Those Vegan Cowboys is a Belgian biotech company founded by Jaap Korteweg and Niko Koffeman in 2020. The company aims to develop animal-free dairy products using precision fermentation technology, with a focus on creating casein for vegan cheese.

Those Vegan Cowboys 

Those Vegan Cowboys are on a mission to make the best cow-less milk and cheese.

When you’re trying to watch the stars in the middle of the city, you’re gonna miss most of them. We took a step back into the old west where the stars at night shine big and bright and opened our eyes to new possibilities in the dairy industry.
 As one famous cowgirl, Dolly Parton, once said, “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” And that’s exactly what we’re out here doin. Us cowboys put on our thinkin caps, looked at the facts and figures and got to workin with scientists and their fancy technology. We see ourselves as pioneers on this journey to a more sustainable future where we can respect critters and give ‘em the lives they deserve.


Margaret's tidings of casein & joy 🧀

The world has had its hardship this year, but we've also seen many glimmers of hope.

What will 2024 bring? Margaret hopes to find investors for a shiny new €15M milk stable. Imagine the comfort & joy of freeing all cows 🐮

Also, world peace would be nice. For all people and animals, including you. Thanks for sticking around.

Wishing you warm, peaceful winter days.  

Margaret & her team at Those Vegan Cowboys 🤠

#merryveganchristmas #worldpeace #vegancheese 

€15M HERD BUILDING PLANS REVEALED – NOW OPEN TO INVESTORS

In 2024, we’re building a big milk stable for the first herd of stainless steel cows the Lowlands have ever seen. And for the first time in Vegan Cowboy history, investors can build with us. Carpentry skills appreciated but not necessary.

👉🏽 WHY NOW? Because it works. Now that we have Margaret’s cheese, we want everyone to have it. To make this happen, Margaret and her stainless steel herd need a bigger stable. Or production facility, but that doesn’t sound as fun.

👍🏽WHY… NOW? Mother told us not to bet with other folks' money. Thanks to their previous success with The Vegetarian Butcher, founding cowboys Jaap Korteweg & Niko Koffeman could afford to politely decline when investors offered to join in the early days. Back then, this whole cow-free precision fermentation casein thing had about a 1% chance of success. Those wild plans came true. Now that we have the first kilos of cheese ripening, it’s time for a major scale up. Still an adventure of course. But one on which we’re confident enough to invite others along. We are raising €15 million.

🐄 WHY ISN'T THIS CROWDFUNDING? We’re all for the concept of crowdfunding. Right now though, it's not the best fit for our mildly megalomaniac stable-building plans. 

🌵 SO. WHY NOW? If not now, when?

 ♥️ HOW CAN I HELP? No deep pockets but eager to help out? Go ahead and share. Because the more people see this message, the sooner you’ll be biting into a sizable chunk of cow-free Brie.

All details (plus a crossword) are disclosed in a slightly old fashioned, yet highly specific Gazette, that you can access via our website www.thosevegancowboys.com or just read it here on LinkedIn.

🍲 If this message reaches you and you've contacted us about investment opportunities before - don't hesitate to reach out again. 

Pinch us, please. HOW CHEESE SAVES THE WORLD (hoe kaas de wereld redt), the new 5-part podcast series by Marion Oskamp & Simon Heijmans on NPO premieres December 18th. Topic: our very own Stainless Steel Cow.

After winning 'Best podcast of NL' for 'Brand in het Landhuis' and 'Best Narrative Podcast' for 'De gestolen schilderijen van Jopie Huisman', their new series 'Hoe kaas de wereld redt' takes you on a thrilling ride to cow free cheese.

Join Marion & Simon as they leave no stone unturned investigating our lab work, chief cowboy Jaap Korteweg and - a small calf called Puck.

Are you going to give it a spin?

#marionoskamp #simonheijmans #podcastnieuws #hoekaasdewereldredt #npo #jaapkorteweg #kaas NPO Radio 1 

This week, our CCO Hille van der Kaa was invited by the European Commission to shed a light on the future of food & farming at the #FOOD2030 conference in Brussels. Main theme: “Imagine its 2050 and dream of what the future of food systems could be ...” 

👉🏽 This is her story.

‘'If my son decides to become a farmer later, he will be the 10th generation in his family. My son can of course do it his way. But secretly, I hope he will bring back his great-grandfather's cows. A cow of a new kind; the stainless steel cow. At Those Vegan Cowboys, we call her Margaret. The Iron Lady. 

Margaret is in fact a fermentation tank. We feed her sugar beets and, eventually, grass. Margaret can make exactly the same cheese as a living cow. But she can do it in a much more sustainable way. She only needs 1/5th of the water and land. She doesn't emit CO2 or methane. To give milk, she doesn't need to birth a calf that either goes straight to slaughter, or faces the same fate as her mother. Margaret has the key to cheese and milk that truly makes people, cows and our planet happy. 

Our stainless steel cow is the next logical step in the development of dairy farming. From hand milking as my son's great-grandfather did, to the use of a milking robot where the cow becomes part of a machine, to the ultimate milk robot: Margaret, the stainless steel cow. If we embrace Margaret, we can continue to enjoy our food and even give back land to nature. 

The countryside then becomes a wildly attractive place to live in. Without air pollution, without a view on the suffering we cause for animals. It will once again bring people together in nature. It will have an unprecedented appeal to people from the city. In places where people move away from today, opportunities arise for food forests and other projects that you would like to be part of. The farmland of this future makes the living environment healthier instead of sick. 

In 2050 my son will be 31. With a little luck, he will walk around his own bit of land, feeling pretty good. He looks to the left, where the vegetables and grains grow, to be enjoyed as they are. He can pull a carrot from the soil and take a bite, because using pesticides is a thing of the past. 

Right in front of him, he sees the bit of pasture where Margaret's grass grows, for dairy. It is just a small piece of land. Because on his right, he looks out on the part he is most proud of: the food forest, with a large area of nature where the animals freely live their own lives. It's the main reason why people wanted to live in his village again. 

And no doubt he also thinks about his daughter, who would be the 11th generation on the family farm. How would she go about things after him? One thing is for sure: it won't stay the same."

♥️ Thanks for inviting us, Daniela Lüth and Karen Fabbri. Proud to be working with our fellow grassroots of Food Fermentation Europe on this!

Acacia Smith, Rutger Bregman, The Good Food Institute Europe 

✨️ For Your Eyes Only:
THIS IS PURE CASEIN
The only of its kind
made by a stainless steel cow

🧀 What makes cheese so irresistibly cheesy? It's this stuff here. Casein. The milk protein that is highly addictive to calves and humans alike, and can only be made by moms. Mammal moms. Until today.

🐄 Making milk
Margaret, the Stainless Steel Cow, does just what a normal cow does – Eat grass, create milk proteins – but five times more efficiently. How? She doesn’t have the gastro-intestinal tract that causes the climate so many problems, and burns up most of the feed’s energy. Another major plus: she doesn’t have to mother a calf every year in order to make milk. Not her. She makes classic grass-fed casein 24/7, with the help of... microbes.

🤠The Margaret way
Margaret's cool team of lab cowboys has taught microbes the art of expressing casein genes. In Margaret's steel stomach, caseins are then produced on a large scale by grass-fed fermentation. The process is a lot like brewing beer but instead of alcohol, you get milk proteins. Those Vegan Cowboys are now upscaling the process. And once they do, there’s no need to ever bother a cow for milk again. You won’t hear them complaining!

🍲 How now, said the cow?
Cheese pro & eager to work with cow-free casein? We expect Margaret’s casein to be available for professionals in 2026. Milk us for details via postoffice@thosevegancowboys.com, stay in the loop on our social prairies or come and check us today or tomorrow at the Free From Food & Health Ingredients in Amsterdam.

COM:THOSEVEGANCOWBOYS

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