Flying high on the future of food
Name: Johan Sebastián Chávez Mosquera
Age: 25
Business: BEFLY
Title: CEO, Production Manager
Location: Piendamó, Cauca, Colombia
Are insects the solution to eliminating food waste and loss? Johan Sebastián Chávez Mosquera thinks so. The 25-year-old co-founder and CEO of BEFLY believes creating more food with fewer resources is the future of food.
BeFly transforms organic waste into quality animal feed. The process promotes the circular economy concept because the insects they raise are able to feed in organic waste tributaries and in two weeks, the insects reach their ideal weight, are processed and dehydrated to obtain an insect meal rich in protein ideal for animal feed.
Johan comes from a long line of Colombians who love the Earth. His father is a lover of floriculture and his grandparents are coffee growers. Hailing from Piendamo, a town in Cauca, Colombia, Johan’s natural affinity for the environment led him to entrepreneurship. In 2021, thanks to a Youth Agriculture Summit hosted by Bayer Crop Science, he and four other young changemakers launched BeFly as a tool to fight world hunger. While he had casual startup experience, BeFly was his true foray into self-employment.
“I have had experience in informal ventures, such as delivering floral arrangements and in the fast food sector, ventures that you create while you are a college student,” Johan says. “We decided to start BeFly because we saw the potential and good visibility we got in the process, and the good feedback we received.”
The founders all pitched in to self-fund the company early on and trusted mentors such as Jhanira Rodriguez, Bolivian ambassador of the Through For Food program, has provided the team with guidance on scalable food business models. They have also received additional technical advisership on insect breeding and research from field experts Diego Flores and Jose Luis Hoyos. Getting mentorship is half the battle for young entrepreneurs who often feel like they do not have the business experience necessary to successfully navigate industry sectors.
Johan urges other young professionals considering entrepreneurship to seek quality mentorship. “For young entrepreneurs, the most important thing is to look for good mentors…We can get people who want to help us as well as people who want us to change our mind [about an aspect of the business]. We must be open minded but be critical in the help we receive. A good mentor will give us resources and tools to learn the best decisions ourselves.”
Want to learn more about mentorship? Learn about YouthLead’s mentorship initiative.