As part of the Weekend Food Festival, the FoodTech StartUp Competition was presented. It was conceived with the aim of finding new and creative ideas and supporting the many new visions of the food and catering industry. In the search for a sustainable future and finding long-term solutions and answers in this increasingly demanding industry, Maistra Hospitality Group, Infobip and Pepermint have launched the FoodTech Startup Competition in order to bring together the startups working to contribute to solving the challenges of the modern food and hospitality scene. The competition was presented by program director Hrvoje Petrić, Pepermint Agency director Boris Kovaček, human resources director at Maistra Hospitality Group Tina Lupieri, and Infobip representatives Nikola Pavešić and Aleksandar Raić, and moderated by Nevena Rendeli, communications manager of the Weekend Food Festival.
The topics of digitalization and sustainability are relevant in all industries. The food and catering industry, which brings together a large number of companies and individuals, from chefs, waiters, managers, manufacturers, distributors to customers, is no exception. The FoodTech Startup Competition is looking for domestic, regional or European startups whose product or service will not only bring solutions to individual industry segments, but encourage the transformation of all actors within the entire value chain. The main candidates are companies focused on production, delivery, adaptation to the health needs of consumers, as well as those that offer new visions and ways to manage hotels, restaurants and cafes. In addition to solutions focused on the internal structure of the business, the FoodTech Startup Competition also seeks innovation in customer-focused processes, digitalization in purchasing and overall enjoyment, plus food disposal using technology that promotes efficiency and sustainability. “In addition to finding quality ideas, the FoodTech Startup Competition will take a step towards greater sustainability by providing support and educating new potential in the domestic startup scene through specialized training and mentoring by experts and industry leaders,” said Nevena Rendeli.
Young and promising startups potentially offer innovative solutions, but this is often not enough to break into the global market. It is for this reason that the competition partners will strive to provide the participants and ultimately the winners of the competition with a much-needed springboard to turn innovative ideas into sustainable solutions. “We provide the space, or rather a platform, for industry development. We have been doing this for 15 years with the media, creative industry and PR, and now with the food and hospitality industry. We are glad to be a part of this story together with these two major pillars of the Croatian economy. Technology is meant to solve the problems we encounter and it should be used to our benefit,” said Boris Kovaček, describing his role.
The FoodTech Startup Competition concept was developed in the wake of global trends, with the aim of providing a unique digital platform and supporting young talent in the industry to break into the global market. The competition is looking for startups whose activities fall into one of seven categories, namely Agriculture Tech, Food Science, Food Product and Health Coaching, Food & Hospitality services, Food Supply Chain & Retail, Food Delivery and Food Waste.
“We designed the project to support startups in the food and catering industry. Food is something we all consume and has always been with us. It permeates our entire culture, and as our lives have moved to social media, food is becoming digital content. Research shows that food is the most digital thing on the internet and it’s time to raise awareness about it. Challenges related to health and sustainability concerns will trigger the next wave of innovation in the entire food value chain, says Tina Lupieri.
“We are missing the Green Market platform. A network that would bring together manufacturers and other stakeholders and provide a systematic and unified overview of key information such as data on availability, source, environmental friendliness and other key segments to achieving comprehensive services and communication between industry stakeholders,” explained Hrvoje Petrić. “The locality, source and ecological acceptability of products have become a key element of the gastronomic offer and the demand for such producers is great, but the clients themselves cannot easily find them. The aim of this competition is to create a link between manufacturers and customers that will facilitate communication and create a unique and comprehensive platform that should facilitate the cooperation of various participants in the whole process.”
Infobip, a technology company with a global reach, will offer its services to competitors, while the winners of the competition—which will be presented at the Weekend Media Festival in September—will have a unique opportunity to develop their knowledge by participating in the “Mentoring Bootcamp” with a team of experts from the competition, either online or at the Infobip Pangea Campus in Vodnjan. Along with the opportunity to learn in a stimulating environment with some of the industry’s greatest professionals, the winner will have the equivalent of 20,000 euros to use on Infobip’s globally award-winning cloud communications platform and other valuable prizes from competition partners.
“We launched the ‘Infotribe’ start up tribe product support program a little over nine months ago; and so far we have collected over 300 applications, including startups from Peru, Sudan, Japan and many other countries. We now want to do a similar thing with the FoodTech Startup Competition,” said the director of Startups Ecosystem at Infobip, Nikola Pavešić.
“Infobip is a global technology platform that transfers over a billion messages a day to customers such as Facebook, Uber and many others. We can help startups by ensuring that messages and marketing campaigns are launched into the digital sphere with global reach. It is the people who make the difference, and we want to support young people and ideas,” explained Aleksandar Raić, vice president of the People and Transformation Department at Infobip.
The jury, consisting of representatives of Maistra Hospitality Group, Weekend Food Festival, Infobip and other relevant experts, will analyze the submitted projects and select the winners. The competition is open to existing startups and emerging ones, and can apply via the competition’s official website.
