SWITZERLAND – Global flavors and fragrances leader, Givaudan has launched MISTA, a new innovation platform for the food industry and has received backing from Danone, Mars Inc and Ingredion as its founding members.
MISTA is an accelerator and incubator programme that enables start-ups and established corporations to optimise ideas, products, people and investments in the food and beverage industry.
The new platform will open in early 2019 in San Francisco with an Optimisation Center (MOC) acting as a product development facility.
The company said the new centre will house equipment for pasteurisation and fermentation, experts providing market and leadership development strategies, as well as input from world renowned culinary and food scientists.
“MISTA, which means ‘tasty morsel’ in Sanskrit, is all about the creation of a new business model focused on product innovation and development for the food industry,” said Scott May, Vice President of Innovation at Givaudan and Head of MISTA. “With the intention and capabilities to create the future of food.”
MISTA will play a critical role in developing new leading innovative solutions in the food and beverage industry including expertise in alternative protein, health, well-being and biotechnology.
It will also help with scale up, distribution, building a team and searching for partners.
The MISTA team plans to target twenty start-ups to bring into MISTA’s hyper-connected platform within the first year, with roughly ten of those start-ups located on premises at its headquarters in San Francisco, USA.
According to the ‘partnering for shared success’ pillar of Givaudan’s 2020 strategy of ‘Responsible growth’, the company seeks to ensure responsible growth and shared success for shareholders, customers and all key stakeholders.
The company states that the partnerships form a critical part in ensuring responsible and sustainable growth over the next five years.
To reinforce its 2020 Strategy, Givaudan invested in Active Beauty and its metagenomics platform to boost its pioneering position in the microbiome market.
This year, it acquired the Nutrition Division of Centroflora Group (Centroflora Nutra), a manufacturer of botanical extracts and dehydrated fruits.
Also this year, the flavor giant completed the acquisition of 40.5% stake in Naturex, a French manufacturer of natural specialty ingredients for the food industry for US$648m.
Other acquisitions include those of Swedish Oat Fiber and industrial activity of Haliburton International Foods in 2017.
