28 March 2023
Ten ambitious and innovative startups from around the world will pitch their plant-based products and innovations on stage during the first edition of Plant FWD on April 18 in Amsterdam.
During a six week period, plant-based startups from across the world had the opportunity to submit their pitches as part of the Plant FWD start-up program. The organization received over 60 submissions divided over a broad range of categories from 15 different countries including the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, the UK, Italy, Sweden, Estonia and many others. Carefully curated by the Plant FWD team, together with start-up partners Impact Hub Amsterdam and Brave New Food, these are the ten ambitious startups that will take the stage during the event:
BettaFish (Germany) aims to make you forget about tuna from the sea. Their TU-NAH tastes like tuna, looks like tuna, and is an all-rounder, just like the ‘original’. Creating healthier oceans and a mouth-watering, plant-based future.
De Nieuwe Keuken (the Netherlands) is on a mission to replace meat with vegetables on 10 million plates by 2027. And they are quite clear on how they are going to do this: by seducing consumers with delicious meat alternatives instead of making mediocre meat replacements. Or as they say on their packaging “Packed with loads of vegetables, but no unnecessary crap!”
Foodiq (Finland) is a plant-based factory company already delivering the innovations and production capacity for the next generation of food. They have developed their own IPs around a unique production methodology for plant-based dairy and a protein base from fermented fava beans with great nutritional value and a neutral taste.
IJsbaart (the Netherlands) Dutch for ‘Ice Beard’ offers the world a sustainable and plant-based alternative for one of the greatest guilty pleasures: ice cream. They are driven to become the #1 challenger ice cream brand in the Netherlands, after having successfully shown their proof of concept and developing their own production facility. Now they are ready to scale-up in foodservice, retail and beyond!
Koralo (Germany) are developing ‘new fish’ created by co-fermented mycelium and microalgae. No bottomless ingredient list, but simply delicious seafood with more nutrition than you could imagine. And they don’t just want to put your favorite seafood dish on your plate, but also let the oceans thrive.
Kynda Biotech (Germany) Fermentation has been called the game-changer for alt. proteins. But food companies lack low cost infrastructure and experience to produce mycelial proteins on their own. Kynda is aiming to solve this problem by being the first company to provide low-cost plug & play bioreactors, starter cultures and ongoing operational support on an industrial scale.
Plant B (the Netherlands) aims to reduce the enormous amount of eggs we consume each year. Just in the Netherlands, we eat 210 eggs a year per person on average. Plant B offers a unique & innovative plant-based egg to scramble, cook or bake with, for foodservice, the food industry and at home. Better for you, the planet and our chickens.
Snack with Benefits (the Netherlands) produces the tastiest and most sustainable snacks around, made from largely discarded vegetables. Locally sourced with no shortcuts, perfectly seasoned, served in convenient formats that are ridiculously craveworthy and accessible. They want to put mind blowing taste and passion back onto people’s plates and overthrow the stronghold of the greenhouse gas belching “bitterballen”.
STEM (France) STEM is a cell-based coffee start-up based in Paris with a mission to create a new and complementary stream of coffee production to ensure we may enjoy coffee for centuries to come. Their cell-based technology will provide for a huge simplification of the coffee value chain, with full control and consistency from cell to cup.
The Raging Pig Co (Sweden) is a food tech company on a mission to remove pigs from our global food system by offering plant-based products so amazing that even your dad will love them. Their starting point? BACON. They are providing the “pork experience” without the sacrifice for neither your tastebuds or health while adding a well-needed layer of “sex appeal” in order to fast-track the change we all needed yesterday.
Commenting on the entries, Marcel van der Heijden, one of the founders of Plant FWD:
“It’s been a challenging but exciting process choosing these 10 start-ups. We are very really impressed with the 60 innovative businesses and their solutions for a more sustainable and plant forward food system. There is great value and potential for what they have to offer to the industry and the world. The diversity in products that we saw is also very promising: next to alternative meat products, we see an increasing trend towards alternatives for fish, ingredients, meal-services and food-tech. We were also pleased to see a large share of startups using upcycled side streams, fermentation and the use of mycelium. We can’t wait to see these entrepreneurs pitch their businesses live on stage!”
These 10 startups will present their ideas live on stage to an audience of leading retailers, food companies, investors, talents, regulators and other change makers. Every start-up will have 2 minutes to pitch their idea, before fielding questions from the expert panel. The expert panel will consist of Mirjam Niessen, principal impact investments at DOEN Participaties, Jesse t Lam, founder and investor at Brave New Food, Marieke Keijsers, category manager at online supermarket Crisp and presented by Ilse Kwaaitaal, director at Impact Hub Amsterdam.