19 startups and small businesses who have successfully made it through to the Production Phase of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Big Food Redesign Challenge have been awarded a share of £500 thousand to help them on their journey to producing food designed for nature to thrive.
These ambitious organisations now have the opportunity to invest in the development of their products, ensuring that they not only align with the Circular Design for Food Framework but are also able to deliver on their plans at the same pace and scale as larger businesses.
Through the Challenge, each beneficiary has demonstrated that the majority of their product ingredients are sourced from production systems indicative of regenerative outcomes for nature, their product/s incorporate lower impact, diverse, and/or upcycled ingredients, and their packaging is free from materials that are problematic and include circular economy principles.
To transition to a circular economy, we need innovation at scale.
Thousands of startups and small businesses are already working to eliminate waste & pollution, circulate products & materials, and regenerate nature. We increasingly recognise that these businesses play a critical role in pushing new boundaries and innovating in a way that large corporations cannot.
As essential actors within the food system, startups and small businesses are fundamental in promoting change, encouraging farm-level innovation, and initiating changes in consumer behaviour. What’s needed now is an investment in circular startups to help them scale and realise a circular economy.
Over the next year, as part of the Production Phase of the Challenge, the successful beneficiaries will use their funding to bring their products to life. Keep your eyes peeled for further updates as we follow their journey through to the Retail Phase.
For us at Nutricandies, the grant from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will be essential to the success of our innovations! As a science-based startup, the journey to turn products from the lab into products for the consumer is a long one, and the support we will receive will be key to driving our innovations towards generating value for the entire chain and helping nature to thrive. – Gustavo Rocha, CEO, Nutriecandies
We are very happy to have been awarded with the grants which, together with the support of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, will be essential and will give us the impetus we need to get our project off the ground, from registrations and certificates, but also in relations with suppliers, publicity and placing on the market. We are sure that we will develop a beautiful work together, which will strengthen the biodiversity of our biomes and help nature to thrive! – Gabriela Takaki Torres da Silva, CEO, Bebajapi Bebidas
We could not be more excited to be a part of the Big Food Redesign Challenge. Since the day we started BRAVE, our mission has been to rethink food production with sustainability at the forefront. Receiving funding from BFRC for the development of our Super Hoops cereal makes a substantial difference in advancing this mission. It significantly increases our ability to develop the most sustainable cereal and to bring it to market as soon as possible. – Seb Sokol, Co-Founder, BRAVE
