Startups of the Zewil Accelerator 2nd Edition 2021

Arbuckles is a bagel business, selling hand-rolled, vegan, kosher bagels to people in Basel and across Switzerland. They are artisanal and sustainable: bagels are made with local ingredients whenever possible, from a sustainable production line, minimizing plastics and giving recyclable materials first priority. Arbuckles will also be a social business — enabling connection and fostering mutual support.

Arbuckles’ motivation is to make opportunity available. For immigrant women, we will provide work experience in German to improve their possibilities of permanent employment and the ability to support themselves while contributing to the community. For people who dream of opening their own local food business, we will make affordable commercial kitchen space available to support them in testing their vision. For people new to Basel who come from bagel-loving backgrounds, we will give them a bite of home and fuel them on the journey to feel at home here.

fyn foods introduces alternative crops, such as chickpeas, that have a high nutritional and agronomic potential for the future of Switzerland. The crops are processed further into 100% local and tasty food, such as hummus. By sourcing locally, strong connections to Swiss farmers are created, which allows them to implement a new traceability system that provides end-to-end information for the consumer.

The demand for plant-based protein is growing, not only for vegans and vegetarians, but for flexitarians as well. A large part of this protein is imported into Switzerland and there are only a few fully Swiss-processed foods on the market. At the same time, the world needs more crop diversity and new approaches to a sustainable food system. fyn foods offers a new market for alternative crops while providing sustainable and vegan food for Switzerland.

oREgami provides reusable food containers as a service to consumers of take-away and delivery food as a sustainable alternative to single-use packaging. The premium origami-inspired packaging creates a nicer consumer experience while the use of a mobile application enables a local cleaning ecosystem that provides convenience for both consumers and restaurant owners.

Current single-use containers based on unrecyclable plastics or bioplastics waste energy and have non-circular material flows. We are deeply concerned about future generations as we see how our current society emits emissions and wastes precious resources. We believe that well designed food containers in a digitally integrated reuse model can provide the most sustainable solution. As a result, we reduce emissions (CO2, water, energy) and save resources (oil/minerals) for society as a whole by reducing the amount of waste in cities, promoting the consumption of locally produced food for restaurant owners, and generating meaningful job opportunities.

Startups of the Zewil Accelerator 1st Edition 2020

SmartBreed is a Swiss Agritech startup that offers insect breeders a local and complete breeding solution with the goal to make insect breeding industrially available and economically attractive. The advantages of insects are to be made accessible through stackable fully automated breeding boxes. With this breeding system, one can breed a few kilos or several tons of insects per year, for zoos, as food or feed.

We enable Zoos, food and animal feed industry converting local agricultural waste into high-quality proteins and fertilizers via insects. Legalization of insects as animal feed offers great potential next year.

Stadtpilze grows gourmet mushrooms on sawdust and coffee grounds, in food-safe plastic buckets from Basel’s gastronomy, for Basel and the region. The waste is reduced to a minimum, the transport is emission-free and the product leftovers are further used as fertilizer and compost. The goal is to be completely zero waste!

We produce 150 kg oyster mushrooms each month, that we sell to local restaurants, on markets and directly to private consumers. Since 1.5 years, we produce more exoctic mushrooms, like Lions Mane, Shiitake, Maitake, King Oyster and Reishi on a smaller scale to test the optimal composition of the substrate. We are planning to build a new cultivation site, where we are able to produce more and different gourmet mushrooms at a larger scale at the same time.

WERT!Stätte creates new products with food that has already been produced and not consumed. This is realized in a community and reintegration environment with people from different life situations and phases of life. The goal is to generate creative and flexible solutions to combat material and food waste, poverty and loneliness.