Future Food Asia announced that 10 start-ups have been selected as the 2018 finalists and will join the award event on May 23rd in Singapore to showcase their solutions and technologies for a chance to win US$100,000.
On the day of the event Enterprise Singapore will also award up to four winners S$50,000 Startup SG grants, selected in consultation with the FFAA judging panel.
With population, urbanization, land scarcity and global warming challenges continuing to loom, nurturing innovators working towards sustainable food solutions remains essential.
The Future Food Asia Award returns after a highly successful inaugural year, to recognize the leading AgriTech and FoodTech start-ups that are creating solutions to address the ever present and growing challenges in the food industry.
“Future Food Asia was formed from the belief that Asia-Pacific has a major role to play in this nascent but most relevant innovation vertical, and that it delivers solid investment opportunities to forward-thinking investors,” said Isabelle Decitre, Founder and CEO of ID Capital, the lead organizer of the Future Food Asia Award, “The diversity of the finalists and their technology solutions once again showcases the vitality of the region, as well as its capacity to tackle not only region-specific challenges but global ones too.”
The event rewards the best applicants to the FFAA annual competition. It also promotes open innovation in the region with the goal to catalyze and align an ecosystem to cope with the challenges of food. The competitive application process began in the first week of February and closed on April 3, 2018.
Startups from 19 different countries participated and applications grew by 30 per cent compared to 2017, demonstrating the momentum around technology innovations for the food & agriculture industry.
Future Food Asia Award has the continued support from Singapore Economic Development Board; Archer Daniels Midland Company, one of the world’s largest agricultural processors and food ingredient providers; lead public research agency A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research); and enterprise development agency Enterprise Singapore. It is joined by global science-based company Royal DSM, active in nutrition science and innovation across Asia Pacific, and global agricultural commodities and food merchant Louis Dreyfus Company.
The selection of the 10 finalists was determined by the experienced and diverse jury members: Gerard Jacquin, former Director of Partnerships, Transfer and Innovation at INRA, Europe’s leading agricultural research institute; Dr. Ralph Graichen, Director of Food and Nutrition at A*STAR’s Biomedical Research Council; Victoria de la Huerga, Vice President of ADM Ventures, Archer Daniels Midland Company; and Isabelle Decitre, Founder and CEO of ID Capital.
The event will be hosted on 23 May 2018 at Matrix Auditorium, Biopolis, in Singapore. Registrations are open at https://futurefoodasia.com/attend2018/