Future Food-Tech, a platform for disruptive businesses, is hosting a virtual summit to highlight this year’s new crop of agri-food innovation. Fifteen entrepreneurs exhibiting at the event will showcase new solutions with unique functionalities such as mood-boosting plants, protein from rapeseed waste and a preservation solution made from silk – all targeting the aim of a stronger and more sustainable food system. The move highlights that start-ups play a critical role in transforming the food-tech innovation landscape, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Start-ups play a critical role in the future of food. Despite the current challenges, we want to showcase the innovators we believe have the potential to transform our food system and offer new technologies, ripe for investment or looking for partnership opportunities,” says Jet Luckhurst, Start-Up Partnership Manager at Future Food-Tech.

In particular, Future Food-Tech highlights that start-ups have the ability to pivot faster, adapt quickly and develop innovative technologies to offer urgent answers for our food supply chain. The virtual event will be held on September 17 to 18.

Accelerating plant-based products
Taly Nechushtan, CEO at InnovoPro, will be showcasing how chickpea protein is on the rise within the Plant-based Revolution. “InnovoPro is committed to bringing unique plant-based protein ingredients to the global food market in order to create nutritious, tasty, safe and sustainable food products.”

Racheli Vizman, Co-Founder and CEO at SavorEat, will be showcasing a “new generation of meat alternative products.” “We bring the future of food to life using innovative technology and we believe that with a healthy and high quality meat alternative, we will succeed in leading the positive change of reducing meat consumption worldwide.”

Innovation in nutrition and health
Martin Plambech, CEO of Biosyntia, details that his business delivers vitamins produced from renewable sugar using a proprietary biological fermentation process. “Nature and its microorganisms are the future of production and is already today changing the food supply chains to deliver better, cheaper and significantly more sustainable products. We are super excited to be at the forefront of this evolution with our fermented vitamins and other nutraceuticals.” 

The next generation of the food industry is ‘food that works for me,’ personal and functional nutrition. “The next generation of the food industry is ‘food that works for me,’ personal and functional nutrition. Luckily, we live in the age of big data. Consumer segmentation is driven by the affordability of psychological and physiological markers. Another important trend is ‘food for mood.’ Super-plants are nature’s best technology and our innovative ability to combine body and mind creates food with a purpose,” comments Rachel Yarcony, Founder and CEO at MyAir – specializing in stress-management as a personalized functional-food company.

“In the technology developed and patented by NapiFeryn BioTech, protein is obtained from the material left over after pressing oil from rapeseed.” Magda Kozlowska, CEO, NapiFeryn BioTech – improving life quality using technology to produce natural and functional plant derived proteins.”

“Sustainably farmed seaweed provides numerous environmental, social and economic benefits including food security, carbon and nitrogen sequestration, job creation and responsible coastal management,” comments Karen Scofield Seal, CEO at Oceanium – a company extracting high demand products from sustainably-farmed seaweed.

Prioritizing personalization and digitalization
Adam Behrens, CEO and Co-Founder at mori, will be presenting a unique method of using a protein from silk to create an all-natural and edible protective layer that keeps food fresher for longer. 

Exhibitor Spoonshot specializes in personalized insights, wher predictions power opportunities, and wher novel ideas are the norm.. Our food innovation intelligence platform helps reduce the cost of innovation research and increases agility through instant rich insights based upon diverse data sets,” says Kishan Visani, Co-Founder and CEO.

Alon Chen, CEO and Co-Founder at Tastewise – developing an intelligent platform for NPD and marketing innovation – remarks, “ The food and beverage industry is hyper-fragmented and fast moving; to stay relevant, the way we understand it needs to match. Tastewise gives an unprecedented, holistic view of how consumers are changing the way they order, cook and eat – and all in real time. Create the right offerings. Tell a powerful story. Win market share.” 

Many other “game-changing” start-ups will join the virtual Future Food-Tech Summit alongside 800 international food brands, retailers, ingredient manufacturers, technology providers and investors for the two days of online networking and knowledge-exchange.

Start-ups will play a critical role in the post-COVID recovery effort in addition to providing the solutions to the many future food challenges faced by society. In a recent report on Europe’s financing initiative with the F&B sector, it was highlighted that innovation here has been particularly hard hit due to curtailed R&D funding.