Strategic Consulting & Scouting
Bespoke solutions that empower you to strategically address your most pressing business challenges, grasp how technology is changing food innovation while granting you access to the most exciting AgriFoodTech companies out there.
TRUSTED BY
Core Services
Foodtech Trends Landscaping
Our ecosystem landscaping reports provide a comprehensive view of the AgriFoodTech innovation landscape, mapping key trends and market dynamics. Deep-dive into specific topics while gaining actionable insights into emerging investment patterns and market opportunities.
Scouting & Match-making
Our bespoke scouting services identify and shortlist the most relevant companies for F&B corporations and investors based on your specific business criteria. Whether you’re seeking commercial partnerships, investment opportunities, or acquisition targets, we pinpoint best-fit innovators with breakthrough products and technology solutions.
Commercial Due Diligence
Our commercial due diligence delivers more than standard data room analysis. We provide leading VCs, CVCs, and institutional investors with rigorous assessments of investment opportunities, combining insights from the FoodTech Data Navigator with deep industry expertise to deliver comprehensive market and technology landscape analyses tailored to your investment focus.
Bespoke Industry Reports
Our custom FoodTech reports equip organizations with timely intelligence on the global AgriFoodTech ecosystem. Powered by our proprietary FoodTech Data Navigator, we deliver data-driven analyses of emerging trends, breakthrough developments, and evolving investment patterns across the global AgriFood innovation landscape.
70+
Strategic Projects Completed to date
45+
F&B Corporate Clients Including various Fortune 500 companies
10+
Government-backed Organisations Supported
12.000+
Direct Contacts of Global AgriFoodTech Entrepreneurs
stories and people that make us proud
‘We were impressed by The FoodTech Data Navigator’s ability to track and deliver up-to-the-minute insights on key players in the Food Tech industry. This is something that was proving very difficult to do manually for us. It has been a game-changer for us and our business, and we can’t recommend it enough.’
Dalal Alghawas
Dalal Alghawas, Director, Big Idea Ventures
“The FoodTech Data Navigator tracks and delivers up-to-the-minute insights on key players in the FoodTech industry, including leading startup companies, international accelerators, investors and even corporate venture arms, something that was proving very difficult for us to do manually as a business. By arming my team with Forward Fooding’s pioneering FoodTech data platform, we are now able to spot and monitor the evolution of industry-leading companies at the touch of a button and stay ahead of the game when it comes to FoodTech trends. It has been a game-changer for us and our business, and we can’t recommend it enough.”
Olaf Gruess
Olaf Gruess, Director of Partner Development, Cargill
“I had the privilege to collaborate with Forward Fooding as they organised a tailor-made Engagement program for my organization with the aim of discovering the food innovation landscape in the UK and connecting with relevant startups. I would like to highlight that the experience exceeded my expectations – Alessio and his team managed to provide a unique point of view on innovative business models and startup methodologies which made me challenge my understanding of the state of innovation in the food and drink industry. In the future, I would definitely go back to Forward Fooding to arrange similar activities in this field.”
Giancarlo Addario
Giancarlo Addario, Open Innovation Manager, Barilla
‘ForwardFooding has been a great partner in identifying exciting startups for the University of Cambridge IfM Open Innovation Forum Pitching Event in Belfast and many others. The FoodTech 500 is an excellent window on activity in this exciting space.’
Dominic Oughton
Principal Industrial Fellow, Cambridge University Institute of Manufacturing
‘I think The FoodTech Data Navigator has the potential to become a leading platform for the young and rapidly evolving Food and AgriTech ecosystem. It is a great source of market intelligence and useful to identify up-and-coming companies and trends.’
Jodie Tilley
Head of Investor Relations, Blue Tree Advisors
‘As an AgriFoodTech investor, I use the FoodTech Data Navigator as a one-stop-shop
to identify new investment opportunities, track the development of innovative new AgriFoodTech companies and even manage portfolios of the companies I have invested in to assess and monitor their performance.’
Severine Balick
AgriFoodTech Investor
“Partnering with Forward Fooding over the past years has been a real asset for MassChallenge Switzerland. Their network consistently finds high impact high potential startups that we can connect with our corporate partners, so that startups can disrupt and add massive value to the food value chain.”
Matthew Lashmar
Matthew Lashmar, MD, Mass Challenge
“For the second edition of our FoodTech Challenge, we engaged Forward Fooding to support the competition’s outreach. Their team devised an excellent outreach strategy – they leveraged bespoke tools like the FoodTech Data Navigator to target high-potential applicants that best matched the UAE’s strategic priorities in food security. Despite our admittedly narrow criteria, we received over 600 high-potential applications from 80 countries. In addition to competition outreach, Forward Fooding were a substantial help in categorizing and shortlisting submissions, all within a tight timeline. Above all, the team was lovely to work with – clearly passionate subject matter experts. We’d recommend them highly to anyone looking for more insight into the global FoodTech and Agtech ecosystems.”
Andy Lin
Andy Lin, Head Partnerships & Programs, Tamkeen
‘We worked with Forward Fooding to organize an engagement program for the Global M&A team of Nestlé as we were keen to get a better understanding of the latest Food and Foodtech developments from startups in Europe. Alessio and his team managed to provide us with a comprehensive overview of the Food innovation landscape and connected us with a handful of very relevant entrepreneurs who presented their companies and openly shared their journeys with us. The whole session was very well-organized and we would gladly re-engage with them in the future for further discovery activities.’
David Serre
David Serre, Acquisitions & Business Development Manager, Nestlé
“Forward Fooding’s team have helped us identify key innovation patterns in the AgriFoodtech ecosystem and connect us with leading international companies operating in this space. They provided introductions to selected FoodTech entrepreneurs who have now become some of Barilla’s Open Innovation partners.”
Michela Petronio
VP BluFuture, Barilla Group
Case Studies
FoodTech Trends Landscaping
Supported General Mills’ global Open Innovation team redefine their open innovation strategy by mapping the global FoodTech startup landscape, identifying the fastest-growing technology clusters, and providing in-depth case studies of the most relevant startup and scaleup companies.
Scouting & Matchmaking
Supported Pladis’ R&D team with bespoke scouting, startup curation and selection, program development, and a dedicated marketing campaign including sponsorship of the 2025 FoodTech 500 to strengthen pladis’ positioning as a strategic partner for scaling FoodTech innovation.
Scouting & Matchmaking
For five years in a row, Forward Fooding has been strategically supporting MassChallenge Switzerland’s acceleration programs through targeted scouting and promotional campaigns to our entrepreneur network. This program entails a bespoke recruiting campaign for the MassChallenge Acceleration Program.
Bespoke Industry Reports
In partnership with the Economic Development Board of Singapore (EDB), Forward Fooding developed a bespoke report on the state-of-the-union of the APAC AgriFoodTech industry, highlighting key ecosystem players and pinpointing the key opportunities that can be harnessed to strengthen the Southeast Asian ecosystem.
Engagement Programs
Forward Fooding has been supporting Danone Global with refining their innovation and go-to-market strategy for their NPDs’ pipeline by learning from leading startups in selected verticals. By devising an entrepreneurship ‘crash-course’ for Danone’s Innovation team to learn directly from selected entrepreneurs, delivering a series of bespoke trainings including live Q&A sessions with selected founders of leading Food Tech companies. The program enabled Danone’s Innovation team to apply a more entrepreneurial approach to their NPD process.
FoodTech 500 Sponsorship
Dole Ventures, CVC of Dole Sunshine Company is among the official sponsors of the FoodTech 500. Through this initiative Dole Ventures was exposed to the most breakthrough innovators of the global AgriFoodTech sector. In additional, Forward Fooding provided a series of bespoke landscaping sessions to help their teams identify key innovation areas to watch, followed by tech scouting activities in order to help them find the most relevant Open Innovation partners to engage with.
Bespoke Scouting & Engagement
Supported Nestle Global with identifying leading food and FoodTech companies to engage with. Forward Fooding designed and delivered an engagement program that enabled their team to lear more about selected startup companies. This included visiting a leading startup incubator and a retail space to discover new brands, as well as experiencing London’s first zero-waste dining experience. Finally, a selection group of FoodTech founders was invited to pitch their business to the Nestle Global M&A team.
FoodTech Data Licensing
Since 2020, Forward Fooding has been licensing its FoodTech Data Navigator data to FoodValley Netherlands. Using the same interface, FoodValley has developed a ‘white-label’ version of the platform called ‘FoodLeap’, to be used as an internal tool by FoodValley and its partners. The goal of the platform is to provide a ‘directory’ of the Dutch AgriFoodTech Ecosystem, also aggregating data about food manufacturers, research centers & universities and other relevant ecosystem players, in order to generate connections among various stakeholders.
