This year’s EMEA Global Food Tech Awards winner is Hemisphere Technologies, a Swedish startup that’s making waves in the hemp space.
Creating viable, industry-changing ingredients from sustainable crops is the future of food and that’s just what Hemisphere has done. From a strong final line-up of 10 startups, GFTA judges evaluated applicants based on five criteria: scalability, sustainability, novelty, market fit and star quality. Hemisphere stood out to judges for its innovative hemp processing methods and the versatility of its functional ingredients across a wide range of applications.
It processes organic hemp without the use of solvents to produce a range of hemp products for the food, wellness, pet food and cosmetic industries. The company processes the hemp seed, hull, stalk and leaf for a variety of applications.
Its flagship product, Hemp Pro 2000, is a high-performance protein flour that contains 65% plant protein with all nine amino acids for use in bakery, confectionery, sports nutrition and dairy alternatives.
What’s different about Hemisphere hemp?
Conventional hemp proteins can be dark and strongly flavoured, which has hindered hemp being more widely used in food. Hemisphere’s hemp has a mild flavour and light colour, achieved through a patent-pending process, according to the company.
Produced in Sweden and co-funded by the EU and the Swedish Board of Agriculture, Hemp is a resource-efficient crop that grows quicky, doesn’t require pesticides and enriches soil.
Where next for Hemisphere Technologies?
“We’re in interesting discussions with big customers,” says Hemisphere’s Erik Rune. ‘To be able to turn that into recurring orders that match the growing season would be amazing, as well as to have the capital to forecast and buy all the seeds that are needed. We have an amazing proprietary factory and the next phase would be to scale it up."
Want to know which startups made the top 10? Check out the GFTA EMEA shortlist here.
