Tuna That Is Tomato, Smart Labels And New Techniques For Reassessing Agri-Food Waste, Awarded At The Food Technology Startup Forum 2022

Changes in the consumption habits of society, the digitization of operations and the fight against food waste are among the biggest challenges facing the food sector today. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), we throw away 1.3 billion tons of food each year. Some disturbing numbers that drive thousands of entrepreneurs to search for sustainable solutions in technology as an essential element to achieve the goals of real development.

In this context, the Foodtech Startup Forum, a forum held in Bilbao under Food for Future – Foodtech Expothe technology event that brought together 7,217 professionals from the entire value chain of the food and beverage industry, and recognized the three most disruptive projects in the food technology sector that want to lead the transformation of food.

The first prize awarded at the La Salle Technova Forum Awards for Beginners in Food Technology went to MOA Foodtech, a startup founded in 2020 specializing in circular economy solutions. The project combines biotechnology and artificial intelligence to utilize waste and by-products of the agri-food industry with the aim of obtaining highly nutritious, versatile, highly digestible, and 100% sustainable proteins.

In terms of food safety and food waste control, startup wiggle His smart, biodegradable labels, which change from yellow to blue depending on the quality and freshness of the food, were a close second. Its goal is to contribute to the value chain of the industry by providing real-time information to supermarkets about products and avoiding, as much as possible, thousands of kilograms of food that ends up in the garbage.

Finally, it was the 3rd award winning startup Seafood tradition, who popularized the use of Tunato, a tomato-based product that simulates raw red tuna for preparations such as tartare, sushi, poke or ceviche. The company’s commitment to offering an alternative to tuna carries significant environmental weight: it is the type most affected by overfishing.

As reported in the Foodtech Spain Study: Moving the Spanish Food System Forward by ICEX, Spain is the second most prominent country in Europe in terms of sales of the vegan sector, after only Germany. In the case of plant-based fish, products like those promoted by Zyrcular Foods, a company that participated in Food 4 Future 2022, or Mimic Seafood are working to break ground in this market and appreciate new alternative seafood products.

The FoodTech Startup Forum 2022 is an event dedicated to emerging talents held within the framework of Food 4 Future – Expo Foodtech. This edition brought together more than 200 international startups that provided solutions in the field of food technology for all food industries: meat, fruit, vegetables, fish, dairy, beverages, bakery and snacks. The seven categories that divided the presentations made at the FoodTech StartUp Theater were: Agrotech, Industry 4.0, Automation, Refrigeration and Climate, Food Processing, Food Packaging, and Food Science.