ENTRY VALIDATION
The first step when creating the final list was to manually validate every entry to create a shortlist of 500 finalists based on the following criteria.
FOODTECH DEFINITION
FOODTECH DEFINITION
The core company activity fits with our definition of AgriFoodTech as “The emergent sector exploring how technology can be leveraged to improve efficiency and sustainability in designing, producing, choosing, delivering & enjoying food”
ACTIVE WEBSITE
ACTIVE WEBSITE
The company is an incorporated entity and has an active website
COMPANY YOUTH
COMPANY YOUTH
The company was formed less than 15 years ago
SCORING MECHANISM
Once we validated all of the entries and shortlist the 500 winning companies, we processed the data from each company’s application using the FoodTech Data Navigator‘s unique set of algorithms which provided us with the business size score and the digital footprint score. We then assessed each business about their sustainability, using data from a self-assessed questionnaire devised by sustainability experts from the academic world that takes into account each Sustainable Development Goal the companies are achieving.
The last step of the process entailed aggregating the three individual scores (business size, digital footprint and sustainability score) giving each company a score out of 300, which then determines their ranked position on the overall list.
Business size score
The business size score is generated via a proprietary algorithm that predicts the business growth based on financial performance indicators which include the number of employees, funding stage, amount of funds raised to date as well as the number of offices from which they operate. The algorithm is controlled by a test center of multiple fast-growing company lists that are already available on the market.
Digital footprint score
The digital footprint score is generated via a proprietary algorithm as a prediction of business digital presence growth based upon each company’s website traffic, social media performance, and following growth. The algorithm takes into account over 25 elements such as websites ranking on search engines, web traffic as well as the number of social media followers, traffic, and engagement.
Sustainability score
In the absence of a global framework to measure the business sustainability impact specifically for FoodTech companies, we have chosen to create, in collaboration with sustainability experts from the Department of Management of the University of Turin (Italy), a unique survey and a scoring framework based on a selected number of Sustainable Development Goals from the United Nations.
Thus, based on self-assessment from each applicant, a certain number of points were attributed to each question to derive each company’s sustainability score with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) they are achieving with their solutions.
CREDITS
The FoodTech 500 list is prepared under the direction of Alessio D’Antino, Forward Fooding CEO. All information and data provided by the companies are reviewed and verified by Forward Fooding’s team. In addition, we used data provided by the FoodTech Data Navigator Intelligence, which deploys the Data Scouts technology to calculate the digital footprint score and the business size score.
The following individuals have collaborated with Forward Fooding’s team to bring to life the methodology behind the FoodTech 500: Max Leveau, Jennibeth Paglinawan, and Chloe Perez, among other collaborators.
A special thanks goes to the sustainability experts from the Department of Management (University of Turin, Italy): Paola De Bernardi, Simona Grande and Alberto Bertello who were instrumental to develop the methodology for creating the sustainability score.
GENERAL DISCLAIMER ABOUT FOODTECH 500 METHODOLOGY
The data used to determine both the business size and the digital footprint score are derived from the FoodTech Data Navigator Ⓡ and were processed on the 31st of each year. The model used to score each company on sustainability relies on responses provided by the applicants in the form of a self-assessment survey and this information is not verified by external data sources. The responses for deriving the sustainability score are manually validated for quality and accuracy.
WANT TO SEE YOUR COMPANY FEATURED IN THE NEXT FOODTECH 500?
Forward Fooding is the world’s first collaborative platform for the food and beverage industry. We run a network of entrepreneurs powered by entrepreneurs that connects corporate executives with the right innovators in order to enable meaningful collaborations that deliver real business outcomes for both parties
To learn more visit: forwardfooding.com
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