AI-generated summary
The FoodTech 500 list for this year highlights over 2,000 applicants from 60+ countries, showcasing a diverse range of innovative companies addressing the global food crisis through technology. These startups and scaleups focus heavily on sustainability, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), and SDG 3 (good health and well-being). The COVID-19 pandemic has both revealed vulnerabilities in the global food system and accelerated innovation, prompting increased investment in the FoodTech sector, with startups raising over €17 billion in 2020 alone.
Most of these companies are relatively young, founded since 2014, and are in early to intermediate financing stages. Notably, over 25% of the founders are women. The FoodTech 500 spans eight subsectors as defined by ForwardFooding’s taxonomy, including plant-based alternatives, exemplified by Spanish company NovaMeat, which recently secured €250,000 in funding from the NEOTEC program. For deeper insights into emerging food innovations and trends, the Future Trends Forum’s event “The Food of the Future” brings together global experts, such as Joxe Mari Aizega from the Basque Culinary Center, to discuss the future of sustainable food systems.
FoodTech 500, the list of startups and scaleups that are transforming the global agri-food sector, has just been presented by Alessio D'Antino, expert at the Future Trends Forum and founder of ForwardFooding
With more than 2,000 applicants from more than 60 countries, this year’s FoodTech 500 list recognizes an incredibly diverse set of applicants who are tackling the food crisis from all angles. Always with a common denominator: the use of technology as a lever for innovation.
As Roberto Ridolfi, expert at the Future Trends Forum, and Assistant Director-General of the FAO, said at the celebration of the think tank “The Food of the Future“, organized by the Bankinter Innovation Foundation in 2020, the future of food has to be associated with the sustainability of the food system and, specifically, with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Fundamentally, with SDG No. 2 , which seeks to eradicate hunger, and with SDG No. 12 , which seeks to guarantee sustainable consumption and production patterns.
That is why we aim “despite” and “thanks to” the pandemic. On the one hand, COVID-19 has exposed the shortcomings of the global food chain. On the other hand, it has accelerated the search for solutions to these shortcomings, advancing years of innovation in a few months and encouraging many investors to enter the Foodtech sector for the first time.
Worth noting: the funds raised by startups and scaleups in this sector during 2020 total more than 17 billion euros.
Of the 500 most cutting-edge companies in the Foodtech sector, and among the three main objectives they want to achieve with their solutions:
- 272 name SDG 2,
- 242 name SDG 12 and
- 210 name SDG 3 (good health and well-being).
They are young companies, most of them created from 2014 and in stages of seeking financing in intermediate phases (Series A and B) and initial (pre-seed and seed):
It is also interesting to note that more than 25% of the 500 have been founded by women.
The 500 best startups and scaleups of Foodtech cover the eight subsectors into which we can divide the solutions, according to the taxonomy proposed by ForwardFooding:
The list could not miss promising Spanish companies such as Novameat, dedicated to making plant-based meat substitutes, and which we echoed in a recent post where we analyzed the good health of the Spanish Foodtech ecosystem. NovaMeat has just received funds amounting to €250,000 from the NEOTEC program of the CDTI (Center for the Development of Industrial Technology).
If you want to know more about Foodtech and the most innovative proposals around the food chain, we invite you to read our trend at the Future Trends Forum “The food of the future“, where, in addition to D’Antino, 31 other world experts participated, including the Spaniard Joxe Mari Aizega, general director of the Basque Culinary Center.
