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Fraunhofer Venture
Coping With Obstacles?! Views of a Managing Director
Katrin Petersen, managing director of Prolupin GmbH, a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Freising, Germany, talks about her experience as a managing director.
The company's business activities focus on the manufacturing and marketing of purely vegetable, lactose-free milk-replacement products from blue sweet lupines. With the processing technologies developed by Fraunhofer IVV and Prolupin GmbH researchers, it is possible to adapt the lupine proteins flavor profile in such manner as to achieve a milk-like taste. This enables the production of delicious foods from lupine proteins that are able to offer the taste value of milk products to those suffering from lactose intolerance or a milk allergy. Possible products include, besides ice cream, lupine milk, and pudding, also yogurt and curd.
Ms. Petersen, you are the managing director of Prolupin GmbH. How did you acquire this position?
The company was founded in 2009. Due to the acquisition of venture capital, Prolupin GmbH was in the position to establish a management level. As far as I am concerned, I have been familiar with the cultivation and utilization of lupines since 2005 through the research association "PlantsProFood". The result was that I was offered to support the realization and implementation of Prolupin GmbH in the position of managing director. And I was very happy to accept that challenge.
Would you please briefly explain the Prolupin GmbH innovation. What are the differences to other producers?
The topic bears great potential and I am convinced that in the context of health as well as of environmental and climate protection high-quality vegetable products will gain increasing significance. Our LUPINESSE ice cream impressively shows the advantages. Instead of milk ingredients, the ice cream contains the high-quality protein of domestic blue sweet lupines. LUPINESSE ice cream has a convincing, extraordinarily creamy taste and is milk-protein, lactose, gluten and cholesterol-free.
To what extent are you still connected to Fraunhofer Venture? How exactly did Fraunhofer Venture support you?
Fraunhofer Venture actively and efficiently supports Prolupin GmbH with its know-how. It covers everything from simple questions of how to draw up a contract to complex business-management and market economy considerations.
What do you like best as a managing director?
The variety of tasks and duties is a challenge. Prolupin GmbH covers the entire process chain: from contract cultivation, seed reprocessing, extracting the essential proteins to selling the products. I am prepared to familiarize myself with new topics and want to be actively involved in shaping the processes. This is what makes the work as managing director particularly attractive for me.
What was the most important task since the foundation of Prolupin GmbH?
Consumers are almost completely unaware of Prolupin as a company as well as of the LUPINESSE brand. Thanks to the close cooperation with Fraunhofer and the intensive collaboration with EDEKA, we were able to realize many things in the first business year. It is motivating to see that our market entry in 2011 was successful and that we were very close to our economic targets already in the first business year.
What have been the greatest challenges since you have started to work for Prolupin GmbH from your personal point of view?
The great challenge was to coordinate all the processes that came thick and fast. In 2011, we witnessed an impressive development taking into account that we had commissioned our production facilities at the Neubrandenburg site no earlier than in January. So we also had to make important decisions for building a 'sustainable' team of employees. We were able to cope with these great challenges because we set about implementing solutions with technical know-how and the necessary self-confidence.
Would you confirm or deny the statement that everybody with a good idea could venture into self-employment or what are in your opinion the prerequisites that someone who wants to found a company must have?
Most important are the founders' and managing directors' ambition and know-how as well as a persistent enthusiasm to believe in the idea.
What are the goals of Prolupin GmbH for the next years?
Next year, we will be producing lupine proteins on a larger scale. The demand for vegetable foods exists and the community of consciously living people is very big. Our aim is to further conquer the German and the European market with a larger product variety.
Looking back: Are you glad you took this step?
I would be prepared to take that step again.
Ms. Petersen, thank you very much for the interview.
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