EIT Food Entrepreneurship Prize Pitch Day

Our innovation aims to enhance the sustainability of food production, by minimizing the impact on the environment and climate change: Bio-F Solutions is using microbes to produce eco-friendly biofertilizers. Our microbes grow on sunlight and atmospheric CO 2 to directly provide nitrogen to the plants. Bio-F’s product is far more efficient, both in terms of land use and farm workload, thereby minimizing farmers’ costs and increasing their revenue. Initial experiments show a 242% increase in wheat production, greatly surpassing similar products in the market. Importantly, our product is also vastly more sustainable as it will drastically reduce the spread of fertilizers into wastewater streams, minimizing the effect of destructive environmental damages.

At BioKind we help the aquaculture sector grow sustainably, by addressing the need for new protein sources to feed farmed fish & amp; shellfish. Aquaculture production in Europe is expected to double by 2030, but the natural resources that are needed to feed these farmed animals are already at breaking point. Our technology allows us to use crop waste, like stems and leaves, to grow protein-rich bacteria. Our bacteria product can replace the current ingredients like fishmeal and soy-concentrate in aquaculture feed.

F4A is a concrete win-win solution against food waste on a supermarket level. Not only do our services contribute to the future of our planet, but they also give the opportunity to consumers to act and save money while grocery shopping. We offer daily promotions and inspire our customers with short video-recipes made from the products from our stocks, via our App and website. Thanks to our services, supermarkets better their CSR strategy, make profit out of their losses and increase their consumer traffic within the shops. Consumers have access to a larger panel of products at reduced prices and have an eco-responsible consumption behavior. To push the snowball effect to its maximum, we conduct conferences and workshops to create awareness towards food waste and other sustainable issues. And finally, F4A directly reduces food waste on a supermarket level, thus having a positive impact on our planet. F4A’s services are an added value to the national economy and soon the international ecosystem.

Our mission is to help people on low incomes from the most deprived communities who are at risk of or experiencing, diet-related illness to build the confidence, skills and knowledge of how to cook healthy, affordable meals from scratch through our home-based recipe kit cooking courses. Participants collect their recipe kits from convenient collection points in the community. Each kit contains a recipe card and all the pre-measured ingredients needed to cook a healthy meal for themselves and their families. The cooking sessions at-home form the core of the course and are supported by knowledge cards and virtual discussion of nutritional topics that help to develop the confidence of the participant and their understanding of basic nutrition. The programme is based on a number of trials we have run over the last two years in partnership with the NHS, local councils, charities, and children’s centres, distributing over 1000 healthy meals to over 130 participants. We found that compared to traditional cooking courses, a home-based recipe kit course was more accessible to the target group and more effective in ensuring people actually cook healthy food at home, increasing their consumption of 5-a-day and also in developing their knowledge of healthy food and confidence to cook on their own.

ORBEM transforms food systems towards a sustainable future. Our A.I powered digital technology automatically analyzes and classifies biological samples without destroying them, revolutionizing the way we produce food to meet the needs of a rising population. We are currently building the ORBEM Genus, A.I. powered imaging technology that will solve two pressing problems in the poultry industry: the annual wasting of 9 billion infertile eggs and the unnecessary killing of 7 billion 1-day- old male chicks. The Genus combines cutting edge magnetic resonance imaging with advanced deep learning to classify eggs in three: infertile, males, and females. Our novel solution is making a difference with a triple bottom line strategy:

1) People: We’re introducing billions of eggs into the global food market.

2) Planet: We’re preventing the killing of billions of 1-day-old male chicks, reducing food waste and energy consumption along the way. 3) Profit: We’re creating new revenue streams, increasing hatchery efficiency, and reducing incubation costs.

TempEasy is a foodtech startup that is radically innovating the tempeh fermentation process to eradicate protein-energy malnutrition, a condition that tragically kills 8,000 children every day. By improving the fermentation process that produces tempeh, a 300-year-old high-protein meat-substitute that originated in Indonesia, we can increase its protein content, make it the world’s richest plant-based source of vitamin B12, and produce better tasting and more aesthetically appealing tempeh products. Moreover, we can enrich the protein content of almost any bean, legume, nut, and grain. Hence, by working together with local subsistence food producers, we can enhance their crop to not only help them make a better living but also improve the nutritional health of their communities. At the moment, we produce and sell delicious tempeh-based snacks. Soon, we will produce our own brand of ready-to-cook and ready-to-heat products to help accelerate the world’s transition towards plant-based diets.

VeggiHap; a Rotterdam based craft food company focusing on reimagining and reshaping vegetables into foods we all love. Over 50% veggies inside! The fortification with vegetables turns a simple pasta meal into a nutrient rich and healthy option! Pasta in unique shapes and colours! With vegetables such as carrot, pumpkin, beetroot, spinach and broccoli, our veggie pastas come in multiple short-cut pasta shapes. A Circular Story: reducing food waste by creating tasty and lovable foods with surplus and imperfect (ugly) vegetables directly sourced from farmers across the Netherlands.

1/3 of Europe's food is wasted (88M tonnes) and thus 1/3 of our resources could be saved. The negative impact on climate, land, water, and biodiversity and its direct global economic costs of $750B annually make it to one of the most pressing challenges of the food system.
Our solution is a first step towards a circular economy in the baking industry. We use bread which bakeries can't sell due to customer requirements of daily fresh bread and give value to it by making delicious bread chips. Additionally the popularity of savoury snacks makes it a perfect candidate for a food waste campaign. Every package contains facts about food waste, the amount of CO2 saved (= 60 g) per package, and a tip on how to reduce food waste at home since 45% of food waste occurs in private homes. This product campaign combination in itself is innovative in a truly sustainable way.