GEC & ECP

The following “Next Generation Food” discussion was moderated by Lee Greene, NRW FoodHub, was as insightful. 
After the keynote address by Alexander Märdian, Head of Innovation Hub, DIL German Institute of Food Technologies, Germany, the panel experts, Prof. Thomas Herget,Head of Silicon Valley & China Innovation Hub at Merck Group, USA, Dr. Christoph Mandl, Business Creation Manager CLC Central, EIT Food Accelerator Network (EIT FAN), Germany, Rodrigo Hortega de Velasco, Head of Investments, Döhler Ventures GmbH, Germany, Carolin Wais, Carolin Wais, Investor, Plug & Play Ventures, USA, and  Clément Tischer, Head of Innovation & Partnerships, NX-Food GmbH, Germany, shared information on the latest innovation trends in the agro-food industry, from soil conservation technologies to alternative protein production and waste management. 

The main takeaways of the ECP food panel:

• Food innovation is currently a surging topic amongst entrepreneurs, investors, and corporates targeting these main priorities: taste and texture, price, functionality, cutting emissions, circularity, and health
• There is a shift in advancing the global food system to a more sustainable & resilient ecosystem which can be achieved depending on high technological-based, and energy efficiency solutions. The transformation is , fueled by the growing world population and changing consumer demand in developed and emerging countries
• One important innovation driver is the consumer demand, especially on price, taste, and texture. Most promising areas are expected in: vertical farming, protein diversification with a focus on new taste profiles and textures, valorization of food waste, the internet of the food to raise efficiency within the supply chain, and personalization of nutrition
• A topic that currently catches the most attention is protein diversification, where all technology platforms (e.g., plant-based, cell-based, fermentation, insects) will play an important role in the future. Despite regional differences regarding consumer acceptance, achieving price parity at scale with traditional sources of protein will be critical to unlocking mass markets:
  • Precision fermentation remains a hot topic with promising high tech technology, applied for high-value ingredients, however, it still facing regulations bottlenecks from the European regulatory which is not supporting GMOs
  • Algea technologies are a very active filed and they have huge potential and successful startups 
  • Cultured meat is still highly complex in technology and facing many market barriers in the short-run however it is estimated to reach price parity in 2030, providing a potentially sustainable (especially in water and the use of microplastics) and healthy (without antibiotics, no hormones, or contamination) meat alternative
• To advance the current food innovation system within Europe, startups need more access to technical playing fields such as laboratory & production facilities to support scalability, more open collaboration between corporates and startups, and a European legal framework that acknowledges new technologies in food.
• There is also a technological valley of death coming from the gap between innovations in the academics ecosystem and the access to scalability support from external ecosystems, creating a critical need to bridge the gap between university to application
• Educating consumers with convincing use cases is the main challenge for all stakeholders. One of the approaches to overcome this challenge was discussed by bringing the gastronomy sector into the ecosystem, as a use case for an initial market launch of the products, eventually educating customers and shifting their mindsets about novel products through chefs, or culinary services