Chinese start-up accelerator and venture capital firm Bits x Bites has created a new model to foster cooperation between start-ups and corporations in collaboration with a multinational consortium of biotech firms, agricultural processors, flavor houses and consumer food companies. Coined the China Food Tech Hub, the platform has been officially launched and has ten founding members.

The consortium that includes Coca-Cola, PepsiCo Greater China and General Mills, has agreed to help accelerate the food tech ecosystem in China through teamwork and shared insights, according to Founder and Managing Director of Bits x Bites, Matilda Ho.

“Like most parts of the world outside of EU and US, food tech is still in its infancy in China and there hasn’t been a strong ecosystem to support start-ups in this space,” she says. 

“As China’s first food tech VC, we see an opportunity to bridge and strengthen these partnerships and hopefully make it easier for startups and corporations to share insights and work together.”

All of the founding member companies in the China Food Tech Hub are multinationals that are looking to grow their established presence in the Chinese market and increase their cooperation with early-stage food tech companies. These companies also include Danone, Givaudan, Griffith Foods, Louis Dreyfus Company, Novozymes, Nutreco and Puratos. 

“The Chinese market evolves at an incredibly fast pace,” says David Machiels, R&I Director Asia Expansion and Innovation Acceleration at Danone. “To maintain our edge in the categories wher we play, we believe that it is key to be able to identify emerging new ingredients, technologies, product formats and business models in order to define new innovation opportunities for our consumers.”

“By working with the startup and corporate community through the China Food Tech Hub, we want to contribute to further build the food tech ecosystem in a collaborative way, feed our innovation needs and identify new project opportunities in China.”

The China Food Tech Hub provides a neutral platform for companies that see cooperating with start-ups and each other as a smarter way to innovate, tackle business challenges and create new growth opportunities. 

Through regular meetings, the companies exchange startup insights and work with food tech startups to explore pilot projects and other forms of collaboration.

China has a rapidly-growing middle class and an accelerated trend of “consumption upgrade.” Since the introduction of economic reforms in the late 1970s, China’s economy has been one of the worlds fastest-growing with annual growth rates consistently above 6 percent, according to the World Bank. As of 2016, it is the world’s second-largest economy by nominal Gross domestic product (GDP) and largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). 

China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods – it’s no wonder key food industry players are eyeing the opportunities that China presents.

Premiumization, health and wellbeing, multi-sensorial experiences, personalized and targeted nutrition, as well as balancing taste and nutrition, are some of the trends currently driving innovation in China.

TC Tan, Novozymes Vice President, Food & Beverages Business Operations, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, explains how important innovation is to drive business growth. 

“With the ongoing consumption upgrade and increasing consumer focus on health, wellness and natural products, we look forward to exploring collaboration opportunities with food and beverage startups and other stakeholders to bring forth even more impactful innovations to meet the diversified demand of the Chinese consumers,” he says. 

The Bits x Bites launch of the China Food Tech Hub closely follows the Shanghai-based company’s 2018 Investing Report that reveals Chinese agri-food start-ups last year raised US$5.8 billion of investment across 283 deals with 318 investors. The report covers technology start-ups operating across the agrifood value chain as well as other non-tech start-ups that are disrupting China’s food industry.

By Gaynor Selby