How to Launch Alternative Protein and Plant-Based Products

Gustav Johansson is behind Sweden's largest vegan food blog – Jävligt Gott. His vegan remixes of classic Swedish comfort foods are inspiring more people to eat plant-based and try new products.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood in the aisle of a grocery store Googling a new product to try and figure out how I should use it. This is particularly true for new alternative protein and plant-based products, which can be totally new and unfamiliar.

I’ve had a lot of conversations recently on the best strategy for new food products to go-to market. Gustav Johansson is a chef, restaurateur, and the writer behind Jävligt Gott, Sweden’s largest vegan blog. For more than a decade, he has helped new plant-based products enter the market by writing recipes, relaying consumer feedback, and providing insights on gaps he sees in the market. His philosophy centers on inspiring and educating consumers to eat more plant-based and then following up by making sure that there are products in the supermarket and recipes online for them to easily do so. He is particularly recognized for re-imagining classic Swedish comfort foods with plant-based ingredients.

This episode is full of ideas for how we can nudge more people to try new food products and encourage more flexitarians (people who sometimes eat meat).

Related Links

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The story of Oatly: a 20 year overnight success

The Nordics’ biggest food influencers Anders Husa and Kaitlin Orr

Amass on zero waste fine dining

Restaurant Alchemist’s R&D arm on linking academia and gastronomy

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Episode Transcript

Analisa Winther, Nordic FoodTech Podcast Host  1:35 

So, the first question is, when did you first realize or was there a moment when you realized you wanted to work with food?

Gustav Johansson, Jävligt Gott  1:41 

I think the moment when I realized I wanted to work with food was the moment I realized that I actually could work with food. Because it's one thing to be interested in food, though I have been for most of my adult life. I was raised in a home where my father cooked a lot. And when I became a vegetarian, I really quite quickly realized that if I wanted to eat anything good again, I had to learn to cook it myself. So, my food interest started really early at like 19 years old. And then I started this blog until it came to a point where I realized that it was big enough for me to actually do something serious. I had absolutely no idea that I could be working with it. before. And I was working in the NGO sector beforehand as a project leader and developer. So, I was doing something totally different. So the idea to work with food kinda came along with the actual possibility to do it. You could actually do this for a living. And I was like, "Right, that's weird. But let's try it!" something like that. So yeah, so it's two different things to me, really. To be interested in foods and then to actually be able to work with it. That's two different things.

Analisa Winther, Nordic FoodTech Podcast Host  2:56 

So, you have this blog. Can you tell us a little bit more about what it is and how it got started?