Space to snacks: A NASA engineer just launched a health food company

For DC-based NASA engineer Iban Ibáñez Domenech, reaching for the stars is quite literally something he does every day. But now, he’s got a new goal to achieve.

After a stint in Germany, Ibáñez Domenech came to the US four years ago for an engineering role at NASA. He primarily spends his days working on space instruments, specifically in remote-sensing technologies for mapping. But he’s always had an entrepreneurial spirit, and a year ago set out to launch a healthy snacking company with partner Natalia De Iscar, an immigration lawyer, that features ingredients from the Mediterranean.

Terracosta, deriving from characteristics of the founders’ homelands, is a DC-based snacks company that just publicly launched. Available in Union Kitchen stores (Ibáñez Domenech and De Iscar partook in the accelerator last year), the company created a granola with the Mediterranean tiger nut and an almond butter made from Spain’s Marcona almonds.

“We are trying to twist and shape American snacks that are pretty common and consumed here in America, but with these ingredients from the Mediterranean because we know they are nutritious and health-conscious people here will like them,” Ibáñez Domenech said.

The company is currently bootstrapped, save for the Union Kitchen assets, but the pair hopes to launch a Kickstarter campaign this year. They’re also looking to expand into 25-30 stores in the DMV region in 2023, and currently working on an online site for consumer sales.

Ibáñez Domenech’s first taste for entrepreneurship came during his time at university, he said, when he developed an Android app with friends for a social media app competition. That was the first time he spent a large portion of his time outside his day-to-day work that could eventually turn into a full-time job.

Coming to the US, though, furthered that interest.

“I also wanted to get to this entrepreneurship mentality, and I think that America is the best country to be in if you have that mentality,” Ibáñez Domenech said. “So, I really wanted to be closer to this mentality and I think that that was really helpful.”

He opted to start out with a food company, though, because of his partner’s industry knowledge and the lower startup costs compared to a software or tech startup. He’d like to grow Terracosta large enough that it can be his full-time gig, and eventually use those skills to launch a tech company.

But for now, he noted that there actually is a crossover between his engineering and food entrepreneur gigs: Both involve plenty of time management skills, productivity and, most importantly, problem-solving.

“If you work in tech or in engineering, in general, you have a lot of problem-solving capabilities,” Ibáñez Domenech said. “That’s what I think I have and I would suggest applying this kind of mentality that an engineer or a tech person has to solve all the problems that are going to arise during founding.”