The Chef

The SpaceCrafted journey began many years ago.

It all started when Thorsten Schmidt got a rather surprising inquiry. Not from anyone related to the food scene, but from Andreas Mogensen, Denmark’s only astronaut. He requested that Thorsten made a three-course meal for him and his fellow astronauts to enjoy in space.

At the time, Thorsten was already a renowned chef within the international gourmet scene. He was an experimental and curious chef who always asked questions and found inspiration in fields far from his own, from scientists to illusionists.

Thorsten was up for the challenge. As he says,

“When you meet someone who’s super passionate about your own passion, you simply can’t say no”.

And he soon realized that it truly was a challenge when he was presented with the rules for cooking for NASA and ESA . But like with so many other things in Thorsten’s career, it didn’t stop him.

Thorsten prepared the organic three-course meal together with the medical team from ESA and a multitude of doctors specializing in different topics such as the sensory apparatus, hormones, and the vagus nerve. Thorsten had already built many of these factors into his work, but through his work with ESA and Andreas Mogensen, this focus only grew bigger. Making it about something much greater than taste. He dived into how food is connected to all senses, hormones, motor skills, mood, and truly explored the possibilities of human interaction on a physical, biological and chemical level.

He also realized that when creating meals for astronauts, their taste is affected by the lack of gravity, and the overpressure in the nose weakens the sense of taste just like when having a head cold. This only makes it more important to focus on the vagus nerve and the brain-gut connection.

After a lot of hard work, Thorsten and Andreas succeeded in their mission; the organic three-course meal was enjoyed in outer space. The grand finale of the three-course meal was a chocolate dessert called “Space Rock” with a hidden surprise inside; a personal note from the astronaut’s partners back home. It was not just a dessert. It was “the unknown in space.”

Thorsten believes that the unexpected or the feeling that anything can happen is an important factor in human life. And he likes to work with how we can plan for something like “the unexpected” in the future of humanity in space.

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7 years later Andreas contacted Thorsten once again. He had a new mission coming up, and he wanted to do something together again. The two of them agreed; if the future is living on Mars, they wanted to think along those lines. So, this time, they increased their focus on health, nutrition, and function to enhance physical and mental well-being.

Andreas said, that when in space he usually got tired in the afternoon. At that time of day, he would normally eat something like a conventional chocolate bar, but he craved a much healthier alternative. Something that wouldn’t just taste great, but also fulfil his body’s needs.

The SpaceCrafted Multichocolate bars were developed over 7 years, and the results are unique. A dark gourmet chocolate packed with more than 70 of nature’s finest nutrients. Andreas got what he came for, but that wasn’t the end. The journey has just begun. SpaceCrafted brings the world’s healthiest chocolate from a select few lucky astronauts to the people of the world.

A tribute to the first Danish astronaut and a journey that continues to break the rules of what is possible.