CHINA – China-based startup accelerator and venture capital firm Bits x Bites has launched the China Food Tech Hub, with Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills and Danone being among the ten founding members.
Other members include Givaudan, Griffith Foods, Louis Dreyfus Company, Novozymes, Nutreco and Puratos.
The hub will enhance collaboration with multinational consortium with an aim to promote innovation, growth and address business challenges particularly among startups.
The platform will provide startups with an opportunity to cooperate with global companies which are looking to grow their presence in the Chinese market.
The consortium of companies will work to help accelerate the food tech ecosystem in China through teamwork and shared insights.
“Like most parts of the world outside of EU and US, food tech is still in its infancy in China and there hasn’t been a strong ecosystem to support start-ups in this space,” said Founder and Managing Director of Bits x Bites, Matilda Ho.
“As China’s first food tech VC, we see an opportunity to bridge and strengthen these partnerships and hopefully make it easier for startups and corporations to share insights and work together.”
The companies will utilize the platform to exchange startup insights and work with food tech startups to explore pilot projects and other forms of collaboration.
According to Bits & Bites, China is the world’s largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods, providing an investment opportunity for food industry players.
Innovation in the country is driven by premiumization, health and wellbeing, multi-sensorial experiences, personalized and targeted nutrition, as well as balancing taste and nutrition.
“The Chinese market evolves at an incredibly fast pace,” said David Machiels, R&I Director Asia Expansion and Innovation Acceleration at Danone.
“To maintain our edge in the categories where we play, we believe that it is key to be able to identify emerging new ingredients, technologies, product formats and business models in order to define new innovation opportunities for our consumers.
“By working with the startup and corporate community through the China Food Tech Hub, we want to contribute to further build the food tech ecosystem in a collaborative way, feed our innovation needs and identify new project opportunities in China.”
