Noquo Foods, a new plantbased startup based in Sweden, recently closed a seed round with an impressive list of investors including Northzone (Spotify), Kale United, Eric Wahlforss (co-founder, Soundcloud), and Purple Orange Ventures (Mission Barns, Wild Earth), and others.
Noquo was founded by second time entrepreneur Sorosh Tavakoli and food scientist Anja Leissner early 2019 to re-invent the foods they love, starting with cheese.
We spoke with Sorosh about their exciting new company and future plans.
What was the motivation behind your launch?
Consumers are increasingly motivated to shift to a plant based diet but are very much limited to the options available to them. Where we see good alternatives to animal based products, like in the milk category, we see a shift. But where there are no good alternatives, consumers stick to the animal based products, such as the cheese category.
In Sweden 6% of all milk sold was plant based but only 0.25% of cheese. Alternatives have to be tasty, but also be offered at a reasonable price and eventually made available where people purchase food. The cheese category fails predominantly at taste and overall product quality, not to mention nutrition.
Why alt protein, and why now?
The pull from consumers is really powerful right now as this topic is at the top of people’s minds. Consumers are curious, creative and ambitious in their attempts to shift.

What will your portfolio be and when will the products be available?
Where will your products be on sale, in which markets?

How do you see the role of plantbased products within the dairy industry? Can dairy and non-dairy work together?
What are your plans for the 2020 and beyond?