Future Food Innovation opens funding platform for Danish SMEs
Future Food Innovation, whose members include the Danish Food Cluster, Agro Business Park and the department of food science at Aarhus University, is offering funding to help start-ups and SMEs access capital, knowledge, network and competences
There are three streams of funding, depending on the applicant firm’s stage of development, aimed at improving either development, maturation or growth.
Gyda Bay, innovation manager at the AgroFoodPark where the consortium is based, told FoodNavigator: “We are investing broadly in radical innovation within the food industry – new innovations in SMEs.”
The first stream, Proof of Principle or FFI POP, is for entrepreneurs who have an innovative business idea and want to test it out. The funds of 500,000 Danish kroner (€67,000) can be used for conducting market studies.
The second, Proof of Concept or FFI Diversification, is for companies that want to reach the prototype stage. The winner will receive 1.5 million Danish kroner (€200,000) to develop mature business ideas, enhanced competitiveness and improved capacity, it says.
Meanwhile the third, Proof of Business or FFI Growth, is for firms that have already developed business ideas and want to bring their products to the international market. The winner can receive up to 2m Danish kroner (€300,000).
The project duration runs until December 2018. More details can be found here.
A total of 37 companies have benefitted from the funding over the past five years, and ideas can relate to any part of the supply chain, from ingredient formulation to processing and packaging. Past winners include Asiros, a nutraceutical biotech company which manufactures fruit and berry extracts and concentrates; Hanegal which manufactures clean label, organic ready meals and Kroma improved fish processing for larger fish such as salmon while cutting down on waste products.
The funding is open to Danish companies only, but Future Food Innovation has a separate channel for companies across different European companies, the Enterprise Europe Network.
Bay said Future Food Innovation was also in the process of setting up a start-up accelerator scheme, and more details would be released shortly.
For application forms click here.
