Taking the Next Bite into the future: EIT Food raises opportunities at food systems event

EIT Food’s new flagship event, Next Bite, took place in Rome, Italy, earlier this week. It is being slated as a unique opportunity for the world’s largest food innovation community to share knowledge, foster collaboration and accelerate innovation across European food systems.

Over two days, over 900 attendees attended the event, which saw thought leaders, entrepreneurs and practitioners from the F&B industry share knowledge and innovative perspectives on the future of food.

“The ambition for this community is growing,” says Richard Zaltzman, CEO of EIT Food. “We need to think about impact — change that makes a difference. For this, we need three ingredients: hope (e.g., the start-ups), inspiration (e.g., pioneer farmers, entrepreneurs) and connections.” 

Collaborative companies recognized 

EIT Food announced the winner of its third annual Corporate Startup Collaboration Award. The award recognizes corporates based on the ease of their collaboration with agri-food start-ups. Thirty companies were nominated from Europe and different parts of the food system. 

The winner was Südzucker Group. Based in Germany, Südzucker is the largest sugar producer in the world and produces a wide range of food and animal feed products. 

Alliance launches to standardize eco-labeling 

Meanwhile, EIT Food officially launched the International Alliance for Impact Data. It will convene the Alliance to help develop internationally adopted and accepted standards for food environmental scoring. 

The Alliance will work to ensure that companies and supply chains can apply one standard for compliance across multiple geographics. 

Rewarding innovative start-ups 

During Next Bite, EIT Food announced 15 winners of the 2024 EIT Food Accelerator Network Tech Validation Awards.  

€50,000 was awarded to the following European start-ups: 

• 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 (US$39,000) 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 noninvasively monitoring modified atmosphere packaging in real time. 
• BOB FoodTech – which offers scalable and selective toxin removal solutions for the food and biotech industry. 

Sessions at the event took place over three stages, exploring topics aligned with EIT Food’s missions of “Healthier Lives Through Food,” “A Net Zero Food System” and “Reducing Risk for a Fair and Resilient Food System.”The winners aim to use the funding to run projects that accelerate technology, working closely with EIT Food’s network of partners, universities, research centers, facilities and resources across Europe.  

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is partnering with EIT Food, Europe’s leading food innovation initiative, to launch a new agri-food accelerator program for start-ups in EBRD’s EU economies. 

The new hub in Warsaw will join the EIT Food Accelerator Network, opening opportunities for start-ups not only locally but across Europe and beyond. Start-ups selected for this accelerator will benefit from the extensive expertise and resources of EIT Food’s network, which includes industry-leading corporates, research institutions and universities. 

In addition, these start-ups will have the unique opportunity to access potential investments of up to €1.5 million (US$1.9 million) from EIT Food, helping them scale their innovations. This initiative strengthens the network’s global reach, with a newly launched hub in Brazil this year marking EIT Food’s first expansion outside Europe.