Munich Startup: What does Your Root do? What problem are you solving?
Thomas Oppenheimer, Your Root: With Your Root, we solve the problem of providing fresh vegetables for quick, easy consumption and make healthy eating a permanent part of everyday life. To do this, we offer five delicious organic products with no additives whatsoever – our Soup’r Drinks. They achieve a Nutri-Score A rating and thanks to a special high-pressure process, they require no heating or preservatives and maintain full nutritional value while remaining shelf-stable for up to 90 days.
Munich Startup: But that already exists, doesn’t it!
Thomas Oppenheimer, Your Root: No, our Soup’r Drinks are a completely new product category: pure, certified organic vegetables in a bottle that can be used in multiple ways – as a drink, soup, or sauce. Their biggest advantage is their minimal fruit sugar content compared to fruit smoothies or fruit-vegetable blended drinks, which means the sugar level in the body isn’t oversaturated and the product achieves a Nutri-Score A rating. Another USP is that they are fresh products – not canned – yet remain shelf-stable for up to twelve weeks. We achieve this through high-pressure pasteurization, which kills harmful bacteria and microorganisms while preserving the nutrients, vitamins, flavor, and texture of the product – all without any artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives.
Fresh vegetables for quick consumption
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Thomas Oppenheimer, Your Root: As a former professional athlete and father of four children, I know how important – but also how demanding – it is to integrate healthy eating into a stressful everyday life. Fresh vegetables for quick consumption in daily life was a market gap I wanted to close. Since I had already taken an interest in nutrition during my ice hockey career, particularly in vegetables and oils and their positive effects on fitness and prevention of chronic diseases, the idea for Your Root came quickly after I ended my active career in 2020 and brainstormed with a friend who is a nutritionist.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Thomas Oppenheimer, Your Root: The biggest hurdle for me was developing a marketable product from an idea that could be produced on a large scale. That’s a huge step that many underestimate. Especially in the food sector, there are many legal requirements to fulfill. Particularly if you want to get organic certification. In addition, there are numerous adjustments regarding composition and manufacturing process until the optimal drinking experience is achieved. It didn’t work for us on the first try, but we managed it and are proud that our Soup’r Drinks today are not only extremely healthy but also taste so good that even children enjoy them.
Additional products for balanced nutrition in the works
Munich Startup: Where do you want to be in one year, and where in five years?
Thomas Oppenheimer, Your Root: Our goal is to expand our distribution channels in the coming year to reach as many people as possible with our Soup’r Drinks. Perhaps by then we will have already received sufficient customer feedback and can work on new, desired flavors. And in five years, we want to be an established company whose products have arrived in the market and are available nationwide through retail outlets. In the next step, we want to focus on additional products for balanced nutrition and we already have a few ideas for that.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Thomas Oppenheimer, Your Root: Munich has a vibrant startup culture with good infrastructure for business startups. Here you get to know many like-minded, interesting people who have already experienced a lot in the business world at a young age. This exchange of experience is extremely helpful and important to learn from each other’s mistakes – or to recognize them early and ideally avoid them altogether.
Munich Startup: Public transport or bike?
Thomas Oppenheimer, Your Root: For business meetings that are a bit further away, I like to use public transport. Otherwise: bike!
