EIT Food Venture Summit: Food System Transformation

The food system is fragmented. Not only does it contribute almost a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, it wastes a third of all food produced. Whether this be at the harvest, retail or consumer level, this shocking stat underlines the urgent need for change. If we are to feed our increasing global population, and mitigate the damaging impacts of climate change, food production and consumption must become sustainable, regenerative, healthy and resilient.  

The EIT Food initiative is working to find solutions to these challenges, creating an inclusive and innovative community across the food value chain, and promoting the importance of collaboration in the transformation of the food system.  

 EIT Food’s Venture Summit

The Venture Summit is an annual event that brings together EIT Food’s diverse agrifood community of entrepreneurs, startups and scaleups, food industry leaders, academics, corporates and investors. This year’s event, 17-18 November, has gone virtual, enabling an even larger proportion of the community to come together to share ideas and explore future investment opportunities.  

The annual event acts as a platform to promote an entrepreneurial and innovative culture across Europe, with the mission to fast track transformational agrifood products and solutions. This is especially important given the fact that below 4% of startups are in the food sector, representing a huge market opportunity for new businesses in the space. 

What happens at the event?

Alongside networking sessions and a virtual marketplace where attendees can explore opportunities in EIT Food’s six focus areas, which range from sustainable agriculture to alternative proteins, EIT Food’s leading entrepreneurs pitch their ideas as they seek investments to grow and scale.  

Some of the interesting entrepreneurs pitching at this year’s event include:  

• SwissDeCode: Based in Switzerland, SwissDeCode helps farmers and food manufacturers to produce food that is safe and authentic by providing rapid, on-site food safety tests.  

Consumers want to know the food they eat is ”safe, sustainable and traceable” says @brij_sahi, co-founder of @SwissDeCode.

Find out more about Brij’s story and how his company’s onsite food safety DNA tests are helping make this happen: https://t.co/f4sgzjNV3b #VentureSummit20 pic.twitter.com/vFfPG71dLj

— EIT Food (@EITFood) November 11, 2020

A pre-event video produced by Greenhouse  

• TotalCtrl: Based in Norway,TotalCtrl is a food waste prevention software startup helping food businesses to save money and time, all while preventing food waste through control of inventories based on expiration dates.   

• Spoontainable: Germanstartup Spoontainable uses 100% natural resources to create edible cutlery and sustainable plastic alternatives for the catering industry.  

• NOVAMEAT: Headquartered in Spain, NOVAMEAT is creating plant-based meat substitutes, such as the first 3D printed plant-based beefsteak.

• Crover: Crover is on a mission to help grain-storekeepers reduce losses and maintain optimum storage conditions. The Scotland-based startup has developed a small robotic device capable of swimming through bulk solids and measuring conditions.

”We need to make sure we protect the environment while making the best quality of food we can,” says @Lorenzo_Conti, MD of @Crover_Tech.

Discover the story of this #agrifood startup and why Lorenzo is attending our #VentureSummit20: https://t.co/ETxB2S10t0 pic.twitter.com/r1iFgZ6ipB

— EIT Food (@EITFood) November 14, 2020

A pre-event video produced by Greenhouse  

Working together to improve the food system

Greenhouse is overjoyed to support EIT Food at such a critical time. in the lead up to this year’s event, we developed several digital and media assets to accompany the campaign. This included press materials, social media assets, a short video series, a digital toolkit and blog content including:  

•  The journey of an agrifood entrepreneur  
•  Why agrifood entrepreneurs are attending the EIT Food Venture Summit 2020  

 Read more about our wider work with EIT Food in this blog, or visit EIT Food’s website to find out more about the initiative.