Webinar: Foodtech in Spain- Addressing new challenges across the food value chain

14/03/2023/in Ecosystem, Partnership, Uncategorized, Webinar/by Eatable Adventures

WEBINAR

28/03/2023. Online

ICEX Spain Trade & Investment has recently launched its third report on the Foodtech sector in Spain. As a result, a webinar on “Foodtech in Spain: Addressing new challenges across the food value chain” will take place, featuring prominent stakeholders, from investors, and innovation hubs, to corporations and startups, of the Spanish foodtech ecosystem who were highlighted in the report and are currently developing initiatives to support innovative solutions to various challenges. The webinar aims to give visibility to the Spanish Foodtech ecosystem and showcase its potential to become a leading Foodtech Nation.

WHY PARTICIPATE

The Foodtech industry in Spain is experiencing a significant transformation towards more sustainable and efficient projects, aided by public and private support at regional and national levels. These developments have helped Spain maintain its strength in Foodtech investment, even in the face of the industry’s most significant investment drop.

Despite the challenges, the Foodtech sector in Spain saw a rise of up to €268M in 2022, representing a 9.38% increase since the previous year, excluding the Glovo effect, as revealed in our latest report “Addressing new challenges across the food value chain”.

In addition to successfully securing significant investment operations with both national and international players, the Foodtech industry has witnessed a substantial growth in the number of operators within its ecosystem. This includes a notable increase from 407 to 412 startups in the past year, alongside over 30,000 companies engaged in food transformation. Furthermore, the industry benefits from the involvement of more than 50 specialized universities and 20 advanced technology centers.

Join us as we explore the intricacies of the Spanish foodtech industry’s future through the perspectives of investors (Clave Capital), corporations (Mahou San Miguel), startups (Oscillum), and technology centers (Eatex Food Innovation Hub). Discover success stories, compelling projects, and programs that are facilitating collaboration between the industry and technology centers.

If you’re interested in delving deeper into the current state and challenges of the country’s food sector, download the report here.

AGENDA

Where

Via online

When

28-03-2023 – 16.00 – Foodtech in Spain: Addressing new challenges across the food value

Registration

Registration is completely free. Register yourself in the following link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ncDuDO8lT9uSEg8fBzmQfA

SPEAKERS

Maria Naranjo, the Agrifood Industry Director of ICEX, will be introducing the following speakers:

Patricia Larráyoz, Innovation Hub Manager – Eatex Food Innovation Hub

Eatex Food Innovation Hub: Eatex is the collaborative innovation hub for technology transfer and implementation in the agri-food industry, promoting and financing collaborative R&D&I projects for the development of innovative technological solutions that can be transferred from R&D centers to the agri-food industry.

Pedro de Alava, Fund Manager – Clave Capital

Clave Capital: Clave Capital is a venture capital management company with 20 years of experience, during which time they have made more than 90 investments, and actively collaborate in the definition of strategy and management of investee companies.

They promote technology transfer projects, industrial SMEs and renewable energy projects. They are currently launching a new €80M investment fund for technology transfer projects in the health sector.

Carlos Jacoste – Entrepreneurship, Venturing and New Technologies Manager – Mahou San Miguel

Mahou San Miguel: Mahou San Miguel is the leading Spanish company in the beer sector in our country and the most international, with a presence in more than 70 countries. The company is a family of more than 3,876 professionals who, with their enthusiasm and commitment, strive every day to make our brands part of the best moments of our consumers. Mahou San Miguel drives innovation, they believe in people, seek excellence, enjoy doing things well and create sustainable businesses and environments.

Luis Chimeno Morales, Co founder & CMO – Oscillum

Oscillum: Oscillum is a biotech company that develops sensors for the agri-food industry. Founded in Alicante (2019), Oscillum has developed SmartLabel a smart label that is placed in contact with food and is able to alert about the state of spoilage/freshness of that product by a simple color change.

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FONDO EUROPEO DE DESARROLLO REGIONAL (FEDER). A way of making Europe

This service/activity is eligible for co-financing from Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER)

Spain Foodtech Partners: Alianza Team

15/12/2022/in Uncategorized/by Eatable Adventures

Alianza Team® is a Colombian company with expertise in lipids and fats and a leader in the food sector. With operational presence in Colombia, Chile and Mexico, the company develops high-tech food solutions.

In 2019, it launches its venture capital albora® with the purpose of accelerating knowledge capture and enabling the organization to generate greater value for its business units and stakeholders, through collaboration with startups and research centers.

OPEN INNOVATION PORTAL

In 2020, Alianza Team® first began collaborating together with Eatable Adventures, on open innovation projects such as the first “Hack the Food System” scouting, which was centered on finding the most disruptive startups in the lipid ecosystem.

Since then, the company has continued its commitment to drive open innovation with Scouting and Challenge projects to efficiently and quickly solve industry challenges.

In 2022, the challenges evolve to the more sophisticated side of innovation with the first Open Innovation Portal, a platform that brings together all startup initiatives for industry challenges.

“Innovation is part of our company’s DNA, being a pillar that we seek to promote throughout the value chain. Our bet with the Open Innovation Portal is to promote an innovative ecosystem that leverages the growth of all the actors that are part of it”.

Maria Paula Rios, VP of Innovation and Digital Transformation of Alianza Team

Food 4 Future – Foodtech World Summit in Bilbao

28/04/2022/in Ecosystem, Events, Foodtech, Partnership, Uncategorized/by Eatable Adventures

Food 4 Future– Expo FoodTech (#F4F2022) the international reference forum where food and beverage industry professionals learn about the latest trends, solutions, and technologies to optimize and innovate throughout the value chain, will take place from May 17 to 19 in Bilbao.

This year, Food 4 Future celebrates its second edition which is expected to attract more than 7,000 congress participants and 253 exhibiting brands. A meeting point for innovation managers, IT managers, marketing managers, and CEOS of the food industry, emphasizes the major challenges of the industry: sustainability, food safety, and the digitization and automation of industrial production processes.

Food 4 Future encourages the transfer of knowledge and experience among international professionals and experts, including renowned scientists and researchers, startups that are redesigning the food industry, top chefs, and representatives of the public administration. Food 4 Future, organized by NEBEXT and AZTI, has the support of the Basque Government, the City Council of Bilbao, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, the BASQUE TRADE, ICEX, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the Government of Spain; and the associations and collaborators that are leaders in this industry as HAZI, NEIKER, ELIKA, EIT Food, ILSI Europe, Food for Life, SPRI, Eatable Adventures, SanTelmo Business School or IASP (international association of science parks and innovation areas).

Agenda

The congress will feature more than 70 sessions and vertical forums for each sector of the agri-food industry, which will focus the debate on the major challenges facing the industry, with special emphasis on the application of automation and robotics, the transition to the new Industry 4.0, and content related to sustainable and healthy food.

As strategic partners in this event, we would like to highlight that Eatable Adventures’ Ecosystem Manager & Innovation Consultant Paula Álvarez Ameijeiras will moderate a round table where leaders in the industry such as Anthony Finbow, CEO of Eagle Genomics, Charis Galanakis, R&I Director of Galanakis Laboratories & Mathew Gorton from New Castle Unversity will be discussing “R&I for sustainable and healthy food systems” on May 17th at 12.00h.

Furthermore, Eatable Adventures’ Managing Partner & Co-Founder Mila Valcárcel will be speaking in a session about “Building a strong global foodtech ecosystem from Spain” on May 18th at 12.45h.

For more details about the Agenda of Food 4 Future Summit visit their webpage.

We are Partners at World Agri-Tech South America Summit

24/07/2020/in Partnership, Startups-article, Uncategorized/by Eatable Adventures

Partners at World Agri-Tech South Summit America

As World Agri-Tech South America partners, we had the pleasure of interviewing Innovation representatives from Raízen and Adama, two companies that are currently disrupting the agri-food system and developing solutions by partnering with startups across the Agritech space.

Raízen is an energy company that operates in all stages of the process, from the cultivation of cane, production of sugar, ethanol and bioenergy, to the commercialization, logistics and distribution of goods. They invest in solutions based on only the best innovation and sustainability practices, acting as a reference in the production of renewable energy.

Adama is a company dedicated to the production of agrochemicals, but they also offer AgTech and crop protection solutions in their services portfolio. They work with a purpose: to listen, learn and deliver integrated solutions for farmers to increase their productivity with sustainability.

We had the opportunity to talk to Jose Massad, Director of Information Technology at Raízen, and Roberson Marczak, Innovation Manager at ADAMA Latam.

Covid-19 induced challenges

Jose explained that the main challenge that people have felt during this time has been the unexpected changes thrown at them by the crisis. There was no time to prepare for the challenges ahead and Raizen, for example, quickly established actions to directly combat covid induced impacts, through partners and full team collaboration. From a technology perspective, it was a major challenge when the whole team had to self-isolate and work from home.

Roberson told us that him and his team also had to adapt to the new reality of teleworking and social distancing. He also raised an interesting question: How can we keep in touch with our customers, when we are faced with social restrictions? In fact, ADAMA digital services have proved to be very resourceful tools for farmers during this time, in order to maintain communication with their technical consultants and sales reps, despite contact and visit restrictions within farms. For Roberson, digitalisation of this kind is here to stay, as farmers adapt increasingly more with ease to these technologies

Transforming the agrifood market with technology

Jose said that in Raizen, they currently have an ongoing digital agriculture transformation that includes the use of disruptive technology such as on-board computers, precision agriculture, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), drones for application of inputs, artificial intelligence for prediction and optimization of production, among others.

In ADAMA? Roberson explained that AgTech services are part of ADAMA´s core business and portfolio strategy. For him; “The integration between farming and digital technologies is the key to taking agriculture to a new level of productivity”. The adoption of AgTech tools will have a similar effect on traditional farms, like the effect of digital technologies on entertainment, banking and travel, for example. It offers many benefits, including:

Supporting agronomic decisions with quantifiable data.
Reduction of operating costs and uncertainty while increasing peace of mind for farmers.
Minimizing potential negative environmental impact and agronomic risks.
Increase efficiency of products, by applying it the right spraying.

Working with startups to accelerate the agriculture industry

Jose asserted that innovation is one of Raizens main foundations and in 2017 they launched Pulse, one of the biggest hubs in Brazil that promotes open innovation, and which has helped to generate a strong agribusiness ecosystem across the country.
“Initiatives like Pulse will be increasingly used as key partners in solutions for the agricultural sector.”
The hub currently collaborates with more than 28 startups, and over 50 projects have already been tried and tested, 6 of which have signed a contract to be incorporated in Raizens technological environment and to start working as solution providers.

For Roberson, “startups are a powerful way to speed things up for AgTech”. The key is to select startups that are working on farmers pain points and that always put them first through their technologies. To work with startups is to inject agility into your company, but beware, a lot of the time they also require extra direction in terms of solutions development. Such a large company like ADAMA can act as this guide during the development process to increase their chances of success.
ADAMA boasts several partnerships with startups in Brazil, but mainly in Israel; their country of origin. After working with various startups, they have learnt that the most important factor is trying not to change the way a startup works. “We let the startups come up with the idea and we refine together the agronomic and financial aspects.”

Changes in the agriculture sector

For Jose, the increased use of technologies is generating major changes in the sector, with an impact on the entire production process. It’s these kinds of synergies that allow a once traditional sector to optimize processes and contribute directly to the discovery of new solutions.

For Roberson, there is something missing in the agriculture space, and that’s the ability to move to the next technological level and experience a new revolution; data integration. “The challenge is how to bring data from rural areas to communication networks, to be processed and transformed into useful information”, allowing farmers to make future decisions and not only passively contemplate what has already happened in their farms that can no longer be modified.