On 17 January 2023, the global FoodTech Challenge (FTC) announced four winners for the competition’s second edition during an awards ceremony at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW). After a shortlisting process that started in 2022, a judging committee awarded a pooled prize of up to US $2 Million to Aquagrain, Orbisk, Revoltech, and Sustainable Planet. These companies will now receive funding and other valuable in-kind support to scale up their new businesses in the UAE.

Forward Fooding supported the Challenge as the main outreach partner, promoting this exciting initiative across our global network of startups and participating in the early stages of the selection process. We also organized a series of webinars covering various topics such as Agtech, Alternative Protein, and Food Waste. In case you missed them, you can watch them here.

The four winners were chosen from a group of 12 finalists who had pitched their solutions at the FoodTech Challenge competition finale during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2023. The finalists had been shortlisted from a pool of 667 submissions from 79 countries across the world – a diverse group of entrepreneurs, with many of the teams led by young founders aged 22-35 years old. To narrow down the candidates, the FTC had implemented a multi-tiered screening process that sorted applications into increasingly smaller groups based on strict criteria, resulting in a selection of remarkable solutions. 

This year’s FTC was organized by the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment and Tamkeen, with ASPIRE as the lead partner. Key partners such as ADQ, Silal and Emirates Foundation also provided their support. These companies played a vital role in helping the finalists during their visit to Abu Dhabi, meeting with each start-up to discuss potential synergies and ways to grow their business in the UAE. The finalist teams also attended networking sessions and excursions with ASPIRE, Silal, Emirates Foundation (Ne’ma Initiative), Hub71, Catalyst, Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an, ADRO and COAD. 

Aquagrain, Orbisk, Revoltech, and Sustainable Planet emerged from this thorough evaluation process as the winning teams. The four startups were recognized for their inventive solutions in transforming traditional agriculture practices and creating sustainable ways to address food security. These winners will now scale up their businesses in the UAE with the support of a pooled prize of US $2M. The prize consists of a cash award, R&D support, start-up acceleration, commercial incentives, and mentorship from an extensive range of partners, including ASPIRE, Silal, ADQ, Emirates Foundation, Hub71, Ma’an, The Catalyst, ADGM, ADRO, the Competitive Office of Abu Dhabi, and Khalifa Fund.

FoodTech Challenge will continue to support all of its winners and finalists in their growth journeys in the UAE.

For full context, here is a short profiling of the 4 winning solutions:

Aquagrain: Upcycling Food Waste to Grow Food in Sandy Soil (United Kingdom)

Aquagrain is a pioneering cleantech soil improver made from organic waste that can absorb up to 30 times its mass in water to provide valuable nutrients to plants. It also cuts the need for inorganic fertilizers.

Courtesy of Aquagrain

Orbisk (FoodTech 500 alumni): Leveraging AI-enabled Cameras to Reduce Restaurant Food Waste by up to 70% (Netherlands)

With a focus on food loss and waste, Orbisk leverages AI image recognition technology and automation to quantify and predict food waste in professional kitchens, reducing food waste and improving profitability. The technology helps reduce food waste by 50-70% in the first year of use.

Courtesy of Orbisk

Revoltech: Your Burger, Preserved for 50 years (United Arab Emirates)

Revoltech uses a unique freezing technology that utilizes electromagnetic fields to reduce the damage caused to food during the cooling process. The technology not only helps freeze food twice as fast as usual, it can also preserve food for up to 50 years.

Courtesy of Revoltech

 

Sustainable Planet: Growing Plant-based Protein without Fresh Water (United Kingdom)

Sustainable Planet has revolutionized the growth of water lentils, a plant-based protein that can be grown on non-arable land and in saline water, using up to 20 times less water than required for protein isolates such as soy. The start-up aims to dramatically reduce protein imports. 

Courtesy of Sustainable Planet

Forward Fooding is very excited about the success of this year’s FTC edition. We’ve been involved since the early stages of planning as both outreach partners and by helping to select finalist companies, and are proud of the results the competition has achieved. We can’t wait to see how these solutions will benefit from the invaluable expertise of FTC and its partners. 

The UAE is leading the whole GCC region on food innovation, and we are pleased to have played a part in this important initiative. We are confident that the finalists will be able to build on this opportunity and scale up their operations so as to provide long term solutions for improving food production in the UAE.

Learn more HERE about the FoodTech Challenge and winners.