Barilla and Plug and Play seek talent and ideas for the sustainable and tech future of the food sector. Applications for Good Food Makers, the global accelerator of innovative food startups to drive the development of new sustainable food solutions, will be open until July 22 at https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/milan/good-food-makers/. The innovative ideas sought for 2022 are focused on 4 areas:
AgroTech: innovative solutions to improve agronomic practices and the management of quality and food safety (for example, robotics, drones, monitoring systems, digital intelligence, AI data analysis.);
Product and service: solutions for premiumizing the pasta box delivery experience;
Sustainable production: use of Artificial Intelligence systems to reduce energy use;
Technological innovation: with a focus on drying pasta and cooking baked goods, to improve efficiency, quality and/or provide new sensory characteristics.
Now in its fourth year, Good Food Makers was created to support food innovators and drive the development of new sustainable food solutions. It includes an eight-week program, during which startups work side by side with Barilla’s top managers to develop and test new ideas together, thanks to the vision of a company that has been committed to producing good and quality food for 145 years.
To help them undertake this shared growth path, the 4 selected startups will receive $10,000 of support for the project to be implemented during the acceleration program, and the opportunity to build future collaborations with the Barilla Group.
In four years, Good Food Makers has attracted over 400 participating startups and involved more than 100 Barilla Top managers. The winning startups were given the opportunity to co-develop their ideas with company managers by testing and validating the solutions to the proposed challenges. This year, the partnership with Plug And Play, the largest open innovation platform in the world, will further strengthen the ability to reach the best AgTech and FoodTech startups.
Good Food Makers confirms the Barilla Group’s vocation for leading innovation in food, including with niche solutions like pasta and biscuits made from legume flour, or 3D printed pasta. Since 2017, it has also been active in the ecosystem of Foodtech startups with Blu 1877, its Venture Capital vehicle recently integrated into Barilla with the creation of Blu Future, an area dedicated to innovation projects and to supporting new business ideas in the food sector, helping people live better on a better planet for future generations.
