Wanted: valorization solutions for fresh cooked pasta

We are What's Cooking? (formerly known as Ter Beke Group), an innovative savoury food group that makes it easy for people to eat delicious food. Day by day, we want to make sustainable food consumption second nature. What's Cooking? is an innovative Belgian fresh foods business that markets its savory food in multiple European countries. The group has two core activities: savory cold cuts, snacks and freshly prepared ready meals. It has 12 industrial sites in Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Poland and the United Kingdom and employs approximately 3000 employees. What's Cooking? generated a turnover of EUR 781,4 million in 2022.

As a major producer of ready meals, we make our delicious pasta fresh daily at our production sites. As a group, we have a constant focus on sustainability. Reducing our residual streams is a daily aspiration and ambition. That is exactly why we are looking for innovative ideas (food and non-food applications) to give these residual flows a second life.

What we are looking for:

We are looking for applications that convert our side streams into more high-value applications.  

Fresh cooked pasta with approximately 48% dry substance (high carbohydrate) (durum pasta wheat semolina). Contains gluten and eggs. Besides that, it's free of additives and low in salt.

What we are not looking for:

Solutions that do not add value or will destroy residual flows or solutions.

What we offer:

• Opportunity to start a pilot collaboration 

Conditions for Participation:

• You can demonstrate a working prototype/product/service.
• You are able to start a pilot project in 3-6 months.

How does it work?

• Send in a short and concise pitch deck with your solution;
• As soon as you have uploaded your pitch, you will receive a confirmation so that you know that we have received your pitch;
• Your pitch is only visible to What's Cooking?;
• After the deadline, What's Cooking? will assess all pitches individually and invite the companies with the most interesting solutions for a 1:1 conversation to get to know each other and look for opportunities to collaborate.

Pitch format

• Send in a short and concise pitch deck of your solution (max 4 pages / 12 slides) with description of the following two parts: 
  • A description of your product or solution:
    Give a short description of your product or solution, as detailed and visual as possible. In which phase is the solution?
  • A description of your company & team;
    How and when was your company founded? In which phase are you? How many people? In which market are you active? Also a short description of the (managing) team.
• The pitch deck may be submitted in free form (presentation, slide deck, letter form), but must be uploaded as a PDF file (landscape or portrait A4 - max 30MB). Videos, example websites, etc. can be included as a link.

Timeline

• December 7 at 17.00 CET: Deadline challenge
• December 8 – December 20: Review period 
• January 2024: 1:1 conversations
• Q1/Q2 2024 onwards: Discuss and start collaboration

Terms & conditions

• Participation is open for startups, scale-ups, SMEs, grown-ups, innovators and scientists with an innovative product and/or technology;
• You will remain the owner of your intellectual rights, concept or solution in your pitch, until you agree otherwise;
• Be aware of the fact that your pitch (and concepts and ideas in it) will be viewed and be shared with (internal) stakeholders. Keep IP sensitive unique (technical) details out of your pitch, keep it a secret that you can share later;
• We strongly advise you to document everything you share with others and mention that information provided is confidential and intellectual property rights remain with you/ your company until agreed otherwise;
• Download Terms & Conditions.