Exclusive: Consortium for “A New Food Ecosystem for Sustainable and Affordable Nutrition”

Three leading global companies, Givaudan, Bühler, and Cargill, announced in July that they have formed a consortium in collaboration with the Food Tech Hub LATAM and Ital, Food Technology Institute, to build a food innovation center in the city of Campinas, Brazil. 

The Tropical Food Innovation Lab aims to be the go-to place in Latin America to connect and develop sustainable, future food and beverage products. Startups, companies, investors, universities and research institutions will have direct access to high-end technologies for rapid prototyping and plugging into the global food tech ecosystem that will foster fast paced innovation in the food and beverage sector.

While it’s set in Latin America, the Lab has the potential to influence food access all over the world, as the three initiating companies are global actors.

We asked Eduard Fontcuberta, Regional Innovation Head, LATAM at Givaudan, how will the Lab operate and how will it serve its mission to provide affordable nutrition for consumers.

How does every partner contribute to the Tropical Food Innovation Lab?

The collaborating companies complement each other with their know-how, and increase the chance of success:

• Givaudan brings centuries of experience and knowledge in every aspect of taste and flavour, as well as deep expertise in natural colours, preservation, texture, nutrition and biotechnology, to product development
• Bühler brings expertise in production, including equipment for alternative proteins and biotechnology, and have a strong sustainability position.
• Cargill, using its future-thinker vision, will bring global expertise in connecting all stakeholders towards this goal, sharing global results achieved in other projects to this South America pilot.
• FTH LATAM brings expertise and knowledge in assembling innovation communities by connecting all stakeholders in the food chain, from farm to table. They have extensive experience leveraging open innovation and investing in food tech start-ups.

How do you define a sustainable food system? How will the Innovation Lab contribute to building it?

We define a sustainable food system as a web of activities involving the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food products under more sustainable practices compared to the existing models now in place.

Givaudan, Bühler, and Cargill have formed a consortium with the common goal to create an infrastructure which supports and accelerates the overall development of innovative, sustainable food ingredients whilst enabling the partners to gain deep insights. In the long term, the goal is to strengthen food innovation in Latin America by focusing on the sustainable use of Latam’s biodiversity, and to provide affordable nutrition for consumers.

How will the location of the Lab, in the country with the richest biodiversity on the planet, influence the research process?

The facilities, which we expect to be operating fully by Q1 2023, will be located at “ITAL-Instituto de Tecnologia de Alimentos- facility” in Campinas close to Sao Paulo city.

ITAL has almost 60 years of expertise in providing technological assistance, R&D and innovation in packaging and processing and safety of food and beverages. Its Brazilian food technology offers:

• 74 food scientists (70% with PhD / post doc) – the highest concentration of food scientists per square meter in Latam
• Analytical labs with capacity to do more than 1000 different types of food analysis
• A vast scientific knowledge of the Brazilian native proteins, fruits, botanicals

Furthermore, Campinas is the hot spot for food tech in Brazil, with UNICAMP university, the Agronomic Institute, PUCC university, very close to Piracicaba, the main Ag tech hub in Brazil.

Being located at this hot spot, we anticipate that the Tropical Food Innovation Lab will become the go-to place in Latin America to connect and develop sustainable, future food and beverage products. Start-ups, companies, investors, universities and research institutions will be able to directly access high-end technologies to help foster fast paced innovation in the food and beverage sector.

How do you plan to involve consumers and food/beverage professionals in the demo kitchen?

A great advantage in the combination of the partners involved is the various approaches each takes as they work with food and beverage companies, and with consumers. These will all be brought to the table and incorporated into ways of working at the site. The inclusion of the latest, most advanced processing equipment for piloting a wide range of products, from beverages to plant-based meats, allows for direct customer interaction and speedy product creation. As the site gets developed, guidelines will be established to ensure the optimal use of the facility.

With food security being an acute concern, how do you envisage the Innovation Lab mitigating this worldwide challenge?

Via the facility, start-ups, companies, investors, universities and research institutions will have direct access to high-end technologies for rapid prototyping and plugging into the global food tech ecosystem, which will foster innovation.

The facility will allow organizations to scale-up their process without having to firstly invest in a pilot plant of similar scale themselves. Since such plants can take 18 months to build, combined with increasing lead times due to high demand in the biotech and food sectors for fermentation equipment, start-ups can gain 1-2 years in time to market and potentially avoid a financing round. Furthermore, they can reduce their financial and technical risks, and they also get the benefit and expertise of working directly with Givaudan, Bühler and Cargill.

Additionally, the Tropical Food Innovation hub is taking a different approach to accelerating and incubating ideas by creating a connection platform where we not only support start-ups but also established companies and research institutions in the food space. In essence, this hub is creating a new food ecosystem to accelerate the development and market penetration of novel foods for sustainable and affordable nutrition to meet the new consumer demands in Latin American. We will be working with all our key markets from the region.

What is your ideal impact of the Lab?

It is our long-term goal to strengthen food innovation in Latin America by focusing on the sustainable use of Latam’s biodiversity, and to provide affordable nutrition for consumers.