News
Food tech innovations take home more than €500k of investment
Winners were revealed at Next Bite, EIT Food’s new ‘flagship’ event which focused on three core subjects – Healthier Lives Through Food, A Net Zero Food System, and Reducing Risk for a Fair and Resilient Food System.
The EIT Food Accelerator Network is a two-to-three month, theme-based programme that enables the most promising agrifoodtech startups to accelerate, further validate their technology and advance their investment and commercial readiness to achieve a successful market adoption.
Further testing
Successful entrants will use the funding to run projects to further test and accelerate their technology, working closely with EIT Food's dynamic network of partners, universities, research centres, facilities and resources across Europe.
This year’s winning entries were dominated by sustainability innovations, with many businesses focusing on upcycling waste products or making alternative proteins more affordable.
UK-based oils and fats firm Clean Food Group was among the lucky winners at this year’s event, taking home a €30,000 prize food it’s work with food manufacturers to improve the healthiness and sustainability of their products.
Agrifood accelerator programme
EIT Food also announced it was to partner with the European Bank for reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to launch a new agrifood accelerator programme for start-ups within the bank’s EU economies.
Through this accelerator, early stage agrifood startups will benefit from the extensive expertise and resources of EIT Food’s network, as well as the opportunity to access potential investments of up to €1.5m to help them scale up their innovations more rapidly.
Meanwhile, EIT Food has launched an ‘Open Innovation Challenge’ to discover new ways of transforming agrifood byproducts into pet food, in partnership with Mars Petcare.
The initiative tasks perspective businesses and food related organisations with transforming byproducts from agricultural processing into nutritious ingredients for pet food by improving its digestibility for pets.
EIT Food Accelerator Network Tech Validation Awards 2024 winners
€50,000 was awarded to the following European startups:
- AgroGrIN Tech – which collects and transforms the by-products produced by farmers, post-harvest and processing industries, into bio-based, clean-label ingredients, which are fulfilling the food, nutraceutical and cosmetic industries.
- Esencia Foods – which is pioneering the way for sustainable and healthy food options in Europe by developing whole-cut, mycelium-based fish and seafood alternatives.
- NOOVI – which offers a globally unique line of marking pheromones “Pheromark” that prevent pests from laying eggs on crops, without using any toxins.
- Pack2Earth – which offers biobased circular economy materials for the packaging industry.
- Primogene – which produces bioactive ingredients unique to human breast milk and proven to be crucial for infant development for safe and tailored nutrition to optimally support the growth and development of premature infants.
€30,000 was awarded to:
- Clean Food Group – which brings together pioneering scientific research and partnerships with the world’s leading food and cosmetic manufacturers, to provide healthier, sustainable product choices that have a positive impact on the health of the planet.
- Quest Meat – which is developing ingredients that will make cultivated meat affordable, scalable and sustainable.
- CinSOIL – which offers solutions to enable the agri-food sector to effectively meet its sustainability goals through carbon emissions insetting.
- Senoptica Technologies – which offers sensor technology to reduce global food waste by non-invasively monitoring modified atmosphere packaging in real time.
- BOB FoodTech – which offers scalable and selective toxin removal solutions for the food and biotech industry.
And €20,000 was awarded to:
- New Wave Biotech – which offers proprietary technology to empower SynBio innovators with the tools to get to market quicker, better and at low cost.
- Elaniti – which establishes the condition of the soil microbiome, identifying helpful and unhelpful microbes relative to crop performance.
- MarinaTex – which offers a home compostable alternative to plastic film.
- Kokomodo – which crafts real, controlled, climate-resilient cacao, accessible globally all year round, using cellular agriculture technology.
as well as the Brazilian Tech Validation Award winners:
- Gran Moar - which transforms malt bagasse, a waste product from beer production, into a new food product, special malt flour;
- Typcal – which works with mycelium fermentation to create new ingredients for the food industry.
- Vaca Roxa - which a manufactures an IoT digital device capable of identifying the degree of bovine mastitis infection.
