By Beatriz Romanos Hernando - Foodtech specialist I Advisor I Author of the book Foodtech: The great revolution of the food industry. October 2024
Nov 05 2024
Partnership and Collaboration in the Spanish Foodtech Ecosystem: Keys to the Future
A fertile breeding ground for foodtech innovation
Spain has a vibrant foodtech ecosystem, which ranks among the Top 10 in Europe. There are several factors that underpin this positioning. The first is the number, diversity and distribution of agrifoodtech startups. We found more than 420 startups representing virtually all categories: agtech and Smart farming, alternative proteins, food safety, traceability, new farming systems, insect farming for animal feed or development of growth factors, innovative and functional ingredients, digitization and Industry 4.0, restaurant tech, delivery, personalized food...
The sum of a creative community of entrepreneurs; a world-leading food industry, open to collaborative innovation and aware that the answer to many of its challenges and, in general of the food system, may lie beyond its traditional R&D departments; a powerful network of technology and knowledge centers; public support to catalyze collaboration and innovation of the different actors and a large group of specialized investors make Spain a fertile breeding ground for foodtech innovation. Perhaps for this reason, it has also been the right place for the birth in 2024 of FATE - Food&Agritech Europe, the business association that seeks to foster collaboration, give voice, represent and defend the European agrifoodtech industry.
A variety of foodtech players enriching the ecosystem
There are different vehicles available to support the birth and evolution of foodtech startups, both private and public, and in different regions. This has led to the fact that this wealth of innovation is distributed in different regions of the country, with presence in Valencia, Galicia, Basque Country, Andalusia, Navarra, and of course Madrid and Barcelona. Programs such as Spain Foodtech Nation promoted by ICEX and Eatable Adventures or accelerators such as Orizont (Government of Navarra), Food Innovation Hub (Madrid City Council) or the recently launched Mieb (Móstoles City Council), are added to the numerous incubation programs promoted by food corporations.
Corporations are aware that many of the challenges they face, as well as the challenges of the food system as a whole, can be addressed more effectively by collaborating with foodtech startups. Since 2017, Mahou-San Miguel has had Barlab, which initially focused on the food-service sector and has evolved into Barlab Ventures, an open innovation channel that seeks to involve the entire foodtech sector.
Another notable example is Calidad Pascual's Mylcubator, positioned as the world's first accelerator focused on finding advanced solutions for the dairy industry (with 13 international startups in its portfolio) and which in its third edition has opened its scope to other categories with its slogan “More than Milk”.
Keys: knowledge transference, scaling, investment… and government support
In the same vein, other companies have opened open innovation programs aimed at finding solutions to specific aspects of their business or value chain, and supporting them with effective and committed collaboration on the part of the corporation. CAPSA's corporate venturing program, in which eight startups are participating. Europastry, in the bakery field, or Grupo Áreas, for foodservice, just to name a few. These programs not only enrich the ecosystem, but also allow corporations to access emerging technologies, understand them, test them... and also to access innovative talent complementary to the one they have within their own companies.
But catalyzing innovation and the birth of projects is not enough to achieve a mature ecosystem. In order to facilitate the scaling up and consolidation of innovative projects, several initiatives have also arisen that abound in the idea of public-private collaboration. We can mention here the Center for Innovation in Alternative Proteins (CiPA), in collaboration with the IRTA technology center and the scaled-up center in alternative proteins in Catalonia, which will have investments of 7 and 12 million euros. In addition, there is the recently presented project in Asturias in collaboration with CAPSA, which will convert an old mining pit in Carrio into an innovation and scaling center. This is a commitment not only to innovation and support for scaling up, but also to bringing these assets to rural areas.
Spain also has a network of top-level technology centers that play a key role as a bridge between scientific progress and the industrial fabric. A technology transfer that foodtech startups can also access thanks to programs such as StartBEC, from AINIA (Valencia), focused on the bioeconomy, or Foodtech Challengers, from CNTA (Navarra), which already has 4 editions under its belt, both developed with public support, in this case from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. From Murcia, the proposal of UCAM HighTech (innovation center specializing in Food, Health and Sport born of that university), which seeks to integrate business and management skills in technology projects to ensure that the strategic business vision is part of the DNA of each startup.
To lubricate this gear, funding is necessary. The Spanish foodtech ecosystem is completed with a network of specialized investors that cover from the earliest stages, such as proof of concept or technology transfer, seed stage investment, to more advanced stages of growth. Pioneers such as TechTransfer Agrifood have been joined by specialized firms such as Eatable Adventures, The FoodTech Lab, McWin Capitals, Swanlab, or the fund created between Cardumen and the Basque Culinary Center, among others.
Alignment with global foodtech trends
Following the boom phases of delivery, alternative proteins (both plant-based and those driven by cutting-edge precision fermentation or cell culture techniques), the global foodtech industry is now focusing on digitization and optimization solutions for the entire value chain, with a strong upswing in AI and generative AI-based solutions. We are seeing not only a multiplication of solutions - from innovation and product development to supply and demand forecasting - but also investors strengthening their commitment to this category.
The intense contraction of investment, especially in capex-intensive projects, is favoring the emergence of intermediate players specialized in different aspects of the foodtech value chain (the equivalent of picks and shovels in the gold rush), especially in the form of CDMOs, enabling technologies or collaborative initiatives such as those mentioned above or those that can be found internationally in Singapore (Food Tech Innovation Centre (FTIC), the Netherlands (Food Valley) or the USA (NC Food Innovation Lab). These agents contribute not only the financial “derisk”, but also an ultra-specialization that adds value to the system.
Another emerging phenomenon that we will (hopefully) see more of in the coming years is the collaboration between actors to optimize resources, in a sort of healthy coopetition. Such as the R&D alliance between Formo and Those Vegan Cowboys, which plans to create a joint team of 60 leading scientists to improve technological efficiency in areas such as strain engineering, bioprocesses and large-scale casein production.
The key lies in collaboration, flexibility and a genuine commitment to advancing technologies and solutions that benefit the entire ecosystem. The combination of all these factors can result in a promising future for Spanish foodtech, consolidating its position as a benchmark for innovation in the European agri-food sector.
