The biotech startup Encapsulae has been the winner of the first edition of the open innovation program Ebro Talent: Caring For Innovation for its nanoencapsulation project to reduce additives in food and extend its shelf life. This is an entrepreneurial initiative created in 2018 by CSIC researchers.
The Ebro Talent program was launched by Ebro Foods and Loyola University to promote innovative ideas and drive new lines of research that improve efficiency and sustainability in the food sector. Initially, 40 projects were presented to solve these challenges, from which 11 were selected to start the training and mentoring program.
The process culminated recently at Ebro Day, an event where the finalist entrepreneurs presented their projects and received the awards for their innovative ideas. Other award-winning initiatives were Cube Technology, for the creation of a platform to promote healthy lifestyle habits; and Entorno Agroindustrial, a project that allies with insects to produce high value-added raw materials.
Blanca Hernández, President of the Ebro Foods Foundation, thanked the participating entrepreneurs for their commitment and participation: “Ebro Talent is not just another innovation program; it is an initiative in which the university, the company and the entrepreneurial universe come together, the three actors needed to promote entrepreneurship and disruptive innovation in the sustainability of the food industry. I would like to warmly thank all the participants for the extraordinary response to our call and for the quality of all the initiatives presented”.
The program proposed a series of challenges in four areas: “Responsible production and efficiency”, “Environment and sustainability”, “Healthy food and food quality” and “New models and responsible consumption in a post-covid-19 scenario”.
Other proposals presented were Agrosingularity, an idea that values waste from the vegetable industry to use it as raw material; Aldous Bio, a young company that seeks consumers who respect the planet to offer them products made with the highest quality ingredients while preserving the environment; Oscillum, a biotech initiative that has created plastic labels that, in contact with fresh food, indicate the state of decomposition of these; Spherag, a management tool for the farmer that combines hardware and software and iCommunity, a platform that works under a BaaS (Blockchain as a service) model and that allows to provide transparency and security to the food chain.
