EUROPE – Symrise has teamed up with KitchenTown Berlin, a food and foodtech innovation network set up to positively impact the food system, to strengthen the platform’s concept of scaling impact driven and transformational food products.

KitchenTown Berlin is the European platform and second location of the global innovation network, KitchenTown founded in 2014 in the San Francisco Bay Area, USA.

Kitchen Town supports food startups from initial product concept, to scaling and market fit through providing entrepreneurs with access to facilities and industry know how on product development, commercialization, and market launch.

To achieve this, the platform creates an active global community of food entrepreneurs and innovators to support one another and create a new sustainable food system.

Additionally, KitchenTown offers an accelerator program where startups an apply for funding and venture development.

Through the partnership with Symrise, KitchenTown will provide the infrastructure and network in EMEA while the ingredients supplier will contribute expert guidance, to jointly deploy the right tools at the right time.

Symrise said that it will leverage its state-of-the-art food facility and co-working spaces to facilitate collaboration and co-creation between its taste experts, foodies, entrepreneurs and their customers, the manufacturers of food and beverage products.

The partnership will allow ideas developed and fast-tracked in KitchenTown to be easily reviewed with consumers while at the same time enabling project acceleration through a rapid prototyping approach and compressed creation.

Heinrich Schaper, President Flavor at Symrise says: “We have entered the innovation network to ideate, create, and grow new food and beverage ideas in the smartest way possible.

“We are one of the founders of the flavor industry and a leading provider of taste with innovative food ingredients expertise with strong product development capabilities, and we look forward to partnering with KitchenTown Berlin and its startup ecosystem.

Heinrich explained that founders will gain access to Symrise’s 1,000 m2 of innovation space, tailored to the needs of food and foodtech thought leaders, including a development lab, small batch production facilities, as well as a co-working and event space located in Berlin, amidst the capital’s startup scene.

“As the world around is changing quickly, we’re here to help feed it,” says Lukas Neuß, Co-Founder of KitchenTown Berlin. “Providing new perspectives for the food and beverage retail landscape through often impact driven brands is KitchenTown’s mandate,” Lukas adds.