Let's meet the founders of the future

In this customer success story, we meet Völur’s CEO Anna Turvoll to learn more about their unique application of AI to optimise the supply chain in the meat processing industry and the massive impact it has on efficiency and sustainability. 

Turning complexity into opportunity

Anna was appointed CEO of Völur in 2024 but has previously worked in the alternative protein space where she gained valuable insight into consumer behaviour. “What we noticed in the data is that consumers are slow to adopt the plant-based meat category and want to continue eating meat,” she explains. At Völur, she is now working to make the existing supply chain more sustainable by solving complex optimisation problems in the meat processing industry. 

Völur’s journey began several years before Anna joined as CEO. When working in the meat processing industry, one of the co-founders and previous CEO noticed that data was being under-utilised. The production schedule of a meat processing facility is deceptively complex, as it must take into account the characteristics of incoming animals, the demand requirements from retailers, as well as factory characteristics and existing constraints such as line speed and labour availability. “When you overlay input data, constraints, factory characteristics, and demand side, it becomes a hugely complex problem that linear modelling cannot solve,” Anna explains. "That's where we see that AI is much more beneficial." 

Making a co-pilot using expertise from the aviation industry

The other two co-founders, now Chief Product Officer and Chief AI Officer, both had backgrounds in the aviation industry and applied commonly used problem-solving algorithms to the supply chain in the meat processing industry. Völur's AI-powered solution makes it possible to process different variables simultaneously and provide production managers with data-driven recommendations for optimal scheduling and sorting. Their system acts as a co-pilot for human operators that enhances their decision-making capabilities and increases the facility’s efficiency.

Before Völur, the meat processing industry has relied on human expertise, craftsmanship, and spreadsheets for efficiency. "Excel is probably our biggest competitor," Anna notes when reflecting on the industry’s traditional approaches to the optimisation problem. Now, Völur’s solution has had a remarkable impact for their customers, improving efficiency and providing an increased value capture of 10%. These improvements mean that to meet the existing demand of the market, each throughput of production uses nine cows instead of ten. In turn, this leads to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a decrease in food waste. 

Turning their idea into patents 

Even though they had found the brilliant solution to a global problem, Anna and the team initially debated whether to protect their solution with patents or to keep it a trade secret. The biggest obstacle to filing for a patent was their previous experience of the traditional patenting process. “We had worked with patent searches before and looked at different IP-strategies, and it was expensive and tedious. Being a startup that moves quickly, I saw the Lightbringer offer and thought that it was exactly what we needed.” 

‍

“The timing, cost, and speed were three factors that made it an easy decision, it was great to have someone to call if we just had a quick question.

Anna Turvoll
CEO of Völur

For Völur, protecting their innovation became an obvious choice once they knew how fast the process would be. “The timing, cost, and speed were three factors that made it an easy decision,” Anna comments. Unlike their experience with the traditional process, Anna notes that working with Lightbringer was a user-friendly and smooth process, adding that “it was great to have someone to call if we just had a quick question.” 

Transforming the supply chain and a traditional industry

When asked about their greatest success so far, Anna immediately mentions the product they launched earlier in 2025, which can create a digital twin of a factory and simulate the outcome when variations are made to the factory environment. “It’s a combination and culmination of all our years of R&D,” Anna states. 

Even though the meat processing industry is steeped in tradition and craftsmanship, Anna and Völur are looking to the future with great optimism, further reinforced by the open-mindedness of customers and people in the industry that are acknowledging the impact and importance of seeking new solutions to old problems. At Lightbringer, we are eager to follow along in their journey as they continue using technology to solve difficult problems in complex supply chains. 

‍