded.
We really like that you have Vinnova-Escellence because we have already worked within Vinnova projects and know how important it is to link to research in order to move forward with our business. When it comes to hemp, there is still such a large knowledge gap in Sweden, which makes it very important and valuable for us to have research to lean on.
When we had meetings in our application process, it really felt right. First we met Tobias, then Jessica and Alma - it really felt like these people understand what we want and they also understand how they can contribute. We have been in contact with other Incubators and it is simply not everyone who understands the unique properties of hemp and what is required for more than us - many, many more - to be able to work with hemp in Sweden.
We are needed - in a way, we are a prerequisite for more people in Sweden to be able to work with Swedish-grown and produced hemp as a raw material. So much innovation, research and new innovative materials and products can be produced with hemp, but today tens of thousands of tons of hemp are imported into Sweden - we want to change that! Founders Loft truly understands and sees the potential we have in front of us.
We like this: !!
What is the next step for your business?
Great question! There is so much going on that it is almost difficult to formulate, but the main focus is obviously on raising capital and building the company.
We are in the process of completing premises in our new food facility in Österlen, more precisely Vitaby Lanthandel. At the same time, we are looking at the possibilities of having a smaller facility on Gotland before scaling up in 2024, since we have one foot on Gotland and one in Skåne. Therefore, it feels natural to expand and be close to our farmers there.
We are going to launch our products on Mylla.se - it's big and it's a trip we didn't have in our plans just a few months ago. It feels fantastically exciting and feels like a glove.
We have long been in dialogue with several municipalities in Skåne regarding public meals. Getting hemp into school meals and care for the elderly is really a dream for us.
We look forward to closing the deal soon so that we can reveal who these sustainability-driven and innovative municipalities are that understand hemp's unique properties that can contribute with increased nutritional value for their children and the elderly.
We are actually still in harvest time - because we have farms in several different places in Sweden - so it is also a next step for us - our harvest!
Among the different harvest sites, we are particularly excited to see how the harvest is going on the hemp farm we have together with Axfoundation – we can't tell you everything there - but we hope soon to reveal an exciting collaboration that is going on behind the scenes around that harvest.
Read more: https://www.svenskhampaindustri.com/
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