EIT Food and Blendhub announce winners of Affordable Nutrition Scale-Up Challenge

Ten start-ups have won the EIT Food and Blendhub Affordable Nutrition Scale-Up Challenge, securing support to scale and launch their powder-based ingredient or formula that supports the promotion of healthy and sustainable diets.

The food innovation accelerator EIT Food and powdered-nutrition solutions developer Blendhub have awarded each business €25,000 prize to help them develop their products.

Dr Adam M. Adamek, Director of Innovation at EIT Food, said in a statement: “The challenge is not just an opportunity to accelerate innovation in the nutrition space, but also a pathway to improve food systems through cutting-edge innovations. It’s crucial that entrepreneurs are equipped with the tools they need to prioritise sustainability, accessibility, and diversification in nutrition solutions.

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Blendhub to award funding and support to such an innovative and promising cohort of startups. We were profoundly impressed by the high quality of applications and the commitment to affordable nutrition. We eagerly look forward to working with the ten winning startups to help them realize the full potential of their trailblazing innovations.”

The ten winning start-ups are:

• Aliga Microalgae, a Danish food-tech company producing white chlorella ingredients for health and nutrition beverage formulations. Aliga Microalgae’s co-founder and Sales Director David Erlandsson will be speaking at Food Matters Live’s Sustainable Food Forum, taking part in the Making an impact: learning from global innovators session.
• Alver World SA, a Swiss manufacturer, which is creating an algae-based milk using its functional Diamond Chlorella ingredient.
• Italian start-up Circular Fiber for its flour made from artichocke processing waste.
• Copenhagen-based Circular Food Technology, which is creating a functional flour using upcycled spent grains.
• Israeli Fabumin, for its drying technology that turns aquafaba into a functional powder which can be used to produce cakes, cookies, crackers, pastries, spread and sauces.
• France’s Green Spot Technologies upcycles fermented fruit, vegetable and cereal side streams into nutritious powders.
• Spanish Keratin España, which is making a protein powder from livestock blood.
• Portugal-based Landratech Lda, for its nutritious, low carbon footprint acorn-based ingredients.
• MaGie Creations, a Dutch business which upcycles beer grain into protein and fibre-rich flour which can be used in a range of applications including, snacks, crisps and crackers, bread, cakes, pastries, wraps, energy and granola bars, and meat alternatives.
• Polish Rebread Upcycled Food Sp, for its Koji powder ingredient, sourced from bread that would otherwise go to waste.

The winners received their awards on Monday [11.09.2023] at Blendhub’s offices in Murcia, Spain.

Manon Ledoux, Chief Product Officer at Green Spot Technologies, commented on the news: “With Green Spot starting commercialisation, this funding and support is coming at the perfect time.

“Being selected as a winner confirms the need for ingredients that bring nutrition, functionality and sustainability, at affordable prices, and this is exactly what Ferment’Up Ingredients by Green Spot is about.”

Madeleine Gielens, Founder of MaGie Creations, added: “We hope that the development of our project will turn out so successful that the mix developed ends up being one that Blendhub can produce and market through its hubs!

“This award is confirmation that we are on the right path to success and gives our team a lot of energy to continue their hard work.”