From Solvay to Success - Jof Cosyns

From where?

I am Jof Cosyns, born and raised in Brussels. I am 34 years old and father of an almost one year old boy. I love team sports: I practice Field Hockey since I am 4 years old and I am competing in the Belgian Honor Division with the Men’s 1st Team of Royal Daring of Molenbeek, for the last 15 years now.

I started my professional career at KPMG in Technology Advisory: as an IT Consultant I had the opportunity to work on different projects in IT. In 2017, I moved to Frankfurt for a software development mission at the European Central Bank until 2019. Together with Candice my girlfriend, we then decided to go on a 6 months trip in Central Asia and Nepal, where we volunteered, we experienced silent meditation, we walked for 20 days around Annapurna, and where we also worked on “snash” business plan. Since end of 2020, I am fully dedicated to its development.

From which program and class do you come?

I graduated from the SBS-EM in 2013, as a business engineer in minor Business Intelligence.

What is your job title today?

As one of the founders of snash, I wear a lot of different hats: kitchen, production, packing, inventory, communication, sales, dishwasher maintenance, delivery, invoicing,...And to make sure I have a bit of money at the end of the month, I am responsible for the Accounting of my uncle’s watch & jewelry stores. I am not sure I have only one job title!

Can you briefly describe the project/mission?

Back in 2019 in Frankfurt, Candice launched a new vegan healthy snack at the coffee shop she was working at: energy ball, made with dried fruits and nuts. After a few days, we decided to sell it under the name ‘Simply Natural Lab’. And we ended up cooking at night in our apartment kitchen, after our work day, to be able to deliver our clients the next day. We did this for a few months before we decided to go abroad.

The  business plan was built around a “healthy snack ready to go” that would meet all the Horeca constraints: limited time to cook or prepare food, limited skills in healthy food, limited storage room, and reducing waste due to unsold products. This snack is plant-based, gluten-free and provides natural energy thanks to its ingredients. We offer a zero-waste solution by delivering our products in glass jars.

We opened our own coffee shop in Brussels in 2021 to launch our project directly to the end-consumer. At first, we used the coffee shop kitchen as our atelier to prepare our B2B clients orders and now we deliver to 40 coffee shops on a regular basis. Since 2023, we are launching "snash":  still a vegan, organic and locally produced snack but the packaged version aimed at the retail sector.

What was your most significant professional obstacle, and how did you overcome it?

The main obstacle I have been facing in this entrepreneurial journey is a kind of “loneliness”. Although you meet and discuss with plenty of people, the founders/entrepreneurs are the only ones pushing their project forward and all the risks are on their shoulders. There is no help desk to call, no N+1 to decide for you and no N-1. In the end, this makes the journey a bit stressful and tiring but so enriching.

Have you had an experience abroad with SBS-EM? How has it influenced your life?

I had the opportunity to spend a full semester in Alberta, Canada during the second half of my first Master year. After the semester, I did a two months internship in Malaysia. Before my erasmus, I did not travel further than Morocco for summer holidays. This erasmus experience really widened the perception I had about the world. Since then, I’ve always tried to discover new cultures or countries during my holidays: Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, India, Brazil,... This is also why I decided to take a 6 months break abroad in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Nepal.

Is there a particular teacher at SBS-EM who had a significant impact on you as a student?

I like puzzling people and as I am currently launching my own company, I would opt for Olivier Witmeur, who showed us another side of the business compared to traditional classes like Accounting, Finance, Marketing. 

In what ways do you believe you contribute to society?

Before launching ‘Simply Natural Lab’, I was very close to starting a dropshipping ecommerce because I was watching so many youtube videos on this trend. I realized that by selecting poor quality products from the other side of the world I would have no control over in order to sell them on an ecommerce website made no sense and did not bring anything positive. However, trying to promote healthy, plant-based with zero-waste food by taking control over the whole production process until delivery was more meaningful.

I am convinced that vegan food is necessary for a more sustainable world. By using natural and organic certified ingredients we also try to show that post-food generation is sustainable environmentally and also financially.

Two years ago, we decided to move our atelier to APRE Services, an adapted work company based in Brussels. This was not planned but having a social impact by cooking with differently-abled people is so much rewarding. We take great pride in our ability to both generate work and foster inclusivity simultaneously.   

What do you feel passionate about?

I feel passionate about team sports, travels and business.I consume many youtube videos and news articles on all these topics. These help me to escape from day-to-day life and take a step back from what I work on.

Who has had the biggest influence on you?

I won’t select one person in particular. I try to take inspiration from everyone I meet or I follow, starting from my family members who have all built/managed their own company in their own way, friends, Brussels-based and Belgian entrepreneurs to famous French/American entrepreneurs or athletes I follow on social media. I try to understand and not to judge.

So, to where now?