On December 1st the Brave New Food Partner & Pitch Event took place: a perfect time to connect, get inspired and take in new, innovative ideas within the food industry. In case you missed it; the entire event made your mouth watery and drop! Here’s some of the highlights, so you can get a (visual) taste of the future of food, too.
While Emmelie Zipson opened the event asking the crowd how they were doing (“good”), it left them a bit more stunned when she asked how they were feeling about the state of the planet (“nahhh”). Luckily, the majority of the crowd was still feeling hopeful about the future. And if it’s up to Jesse ‘t Lam, co-founder of Brave New Food, that’s exactly the point of coming together through Brave New Food: “This event isn’t supposed to be a finale: it’s a starting point,” he said while opening the event.
Then it was time for the inspiring pitches from innovative startups and scale-ups which left us inspired and curious for more (in case you feel like diving deeper, we’d highly recommend taking a look at who the 10 finalists were). After the finalists pitched their food solutions, the independent jury went in conclave and the audience was able to vote through a QR-code. Almost 50% of the votes went to Time-Travelling Milkman for the Audience Prize, an inspiring Dutch company that produces creamy, sustainable, and healthy ingredients for dairy alternatives. The Jury Prize went to Peelon, an innovative startup based in the US, that makes biodegradable, plant-based protective coatings that extend shelf-life of fresh produce up to three times. Marjolein Brasz, one of the jury members, expressed: “It was difficult choosing a winner. They are all brave people, working on delicate matters. We looked at innovation power, impact on sustainability and health, scalability and execution power on team and brand. Peelon was an interesting candidate who addressed two urgent themes: plastic and food waste.”
The winners suitably received an award sustainably made from mycelium - the root structure of fungi with a regenerative resource which is suitable for packaging, design and insulation. We’d hereby like to congratulate the winners, once again!
During the event we were delighted to go to the ‘Taste the Future’ Market, which also – indeed – gave a fine taste of what the future might look like as a whole. You were able to taste artisan plant-based cheeses and dairy from Max&Bien, vegan ice cream from Montgomery’s and SUNT Food’s donuts and banana bread made from rescued bananas. We got our healthy drinks from Kumasi Drinks, made from fruit juice of the cocoa pulp, and Sjakes – who also happened to be one of the finalists - offered their healthy smoothies. As if that wasn’t impressive enough already, rose&vanilla handed out some of their delicious gluten- and lactose-free snacks and bites, and those that were curious to get a taste of meat made from crickets and grasshoppers were able to do so at De Krekerij.
The fun wasn’t over there; afterwards it was time to drink and chat and get inspired even more by getting a taste of the yummiest bites made by the students of STREATS. STREATS is a brand-new food truck of Hotelschool The Hague that travel the streets with rescued food (and large ambitions, we must say). All in all, the event left our minds inspired and our stomachs full, while at the same time leaving us hungry for more. With innovative initiatives like these, we can’t wait to see the brave new future unfold!
There were technical difficulties during the event, and therefore we want to offer our apologies to the attendees and finalists. We promise to do better next time. We hope you enjoyed the event nevertheless, and we hope to see you next time.