A unique collaboration of 14 early-stage food tech startups, eight leading global food companies, and key partners, including Accenture, the Good Food Institute, and SOSV, will be part of the 2024 MISTA Growth Hack.
MISTA, a food innovation platform, and a Givaudan entity, aims to bring new sustainable ingredients and technologies to life to feed the planet. This year’s Growth Hack aims to develop integrated, nutritious, affordable, and sustainable foods, beverages, and snacks by enhancing biomass fermentation. This technology grows nutrient-dense microbial cells that can improve the nutritional and sensory performance of foods and beverages.
“The food system needs new solutions to feed the 8.5 billion people that will populate the Earth in 2030”
“The food system needs new solutions to feed the 8.5 billion people that will populate the Earth in 2030,” said Céline Schiff-Deb, CSO for MISTA. “Fermentation biomass is an approach that grows microbial cells (think microalgae, fungi, yeast, or bacteria) that are packed with healthy nutrients, including proteins, fibres, vitamins, and minerals. These cells are fed simple nutrients and multiply in the controlled environment of a fermenter (for example, brewing beer).”
Image courtesy of MISTA
Selected startups
The startups were selected based on their unique technologies, a broad range of organisms, and feedstock approaches, such as sugar, agricultural side streams, or CO2.
Each one will develop a food or beverage prototype highlighting its unique ingredients. The teams will consist of experts from both the startups and collaborating experts from several large corporate MISTA members, including AAK, Buhler, CJ CheilJedang, Danone, Givaudan, Ingredion, JPG Resources, and SIG. They will work to combine their individual companies’ expertise and solution sets into a distinctive and collaborative approach designed to disrupt conventional development processes, explains MISTA.
The initial conceptualization will be virtual, followed by physical meetings to finalize projects in early November. The selected participans are the following:
Image courtesy of MISTA
Unveiling products
The challenge will culminate in a two-day event at the MISTA Innovation Center or at Givaudan’s Zurich Innovation Centre in Switzerland on November 19th and 20th, 2024.
On day one, MISTA will host a technical symposium, bringing together experts from around the globe to discuss biomass fermentation scale-up and product adoption. Day two will feature the presentations of findings and attendees’ sampling of each team’s culinary outputs.
Scott May, Founder and Head of MISTA, emphasizes the cross-value chain ecosystem’s role in connecting innovators and opportunities to evolve people, teams, and companies.
He adds, “The MISTA Growth Hack demonstrates how we collaborate to bring the largest players in the food system together with an amazing array of early-stage companies, bringing new ingredients and technologies to life. The experiences and reflections emerging from the MISTA Growth Hack transform how we integrate these new ingredients and technologies to deliver solutions that nourish and delight people and the planet.”
