An interview with Carl Jacobs and Pieter Wellens, the founders of Apicbase, one of Forward Fooding’s top 500 Food Tech startups.

Carl Jacobs and Pieter Wellens, founders of Apicbase

It’s time to put a face to the name…

We asked our FoodTech500 top-runners to give us a bit of insight into how they started out as a company and their thoughts on the role of technology in Food innovation. Meet Carl and Pieter, the founding duo behind Apicbase, a SaaS Platform for the management of food: products, inventory, orders and sales analytics. Let’s see what they had to say.

So tell us a little bit more about you! Where did the idea for your FoodTech company come from?

Carl and Pieter: Our initial idea was to make it easy for chefs to take beautiful pictures of their dished. That’s how the Apic Studio was born. The chefs soon started asking about the possibility to tag ingredients, and eventually even attach the recipe and all the steps to create the dish. That’s when we started build the actual platform that Apicbase is today. First, we built a recipe management platform, but realised that there was so much more to digitize. We started looking at the other data sources available, such as supplier data (ingredients), allergen databases, and POS systems, which enabled us to build an entire platform. We can proudly say that we are now helping restaurants and chains to get a better view on their inventory, and help them reduce food waste.

How is tech central to your business?

Carl and Pieter: It’s what we do. We aggregate a lot of data sources in order to add a layer of intelligence to the back-of-house of restaurants and food service companies.

Why do you think it’s important to see the food industry embrace tech?

Carl and Pieter: The food industry leaves a substantial ecological footprint which can be decreased by the use of technology. Besides that, we see other pillars in which technology can and should play an important role in the food industry: 

1) Reduce food waste (& decrease cost)

2) Keep the workforce happy (Increasing shortage of (skilled) labour)

3) Demand for transparency (allergens, nutritional info)

 

 

Want to know more? See Apicbase’s full profile here.

Congratulations again to Apicbase for ranking sixth in the category “Smart Appliances & Kitchen Management” of the Foodtech 500 list.

To find out who else made it into the FoodTech 500; the top Food Tech companies in the world, click here.

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