EIT Food RisingFoodStars welcomes 16 scale-ups

EIT Food’s RisingFoodStars Association has opened its doors to 16 European agtech and foodtech impactful scale-ups.

Read more about EIT Food’s RisingFoodStars

By being part of the network, these young companies will receive guidance and support from already established industry leaders. They will also expand their view and access to scaling up, internationalisation and investments.

It has been a rigorous selection process, where the Advisory Committee had to choose between more than 70 strong candidates from 25 countries. Part of the selection criteria was the ability of these companies to use technology to quickly reply to the food sector challenges. Scalability is also a key element in the development of every new organisation. The selected few will be rewarded for their ability to anticipate where their industry is going and most importantly, they will be creating the future of agtech and foodtech.

As part of the RisingFoodStars group, the newly accepted scale-ups will have the opportunity to network with large agrifood companies, educational and research organisations within EIT Food. After going through a scan of their strengths and gaps, they will be supported by mentors on the most difficult steps of their scale-up journey. The end goal would be achieving a better, sustainable, and healthier food value chain.

Take a look at the winning scale-ups, each linked to an EIT Food focus area.

Circular Food Systems

• Kaffe Bueno – this Danish company upcycles coffee's post-consumption by-product and uses it as a biobased platform to manufacture ingredients for functional food, beverages, cosmetics, and nutraceuticals.
• One Third – coming from the Netherlands, they help to prevent food waste in the supply chain through shelf-life prediction.

Alternative proteins

• envoPAP – created in the UK, this scale-up makes better use of abundant agricultural waste to create high-quality, environmentally friendly, and ecologically viable printing and packaging products.
• Nasekomo – straight out of Bulgaria, they are pioneering the next-generation model of insect-protein industrialisation for insect farms, agro-industrials, and waste operators by providing higher value-added insect (BSF) lifecycle management, genetics, and technical services while growing production capacity via partnerships and franchising.
• The Protein Brewery – another Dutch representative who in their own words will change the way of producing proteins, forever.

Sustainable agriculture

• Terra NutriTECH – from Ireland, the company works with progressive farmers ensuring precision nutrition for their livestock through the water system or sprayed on to feed on the farm.
• Computomics – German scale-up that enables plant breeders to develop sustainable crops for a changing climate and indoor farming.
• Vivent – Swiss organisation owning a vanguard technology system that provides early warnings of a wide range of crop stressors enabling growers to increase yields and choose environmentally preferable crop protection.
• Fyteko – from Belgium, Fyteko is a green chemistry company providing new biobased molecules to conventional agriculture, ensuring global food security in face of climate change.
• Soil Capital – another Belgian representative, the organisation gives farmers the incentives and decision-support they need to adopt regenerative agriculture practices via their digital platform, mySoilCapital.

Digital transformation of traceability

• Farmforce - comes from Norway and it has an AgriTech platform serving traders, brand owners and cooperatives with an innovative smallholder management platform to create trust and traceability of food production all over the world.
• Xnext – from Italy, it is an innovative SME revolutionising inline industrial quality control with a highly efficient and performant real-time inspection system.

Targeted nutrition

• EnginZyme – Swedish scale-up, owning a unique biology-based technology for the production of foods based on enzymatic biomanufacturing utilising immobilised enzymes. Utilising this platform, EnginZyme is bringing to the market a novel prebiotic sugar.

Others

• OKO weather index insurance – Israeli company, OKO secures smallholder farmers' revenue from climate risks thanks to an automated insurance product available on mobile.
• Acoustic Extra Freezing – this Finish organisation provides food manufacturers with solutions to preserve frozen food with the quality of fresh one.
• Plant Jammer – Danish scale-up managed to build a gastronomical AI to help people cook healthy, sustainably, and inspire to reduce food waste with smart recipes.

Want to know more? Visit the dedicated page or contact Anne-Marie Banescu, RisingFoodStars Business Support Manager.