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The first edition of our acceleration program Baking the Future, came to an end yesterday with the celebration of the “Demo Day”, a virtual event that aimed to present the projects of the three accelerated startups and communicate the opening of a second edition.

Innovation is part of our DNA. The company itself was born from an idea that revolutionized the bakery sector and since then, Europastry has always sought to be at the forefront of the sector, anticipating new trends and offering its
customers the most disruptive products. “If you stop innovating you end up losing competitiveness and capacity for growth. That is why it is very important to keep reinventing yourself and never think that what you have is for life“, said Jordi Gallés.

The Baking the Future acceleration program plays a very important role in this constant renewal. Startups help us to innovate and open up new opportunities that allow us to take our products to the next dimension, while at the same time we provide them with all of Europastry’s muscle so that they can grow and develop their projects with the greatest possible resources.

Baking the Future

“CEREAL DEMO DAY”

The celebration of the “Demo Day” took place at Cereal, Europastry’s Innovation Center, where the first idea was born and where today we continue to work with great passion to bring to market the best products in the sector. To conclude the first edition of the Baking the Future program, the three accelerated startups presented their projects whose drivers are sustainability and health:

Agrain

  • The Chilean startup Done Properly with its cutting-edge technology which, through a bioprocess of fermentations, manages to reduce the amount of salt enhancing the natural flavors of food.
  • The Danish startup Agrain with its new way of producing food by recycling grains used in the brewing industry.
  • Spanish startup Bread Free, is the world’s first company capable of creating gluten-free wheat flour to make bread, pasta, and other bakery products.

 

BAKING THE FUTURE OPENS A NEW SELECTION PROCESS

Building an open innovation model for Europastry is the goal of the Baking the Future program. For this reason, we are opening a new selection process for Those startups that want to revolutionize the bakery sector with projects related to sustainability, improving the consumer experience, health, and food solutions and technologies aimed at improving production without losing sight of the quality of the products.

Starting today, those interested in being part of the project can apply on the Baking the Future website. Selected startups will have access to all the company’s resources – from mentoring sessions, workspace, and access to Cereal’s state-of-the-art technology labs to business plan design – to develop their products and test their viability in the market.

Spain has more than 400 Foodtech startups, being one of the major powers in the sector worldwide.

The agri-food sector is one of the engines of the Spanish economy, concentrating almost 10% of GDP, but we also have the opportunity to become a world power in innovation in the sector, thanks to “Foodtech”, a term with which any technology applied to the agri-food value chain is known. And this is demonstrated by the 2021 edition of the report on the State of Foodtech in Spain, a quantitative study that analyzes the sector that has been prepared for the second year by Eatable Adventures, one of the three leading foodtech accelerators globally.

2021 has been a great year for the entrepreneurial ecosystem in new technologies applied to food. Despite the difficulties suffered by the economy as a result of COVID-19, the net figure of 407 startups in the sector was consolidated, with 9% of them having been born this year. Spain is positioned as one of the main global powers in the sector, similar to France, ahead of the United Kingdom, but far behind the 900 startups in Israel or the 200 in Singapore, much smaller territories than our country. 

However, the most remarkable fact is the significant growth in investment received by these startups throughout 2021, reaching 695 million Euros, a growth of +220%, more than triple that in 2020. This figure places foodtech as the second category of investment in startups in our country, behind only transportation. Most of this investment takes place in very early stages (23% preseed and 46% seed). The 23% is in series A and only 5% in later stages or 2% in acquisitions. Glovo leads the highest round, with 450 million euros, followed by Biotech Foods with 36 million euros, Heura with 16 million euros and Biome Makers and Crowdfaming with 15 million euros each. 

Startups and the agri-food value chain

The concern of our entire society for sustainability, combined with the growing demand of consumers for healthier products, has been understood by the sector as great opportunities, increasing the number of startups that focus on the primary sector of the chain, on agriculture and livestock, seeking more sustainable formulas in production. Thus, 24% of startups work in agrifoodtech (vs. 17% in 2020), 35% in production and transformation, 24% in distribution and retail, and 17% in restaurant tech. 

Of those startups working in the primary sector, this year there is a greater weight in projects focused on the modernization of crops, applying software and automation in the processes (36%), while the weight of new methods of cultivation (18%) or the application of biotechnology in the fields (16%) is slightly reduced.

Analyzing the food process, which continues to be the most important point in the agri-food value chain (35%), there is a change in the search for new ingredients with which to produce alternative foods (47%), as opposed to plant-based or insect-based foods, which was the main driver until now (24%).

In the logistics section, the weight of direct-to-consumer models (74%), which in 2020 had gained very significant weight due to COVID-19, is slightly reduced. However, we see how many of these startups, which started out focused on the distribution of cooked food in restaurants (delivery), are expanding their catalogs to shift towards e-grocery.

Finally, in restaurant tech, we can clearly see how projects related to improved management thanks to artificial intelligence and the use of data are growing (40%), whereas until now this category was led by reservation platforms.

An important point of the study is the technology used in these projects. In 2021 we see how the use of biotechnology (32.05%) grows, mainly in food processing and crop improvement, but also Artificial Intelligence (28.21%) and Machine Learning (24.36%), in this case in a much more transversal way as they have applications in practically all points of the value chain. Robotics (12.82%) and Blockchain (6.41%) have a lower use in the volume of projects analyzed, for having a lower versatility and being more specific technologies but we see how there is growth compared to the 2020 report, confirming their consolidation as base technologies of foodtech.

It is important to highlight that 30.2% of the projects have patents, which helps to build a solid ecosystem with its own intellectual property that places our country in an opportune position of leadership, allowing us to export not only materials and processes, but also knowledge.

The profile of the entrepreneur is similar to that of the previous year: 40 years old, male (80%), starting up alone (14%) or with 1 partner (26%), and with less than 5 employees (46%), but 92% of them declare that in 2022 they will increase their workforce, confirming the employment generation capacity of the ecosystem.

 

What still needs to be improved, according to entrepreneurs

The study also includes a qualitative dimension that seeks to reflect the sector’s unfinished business. According to this, entrepreneurs state the importance of research centers in the development of startups in the sector (89% in 2021 vs. 65% in 2020), although it is perceived that universities do not fulfill this role, although this has improved slightly (50% in 2021 vs. 61% in 2020).

Knowledge of the sector by international investors is attributed as a reason why they invest in the sector (88% in 2021 vs 85% in 2020), which contrasts with the sentiment that the domestic investor lacks this knowledge, although this has improved this year (41% in 2021 vs 63% in 2020). It is important to highlight how the data reflects the change that the food industry is undergoing and is perceived as supporting the development of startups (67% in 2021 vs 43% in 2020).

And the point of subsidies is still pending, although it has improved. Entrepreneurs continue to demand greater ease of access to specific public aid for the sector (53% in 2021 state that this is a problem vs 72% in 2020).

For José Luis Cabañero, CEO of Eatable Adventures: “The tripling of investment data in 2021 and the significant volume of startups operating in our country show how the foodtech sector is confirmed as a great opportunity for the economy of our country, which will grow even more with the involvement of the public sector, corporations, research centers and universities”.

Download here the report and get to know more about our thriving food technology scene.

Cereal, Europastry’s new bread and pastry R&D center, hosted the presentation of the startups that will be part of Baking the Future, the first acceleration program in the bakery sector.

After receiving over 100 candidacies with innovative solutions from startups all over the world, three were chosen: Done Properly (Chile), Agrain (Denmark) and Bread Free (Spain).

INNOVATION IN HEALTH AND SUSTAINABLE BAKING

Health and sustainability in food products are the drivers of the solutions presented by the three selected startups.

Thus, Chile’s Done Properly has successfully developed a cutting-edge technology that, through a fermentation bioprocess, reduces the amount of salt in products by boosting the natural flavors of foods.

Denmark’s Agrain, for its part, proposes a new method of food production involving the recycling of grain used in the brewing industry to transform it into flour. This grain has been partially used, as the beer brewing process uses just the sugars and starches. With the flour made by Agrain, it is possible to produce bread products that are more sustainable and have a higher nutritional value.

Lastly, Navarre’s Bread Free is the first company in the world capable of creating gluten-free wheat flour for making bread, pasta and other bakery products. This technology, pioneering in the world, is being developed in collaboration with the CNTA (Centro Nacional de Tecnología y Seguridad Alimentaria).

 

SIX MONTHS TO REVOLUTIONIZE BREAD BAKING

The goal of the Baking the Future program is to construct an open innovation model for Europastry. In the first six months, the entrepreneurs from Done Properly, Agrain and Bread Free will benefit from all the company’s resources, including mentoring sessions, a workspace and access to Cereal’s cutting-edge laboratories, and designs of business plans, among other forms of assistance, to develop their products and test their market viability. 

These months of preparation will be followed by Demo Day, the moment when the startups will present their projects to a network of private investors and highly qualified experts.