Meet Borna Bayat, Global Director at Plant-Based Chicken Alternative: TiNDLE

TiNDLE is the first brand and product from Next Gen Foods, a year-old startup that’s making delicious and satisfying foods that are made from plants. TiNDLE is a delicious, sustainable, and highly versatile chicken made from plants. It is made from nine simple ingredients, all sourced from plants, without any GMO or any of the “nasties” typically associated with chicken from birds – such as cholesterol, antibiotics, or hormones.

TiNDLE is currently available in restaurants around the globe, and it can be used across a variety of cooking applications and cuisines. From street food to Michelin Starred fine dining, TiNDLE has inspired chefs to create incredible dishes across our current markets in Asia, Europe and the Middle East so far.
 
 

 

When was TiNDLE created?

 
Next Gen Foods, the company behind TiNDLE, was founded in 2020. Our co-founders, Timo Recker and Andre Menezes, met at an incubator in Singapore and immediately hit it off around their ambition to change the food system. The product was developed by Next Gen’s Chief Technology Officer, John Seegers, who collaborated very closely with chefs, to bring TiNDLE to life.

March 2021 marked the first time that TiNDLE was available in restaurants – starting with Singapore and then quickly expanding to Hong Kong, the UAE, and Amsterdam in the months to follow.
 

How did Timo/Andre come up with the idea for the company?

 
Timo and Andre both have extensive backgrounds from the meat industry – Timo is a German native whose family business made schnitzel and other meat products for over three generations, and Andre was born in Brazil and spent a significant amount of time in his career working in poultry exports. Both were able to see the industry from the inside and noticed how inefficient animal farming is for the planet, so they decided to create a product that allows not only benefits the planet, but also allows for diners to not compromise on the type of dishes you would like to eat. TiNDLE provides the great taste and nutrition that comes from animal-based chicken, without needing to sacrifice the overall experience.

At the heart of the company is a mission to make saving the planet easy and enjoyable and reducing our reliance on animal agriculture as a way to produce food. Our team intends to create the best-tasting products for diners all over the world – so that doing good for the planet is simple. Also, it is the reason why our first product is named in reference to the physicist John Tyndall, who was the first to make the connection between atmospheric CO2 and the greenhouse effect.
 

How has the company evolved throughout this year?

 
It all started with our first and highly successful introduction in Singapore in March 2021. Since then, we expanded across Asia, including Hong Kong, Macau and Kuala Lumpur. We launched into the Middle East this past September, entering Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Fujairah. And most recently, we entered Europe, with a successful launch in Amsterdam in November 2021.

In under nine months, we were able to bring TiNDLE to 3 continents in over 150 restaurants – and have plans to continue expanding around the globe.
 

What can we hope to see from TiNDLE in the future?

 
Our mission to change the food system is urgent. This year, we built the fundamentals and foundation to enable TiNDLE to become a global leader in plant-based chicken.

Next year, we plan to continue the expansion of TiNDLE across meat-loving countries globally – we plan to launch in the United States in early 2022 and expand across Europe as well. We also intend to grow our internal team to meet our goals of delivering on our ambitious mission, in hopes of satisfying the demand for delicious, nutritious, and sustainable food products for consumers all over the world.