Hello friends,

It's been almost a year since we decided to fully dedicate ourselves to the Domingo Club and our mission to promote plant-based food, the practice of fermentation, interest in mushrooms, and making tools for anyone to start fermenting their food at home, teaming up with bacteria and fungi.

Let's review 2021 with the main events of our year.

☼ March

Official launch of Domingo Club.

Our proposal was selected for Fab Lab Barcelona's Food Tech 3.0 accelerator program and we decided to go all in. We went from side projects related to our personal fermentation practice to a design studio focused on sustainable food and tools for everyone to ferment at home.

We launched our website to document our daily practice and our Instagram page to reflect these changes to a growing audience.

☼ April

We moved our 3D printer, wooden boards, electronic components, and boxes filled with a myriad of prototyping materials from our apartment to a space in the urban design district of Poblenou in Barcelona. Once an industrial area, it began a process of transformation and regeneration in the late 1990s and is now home to entrepreneurial hubs. We have a studio!

☼ May

In order to stop the use of single-use plastic bags for tempeh production, we designed 3D printed tempeh moulds.

We entered our 3D printed tempeh moulds in an innovation challenge organised by WikiFactory and won the prize for best functionality. The judges said "Clever, simple, insightful and functional. Really the best design for easy manufacturability".

☼ June

Domingo Club was selected and presented in the London Design Biennale's "Design in Age of Crisis" exhibition. We proposed the idea of a BioLab kitchen, a kind of facility that anyone can easily build and use at home to reimagine all aspects of food, waste and living systems. Our proposal was to move from an extractive to a regenerative economy, observing and understanding natural systems for more synergies.

We were selected to be part of the innovative proteins cohort of the Food System Game Changers Lab acceleration program run by EAT, IDEO, Thought For Food, The Rockefeller Foundation, Forum for the Future, Meridian Institute, SecondMuse and Intention 2 Impact. We have discussed and researched with other initiatives that are having a positive impact on the global food system.

Makery (media for labs) came to interview us in our studio about our practice and projects. The transcript is online on their website.

☼ July

Our tempeh incubator won the Distributed Design Excellence Award 2021, tackling all four core principles of the distributed design model: Open, Ecosystemic, Sustainable and Supportive! The Distributed Design Awards celebrate the best maker and design responses to the post-industrial design paradigm. These awards recognize the most innovative, supportive and sustainably designed projects across Europe.

We started a collaboration with Valentina from MyVeganFam as part of Hyper Global Hyper Local, a European maker exchange. Valentina is a professional tempeh maker based in Amsterdam. She gave us excellent feedback on our tempeh making tools, which gave us a better understanding of the practice from an experienced practitioner's perspective.

☼ August

We presented our open-source incubator remotely at the FAB16 Montreal, the worldwide event of the Fablab network. We gave a talk for the first time and we really enjoyed doing it. We covered topics such as: fermentation as a process of partnering with microorganisms; plant-based proteins as an effective solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; how to make tempeh; why we make open source tools; how to leverage the principles of distributed design and decentralised fabrication.

☼ September

We started our Tempeh Lunch series in our studio. Our Tempeh Lunch is a convivial moment where we cook a delicious tempeh dish and share it with friends and friends of friends. It's great to see people discovering tempeh and loving it. Everything is vegan, local and organic and based on a pay-what-you-want system.

We hosted an online event called Tempeh Dialogue with Valentina from MyVeganFam to publicly discuss our maker exchange on tempeh making tools, and answer questions from enthusiasts. It was great to connect with the fermenter community.

☼ October

We participated in the Food Tech 3.0 Showcase. This was the closing event of the Food Tech 3.0 accelerator programme we have been participating in for the past six months. We took part in sessions with other (low) food tech related projects on alternative business systems, building community, using digital fabrication to prototype and bring our ideas to life. We showcased a new prototype of our tempeh incubator/fermenter and presented our overall Domingo Club project in a pecha-kucha format to a very enthusiastic audience.

We launched our e-shop with organic cotton tee-shirts designed by us and screen printed locally in Barcelona. This is a good way for people to support our project until our tools are ready (and a good excuse for Toni to get back to his drawing practice).

Release of the Distributed Design Book that featured one of our articles. We wrote about our Domingo Club project, our vision and our values.

☼ November

Release of our first product, after the tee-shirt, the Domingo necklace. A poetic invitation to all to start fermenting tempeh without any other device than your body. Wear it for a day or two to ferment your own plant proteins with your body heat. We make it ourselves in our workshop. It was great to see the audience getting excited about their tempeh-Tamagotchi.

We made another batch of tee-shirts because the previous one was sold out! Thank you all for your support! We adjusted the model choice to better suit our customers and added more sizes.

We took part in the Poblenou Open Night at the Fab Lab Barcelona. A night in which the spaces of the Poblenou Urban District open their doors and offer a wide programme of cultural activities. We exhibited our prototype fermenter and the Domingo necklace.

Our fermenter prototype and tempeh necklace were presented at Foodture Barcelona, the summit of food design, food tech and social food. The event took place at the Barcelona Design Center.

☼ December

We had a stand at the fermentation micro festival All Ferments alongside other fermenters: beer and kombucha brewers, kimchi and bread makers, fermented spicy sauces lovers. We presented the necklace in a very mushroomy set made of natural elements collected in the natural park nearby.

We co-organised an event called Movimiento & Tempeh with our friend Zarina Rondón. We proposed an event that nourishes the body, mind and soul through physical movement and sustainable food.

We presented Domingo Club and sold necklaces and t-shirts at Festivalet, an important independent craft fair in Barcelona. We were able to present what we do and why we do it to an incredible number of people. It was great to see people's reaction and get their opinions, as most of them didn't know about tempeh or even fermentation. Feedback is a valuable resource for us, we are always on the lookout, so don't hesitate if you want to share something with us.

Conclusion

We are very enthusiastic about this first year. We participated in an acceleration programme to structure our ideas and push us to go further, organised events around tempeh to make people want to taste it (and adopt it!), started selling the Domingo necklace to offer you a poetic entry into the wonderful world of fermentation and mushrooms. We presented our project and its values at several events and conferences. Our fermentation practice has become much more solid and constant.

With all this, we have received a lot of feedback on our fermenter prototype — thank you all. We are more motivated than ever to finalise the home version we have been working on since the beginning of the Domingo Club: a small device that anyone can have at home to start fermenting their own fermented food: tempeh, koji, sourdough, etc. We hope to launch it soon.

In the meantime our own funds have come to an end and we are currently looking for financing and partners to continue the development. Please contact us if you have any ideas that can help us. We are also looking for points of sale!

Thank you all for the support, the discussions, the tee-shirts and necklaces you bought from us, the events you came and all the tempeh moments we shared together.

Happy new year, ~ Maudi and Toni

We are very happy to have been part of Festivalet Barcelona this weekend (11-12/12), an artisans and designers fair that brings together more than eighty participants who come to show and sell, directly to the public, their locally manufactured or small-scale products.

It was a blast to meet and to had the chance to explain our project to so many people. We have aroused the curiosity of the participants with our Domingo Necklace!

We have proposed an event that nourishes the body, mind and soul through corporal movement and sustainable food in collaboration with our friend and dancer Zarina Rondón.

It started with a 2 hour session of the movement workshop given by Zarina Rondón where movement was explored with exercises that open the doors of observation to detail our ability to dance, move and exercise with flexibility (mental and physical).

Afterwards, we gathered around a shared meal where we introduced the world of fermentation and fungi with tempeh. We offered a 100% vegan dish, in which tempeh shone on its own and was combined with seasonal vegetables and condiments.

Images shot by Benjamin Scott on the roof of our studio in Poblenou (Barcelona, Spain) and edited by Zarina Rondón. Movements by Zarina Rondón, Pilar Rodriguez Catón y Gabriela Lotaif. Tempeh Necklace by Domingo Club.

We had the chance to join the second edition of All Ferments, an afterwork that celebrates ferments through local producers and good music. There was fermented food, fermented drinks and the possibility to buy fermented products! We were there with the Domingo Necklaces, the best fermented festive gift ;)

Yaay! Our black t-shirts have arrived and we are super happy with the result! They are designed by us and screen-printed locally in Barcelona with water-based ink on organic cotton. Get your one on our e-shop if you want to support us 🌻

We were at the Foodture Talent Showcase at the Barcelona Design Centre this November 26th and 27th. We presented there our fermentor prototype and the Domingo necklace.

Foodture Barcelona is the innovation summit for food design, food technology, social food and sustainability. It was great to present our project to a wider audience thinking about the future of food. All your feedback keeps us going!

Our fermentor prototype and the Domingo necklace was also on show this 26th of November at Fab Lab Barcelona for the Poblenou Open Night.

Poblenou Open Night is an event organised by Poblenou Urban District where more than fifty partner venues open their doors to present a free cultural programme that will fill the streets of Barcelona's creative district.

Yaaaay! The Distributed Design book is out!

A few months ago we wrote an article about our Domingo project, our vision and our values, it has now been edited and published. Find it here: This is Distributed Design

And we've launched it with the Domingo organic tee-shirts. The best way to support us while waiting for our other projects.

Tee-shirt designed by us, screen-printed locally in Barcelona with water-based ink on organic cotton. Get it now on our shop page. We ship worldwide.

We presented the work we have been doing over the last few months as part of our Food Tech 3.0 journey, a 8-month acceleration programme run by Fab Lab Barcelona and FoodSHIFT 2030

Together with 9 other innovators, we explained our project in a petcha-kucha format and in an interactive stand. You can watch the whole conference here, or go to 7:09:05 to see us!

This event was part of the Sustainable Food Week of Barcelona, the World Sustainable Food Capital 2021.

We invited the folks at sudio for a savoury Tempeh Lunch!

The idea is simple, to let people know what we make and to promote homemade tempeh for the benefit of health and the environment. It's a convivial moment with 100% vegan, organic and seasonal food. We really enjoyed it, so more to come!

To close our Hyper Global / Hyper Local exchange programme, we were live on Instagram with Valentina of My Vegan Fam.

We presented our collaboration about the design and fabrication process of our tempeh moulds. She first tested our moulds and give us feedback, we then co-designed the next version and finally, we supported her to 3D print the new version in a local makerspace Waag (thank you!) in order to test the distributed design and decentralised fabrication side of the project.

The new version of the 3D printed tempeh mould is then available on our website 🌞 Please use, modify and share!

We had the chance to present our open-source incubator that promotes fermented food and collaboration with natural processes at fab16montreal, the international Fab Labs conference! Here is the recording.

This summer, makery.info (media for labs) came to interview us in our studio in Barcelona about our practice and projects. The transcript is now online on their website. Check it out to better understand what we do :-)

Thanks Maya & Ewen, come back anytime for more "fermented discussions" 🌻

We are Sriracha Lovers, we put it on almost everything. And even more on tempeh! Check out our sriracha recipe, try it at home and give us your review. Hope it'll be hot as hell! 👹

This morning we had the chance to present our open-source incubator at the Fab16, the worldwide event of the Fablab network! We gave a talk, or theory workshop as they call it, for the first time and we really enjoyed doing it.

We covered topics such as:

• fermentation as a process of partnering with microorganisms
• plant-based proteins as an effective solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions
• how to make tempeh
• why we make open source tools
• how to leverage the principles of distributed design and decentralised manufacturing

Thank you all for coming and we hope to share the recording soon for those interested who missed it :-)

Back to the post office today, but this time bound for Amsterdam.

Indeed, in the context of the Hyper Global / Hyper Local exchange programme, we are teaming up with Valentina from My Vegan Fam to improve our tempeh moulds.

She will test our moulds and give us feedback, we will then co-design the next version and finally, we will support her to 3D print the new version in a local makerspace in order to test the distributed design and decentralised fabrication side of the project. We'll keep you posted!

We sent a prototype version of our Domingo Necklace to See U Brussels in the context of their Bingo Escabelle which took place on Sunday 11th July.

Bingo Escabelle put the spotlight on engaged Brussels projects and collectives by presenting their creative work during a fun and convivial moment.

We are looking forward to finding out who won this prize and became the new owner of this micro pet! Send us pictures 👀

Good news! We won the Distributed Design Award 2021!

Our project was first selected, among the 12 finalists, in the Adaptable and open-design category and now, after a few weeks of suspense, we have just learned that we won the award for excellence! Woop woop!

We'll receive 2000€ to finance the development of the Domingo Club and our incubator. Long live the Domingo Club!

Thanks distributeddesign!

New electronic system for the incubator being prototyped, soon with a Raspberry Pico and an OLED screen.

EAT, IDEO, Thought For Food, The Rockefeller Foundation and Forum For the Future have joined forces to discover and support ideas, enterprises and initiatives that have the potential to transform our world’s food systems. The Food Systems Game Changers Lab is in support of the UN Food Systems Summit.

With the Domingo Club, we’re working with other game changers who have ideas, initiatives, and innovations that can bring positive change to global food systems—and the passion, grit, collaborative spirit, and determination required to take our solutions forward in partnership with others.

We're part of the innovating protein cohort.

• Thought For Food
• The Rockefeller Foundation
• IDEO
• EAT
• Forum For the Future
• UN Food Systems Summit

We have started the design of the new version of our incubator, taking into account the feedback received since our previous prototype. In particular, its size!

Everyone has different needs, tastes, space, and so does our incubator. We design our new model/prototype in a free and open-source software, Freecad, that offers everyone the possibility to use and modify our designs to meet their needs.

We will be fabricating the new incubator this summer at Fab Lab Barcelona as part of Food Shift's Food Tech 3.0 programme. All the sources of our project will be available as soon as they are usable, on our website and most probably on Wikifactory ;-)

For those who are or will be in London this month (June 2021): You will be able to see the Domingo Club as part of the Cathedral of Creativity taking place in the Somerset House galleries for the Design in Age of Crisis exhibition - presented as part of the London Design Biennale. Please take pictures if you go :)

Last month we participated in WikiFactory's #FromOneToMany challenge and they just announced that we won the functionality prize with our tempeh moulds, woop woop!

We have won a form box machine that will help us to develop our mould series and research new materials by further exploring moulding and casting techniques.

• Announcement video → link
• Winners → link

This morning I came back from the local fruit and vegetable shop with a ton of chillies, with the idea of making a new sriracha sauce (a fermented chilli sauce from Thailand). This sauce never lasts long in our house, we eat it with just about everything.

The recipe is composed of two steps with a fermentation time in between, which makes it quite quick and easy to make for an excellent and very spicy result.

— Toni

Welcome to our new section: The Domingo Journal. Here we want to explain a little more deeply and naturally the things we do, that happen to us, that we create on a daily basis. To take you with us.

Because we don't want to centralise our content on platforms we don't trust, we decided to keep the scoop here and then relay it to our Instagram and Mastodon (think of the free and open source version of Twitter) accounts and simply and brilliantly through our RSS feed.

See you soon ☼