On the 1st of December 10 startups participating in the Startup Challenge 2022 will pitch their solutions live to leading food corporates and impact investors. Our independent, international jury panel is composed of highly respected and experienced creatives and entrepreneurs who have distinguished themselves as the best in their field. With their diverse knowledge and experience they will award the most promising startup with the honorary title of Brave New Food Startup of the Year 2022.
Rene van den Cruijsem is Country Director Benelux at Redefine Meat - with 3D printed, plant-based alternative meat-based products and 250 employees worldwide. Rene has broad experience in international food retail, special trade, drugstores, discount and e-commerce channels in top FMCG companies like P&G, Henkel, and Alpro. He has expertise in plant-based food categories, marketing, customer development and team development.
Maartje Frederiks successfully founded HelloFresh Benelux and France in 2012 and is therefore a known expert in entrepreneurship and building companies. She has in-depth experience with managing complex operational processes, creating high-performance and customer-centric teams. Over the past years, she grew the company to be the clear market leader in online food. At the moment, Maartje is a member of the supervisory board of PLUS Retail and enjoys sharing her knowledge as an advisor and angel investor with several start-ups in the European food industry.
Frits Snel is Chief of Markets at Tony’s Chocolonely - a Dutch confectionery company founded in 2005, which produces and sells chocolate. Tony’s Chocolonely is committed to make 100% slave free the norm in chocolate - not just their chocolate, but all chocolate worldwide. Frits’ expertise lies in international markets, fair prices, social impact and transparent product chains.
Marjolein Brasz is Managing Director at Foodvalley NL – an independent international organization working together with front runners to accelerate the global transition to a sustainable food system. Their global ambition: by 2050 there must be tasty, healthy, affordable and sustainable food for ten billion people. Marjolein combines her business sense and commercial attitude with a sustainable perspective and has profound knowledge about the food system, protein shift, systems change, circular agri-food, and transformational change.
Daniel Gebler is the Founder & CTO at Picnic, the world’s fastest growing online supermarket that makes grocery shopping simple, fun, and affordable for everyone. Daniel has an expertise in startups, ventures, software, disruption, and technology. Not without reason: with Picnic, they are the proud winners of the Challenger Award 2015, Best Start-up Award 2016, Most Innovative Company Award 2017, Fastest Growing Company Award 2018, and Retailer of the Year award 2019.
It is with great gratitude and honor that we thank the jury panel for dedicating their time, knowledge and work to adjudicate the Startup Challenge at the highest level.
The deadline for submissions has passed on November 1st. Do you still want to pitch in one of our other food innovation challenges? Check them out!