Verónica García-Arteaga is revolutionizing our diet. With her company Neggst, she is bringing the first completely vegan egg and shell onto the market. In an interview with Simone Menne, she explains what food research can now do and why innovations are so important.
As a 12-year-old, Verónica García-Arteaga was already wondering at the kitchen table in the morning what exactly her muesli was made of. Sure, she could see oatmeal, raisins, and nuts with her bare eyes. Rather, she was interested in what is written on the packaging. How does the manufacturer know how much protein and carbohydrates are in their muesli? A question that the food technologist can now easily answer. Her curiosity has taken her far. With her company Neggst and well-known investors behind her, she wants to bring the first vegan egg and shell onto the market.
García-Arteaga is originally from Mexico – the country where each person eats an average of 400 eggs a year. This is the highest per capita consumption in the world. When she came to Germany for her Masters in 2015, she was eating more and more vegan. She noticed that there are many substitute products for meat and milk in German supermarkets, but none for eggs. So, during her research work at the Fraunhofer Institute, she focused on which plant-based ingredients are needed so that liquid protein encloses the yolk like in a real egg.
“Factory farming simply not efficient”
“The mass production of chicken eggs consumes an unnecessarily large number of resources in relation to what you get for them. You simply don’t feed humanity efficiently through factory farming,” says García-Arteaga. With her innovative egg, she wants to “make a contribution to improve public health and animal welfare.”
In this episode of “Die Boss” you can find out how García-Arteaga managed to produce a completely vegan egg, how to process the egg and where Germany stands in terms of innovations. Hostess Simone Menne conducted the conversation in English.
At “The Boss – Power is Female” top women speak among themselves: Hostess and multi-board member Simone Menne (including BMW, Deutsche Post DHL, Henkel) meets female bosses from all areas of society to talk to them about their lives and careers. “Die Boss” appears fortnightly on Wednesdays on and the des staras well as on RTL+ and all common podcast platforms.
Source: Stern
