MOA Foodtech has been announced as the winner of the European Scale It Up! Innovation Challenge. After a successful program in the US in 2021, Bühler, Givaudan, Cargill, Puris and the new partner DIL are bringing combined innovation to help support plant-based protein start-ups scale up and commercialise in Europe and the Middle East.
"This Scale It Up! Innovation challenge was a great experience for us," says Bosco Emparanza, Founder of MOA Foodtech. "We had some amazing results in just one week of trials, and we are very excited about what we are going to do in the next few months with those great partners. We are confident that we will take meat analogs to the next level."
From over 50 start-ups who applied for the challenge, competition came down to a final cohort of five companies who made the final: Aliga Microalgae from Denmark, YEAP from Israel, Plantway from Poland, Cultivated Biosciences from Switzerland and MOA Foodtech from Spain.
The winner and runner-up will be supported through a three- and six-month acceleration phase where they'll have access to mentorship and networks of partners, as well as R&D support with access to partners' pilot plants in order to bring their ideas from prototypes to market ready.
MOA Foodtech was selected as winner for the Europe & Middle East challenge, as a company that combines biotechnology and AI to transform side streams and by-products of the agri-food industry into sustainable protein with nutritional value. MOA Foodtech aims to solve global growing food demands without the need for land by designing natural and nutritious food through upcycling.
The runner-up Cultivated Biosciences is developing a clean label and sustainable fat ingredient from oleaginous yeast, offering the creaminess needed for plant-based dairy.
"Receiving this validation from the jury composed of the heads of R&D of the best foodtech companies and institutions in the world is an incredible milestone for us and source of motivation," states Tomas Turner, Co-founder of Cultivated Biosciences. "The access to the facilities to pilot our ingredient as well as connection to the decision makers in the food industry has allowed for amazing improvements in our R&D collaboration pipeline."
Having successfully completed challenges in the US and Europe, sponsor companies will bring the next Scale It Up! Challenge to Asia later this year.
"The finalists were so strong in this challenge that it made selecting a winner very difficult," says Fabio Campanile, Global Head of Science & Technology Taste & Wellbeing at Givaudan.
"The range of technologies from algae-based ingredients to fats produced via fermentation was outstanding. I'm sure we will see much more from all of the companies involved," he concludes.
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The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
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