Nutreco unveils its five Feed & Food Tech Challenge finalists

One revolutionary idea from Nutreco Feed & Food Tech Challenge 2022 (NFFTC22) could be the next global breakthrough innovation in protein production. This year's challenge brought together 15 of the best and brightest startups selected out of 150 applicants from 48 countries for the pitch day on June 30. A jury of industry experts chose startups Beakbook, BioBetter, Multus, Tepbac and AquaRech for the final round of the Challenge, for their groundbreaking ideas in the field of alternative proteins, aquaculture and livestock production.

In addition to the jury selection, the live audience was invited to cast its vote for the three most innovative ideas. These audience awards, which do not influence the jury selection of finalists going through to the next round, help the participating startups understand whether their products or services are likely to appeal to the mass market. YieldX, BioBetter and Tepbac' innovations won over the public vote.

'It's a pivotal time for global food production. With the NFFTC, we proactively seek breakthrough innovations that could change the future of our industry, help produce food in a more sustainable way and solve key challenges in feed and food production. We've been very impressed by the quality, passion and effort of the 2022 applicants," says Nutreco's Director of Venturing & Business Development and NFFTC22 head juror Joost Matthijssen.

The Finalists for Nutreco Feed & Food Tech Challenge 2022 
The expert jury narrowed the contenders' list to five high-potential teams with at least one potential groundbreaking idea per category. 

- Alternative protein finalists
BioBetter has developed a cost-effective, protein expression plant-based platform to produce complex growth factors for use in cultivated meat. Their proprietary purification process reduces production costs and substantially simplifies the process compared to other currently available purification platforms.

Multus creates animal-free serum replacements that promote cell growth without expensive nutrients. They believe that tackling the shortcomings of conventional livestock farming is critical to securing a sustainable future.

- Aquaculture finalists
Tepbac is a digital aquaculture farm management platform for fish and shrimp farms that reduce risks and improves the yield through access to cost, inventory and remote management tools.

AquaRech is a platform allowing fish farmers to buy feed, access tools to operate their farm and sell their fish production - efficiently, sustainably, and transparently.​ Its vision is to become the number one service platform for small and medium-sized fish farmers in Africa.​

-Livestock finalist
Beakbook is a weight collection and prediction system for chickens, specialising in transparent, high-accuracy data collection that farmers can trust. Their API allows developers to integrate data from farm-side sensors easily.

More about the Challenge  
The next phase of the Challenge is to pitch at a hybrid event with industry leaders, investors, jury members and both live and online audiences on October 10 & 11, 2022. The NFFTC22 winner will receive further mentoring and the opportunity to carry out a validation trial with Nutreco.

Find out more about the finalists, judges and teams who pitched via the website, HERE.

The Aquaculturists

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