FoodTech Innovation Awards 2021

Food Tech Innovations Awards 2021 recognizes the most innovative proposals that offer a disruptive approach to Customer Experience or Management. Innovative business models or technology that can make a change in the food sector.

We believe that the food industry is booming and while online reviews are great, it always helps to have some recognition from a credible, third-party source. Additionally, as food lovers, we wish to recognize those organizations that are shaping the industry and promote them to our 100,000 strong readerships and to media. Our goal is to provide the very best tips on food to our discerning followers and subscribers too. This way, we intend to bring out the best in the food industry and highlight it for the world to see.

The most innovative solution on digitalization Award for the food and beverage industry

This category seeks to recognise the work and effort of the company, platform, solution or technological application that is impacting and transforming the food and beverage industry, its sales model, its production, process, contact with the consumer or value proposition through a solution linked to the digital and technological sphere.

Winner: Chemometric Brain: An easy-to-use quality control software based on NIR technology to identify the components of any ingredient or food product in powder, liquid, solid or gel in just a few seconds using Machine Learning and AI and hosting libraries of products in a unique-of-its-kind cloud-based platform.

Finalists:

• Campofrío: A blockchain project for end-to-end traceability of Navidul Iberian pieces (hams & shoulders) in order to guarantee an excellent quality product, improve operations, and improve customer experience.
• Marine Instruments: MAS technology is based on its capability to integrate data from its own sensors and other ones and upload them to any platform in real-time to improve the growth of the shrimps.

Best Sustainability Project

This category seeks to recognize the work and effort of the company, platform, solution, or technological application that is impacting and transforming the food and beverage industry, its sales model, its production, process, contact with the consumer or value proposition through a solution linked to the digital and technological sphere.

Winner: Blendhub: Blendhub is deploying a global network of localized food production hubs supporting anyone launching food and nutritional products faster, safer and cheaper, anywhere in the world, by offering infrastructure as a service. This model involves a global network of localized food production hubs, closer to raw materials and final consumers; cost decrease in food products by 20% to 50% and lower environmental impact; and a fully replicable model from ideation to production anywhere in the world.

Finalists:

• Bolton Food: A 360º sustainable strategy through a strategic, scientific and partnership approach.
• Foods Connected: This platform has transformed the way the food industry operates and conducts daily tasks, making food production safe, sustainable, and ethical. It is the only digital supply chain solution on the market offering tracking, control and reporting across all key areas from one central hub.

Healthy Food

The aim is to recognize the work and effort of the company, project, or platform that promotes an innovative and/or scientific solution that promotes healthy eating. This award contributes to the promotion of innovative projects developed throughout the value chain of the food industry, as well as projects within the framework of Foodtech whose solution has a direct impact on healthy eating.

Winner: Healthy Food Iberica: Verdeo is an innovative ingredient being a solid fat based on olive oil in a traditional sector that needs transformation. The project provides a solution to the industry and consumers looking as an alternative and not a substitute.

Finalists:

• AMC Innova: BiotaGut is a project of AMC Innova to develop drinks for microbiota modulation with health benefits.
• Soil Steam: A patented technology for steaming soil as an alternative to pesticides, increasing yield on vegetables up to 70% and doubling storage time in a sustainable way. Farmers can produce vegetables and berries in a sustainable way and preserve soil quality. Steam treatment lasts for up to 5 years, effectively reducing the pesticide strain on fields.

The most innovative FoodTech Startup

This award is aimed at the most innovative startups with the greatest impact on digitalization, sustainability, and health in the Foodtech sector. Whether they are at a very early stage or at a more advanced stage, innovation and disruption in the solution itself will be valued. This category, in turn, will receive applications submitted directly from the Foodtech Startup Forum of Food 4 Future – Expo FoodTech.

Winner: NUCAPS Nanotechnology improves people’s health as we help to produce better food, supplements, and drugs by making nutritional ingredients stable, easy to absorb, healthy and natural. Nanocapsules of Food Proteins, a natural, safe, and efficient solution for oral administration of bioactive ingredients, drugs, and probiotics.

Finalists:

• BIOBEE microelectronics: BioQ is the first handheld equipment for non-destructive massive control in cured ham industry. The sensor probe is a 2mm needle that collects the electrical characteristics of the piece. This signal is processed by the BIOBEE microchip to obtain its characteristics immediately.
• Soil Steam: A patented technology for steaming soil as an alternative to pesticides, increasing yield on vegetables up to 70% and doubling storage time in a sustainable way. Farmers can produce vegetables and berries in a sustainable way and preserve soil quality. Steam treatment lasts for up to 5 years, effectively reducing the pesticide strain on fields.

The Best Automation and Robotics solution

This category is focused on the use of automation and robotics to boost the competitiveness of their production processes or into their factories. Projects focused on the field of innovation, research, and development (R + D + I) between industrial companies, technology centers or robotics manufacturers may also be presented.

Winner: Deep Detection: Photonai is a photon counting, multi-energy x-ray camera designed to step-change industrial inspection capabilities for quality and safety. It detects foreign bodies, defects, and flaws at higher resolution and lowers transmitted energy than is possible in manufacturing today. This means even small pieces of currently undetectable objects, like plastics, can be identified. Simultaneously, it can differentiate between materials to measure the composition of raw materials and products.

Finalists:

• Grenoucerie: Smartfrogfarm is an AI-driven robot for frog rearing that performs monitoring, feeding, corpse removal, and herding with sound and a laser beam to induce the intake of inert food, a real farm 4.0, that incorporates IoT, Artificial Vision, Cloud Computing, Big Data, and Deep Learning to manage many robots in several different integrated farms.
• Inser Robotica: This solution tries to specify a reliable and objective system that determines the grain per kilograms by weighing and counting the anchovies with a Deep Learning-based computer vision system. The solution combines the mechanical and electrical design of the fish counting cell, with a machine vision software that locates and counts the fish heads with object detection algorithms.