Nutreco announced the top three finalists for its Feed & Food Tech Challenge 2020 (NFTC2020). The challenge acknowledges the best breakthrough innovations within livestock farming, aquaculture and NFTC2020’s new category, alternative food proteins. This week, 15 startups pitched their breakthrough innovations during a three-day virtual event to a jury and Nutreco audience in their respective categories.
Nutreco’s director of venturing and NFTC2020 head juror, Joost Matthijssen, said that “this week, we were introduced to breakthrough innovations from 15 startups, selected from over 110 submissions. The ideas were diverse, yet all placed a large focus on finding novel and sustainable ways to address key industry challenges. The jury was very impressed by these breakthrough innovations and the teams that developed them. And although it was difficult, we were able to select one groundbreaking idea per category.”
NFTC2020 Aquaculture finalist
The Finland-based biotech startup, eniferBio, was crowned the winner of the aquaculture category for NFTC2020. eniferBio’s idea to reinvent the Pekilo process to use it to provide a sustainable new feed ingredient to the aquaculture industry impressed the jury.
NFTC2020 Livestock finalist
In the livestock category for the NFTC2020, the jury was wowed by the data management and analytics platform showcased by Israeli startup, Poultrix. The platform aims to make livestock production more efficient, sustainable and responsible through remote and real-time monitoring for immediate control.
NFTC2020 Alternative Proteins finalist
The jury chose Colorado-based pet food company Bond Pet Foods to be the winner of the new NFTC2020 category alternative proteins. This startup produces high-quality cultured animal proteins through fermentation and harvests them to better meet the nutritional requirements of companion animals.
“As a pure biotech company, we had very little prior experience in the feed sector. Therefore, working with and mentoring by the experts of a large feed company such as Nutreco is very useful for us. So far, the competition has brought great visibility, already leading to new useful contacts. We are very pleased to be the winners of the aquaculture category and hope to become the overall winners for the Nutreco Feed&Food Tech challenge,” said eniferBio co-founder and chief strategy officer, Joosu Kuivanen.
The top three start-ups now have five days to work with their mentors and prepare for the final stage of the competition. On September 22, eniferBio, Poultrix and Bond Pet Foods will each give a one-hour PhD-defense-style presentation and Q&A, after which the NFTC2020 winner will be chosen. The NFTC2020 winner will receive the opportunity to carry out a validation trial with Nutreco.
