Registration period open for the second edition of BFFood

The Chamber of Commerce of Santiago de Compostela, a member of the advisory committee of Business Factory Food, hosted this morning the presentation event for the second edition of BFFood. The Galician food sector accelerator promoted by the Xunta de Galicia and driven by the Galician Food Cluster (Clusaga), will seek ten new innovative projects in the acceleration phase that address the real challenges presented by companies in the food sector. The application period for initiatives will be open until November 30 at 2:00 PM on the website bffood.gal.

The presentation event was inaugurated by José Carballo, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce of Santiago de Compostela, Fernando Guldrís, director of XesGalicia, and Juanjo De la Cerda, president of Clusaga, who defined this second edition as “a great opportunity to open ourselves to new ideas and the human potential that exists around us through open innovation and entrepreneurship to boost the sector’s competitiveness.”

Following the initial presentation, two round tables took place. In the first one, Maruxa García, CEO and co-founder of Tastelab, Sonia Martínez, co-founder and CEO of Sigillum Knowledge Solutions, and Juan José Verdes, founding partner and manager of i-Grape, analyzed business models based on innovation in the agri-food sector. Meanwhile, Mónica Cascallar, chief innovation officer at Congalsa, Rubén Hidalgo, director of innovation ecosystems at CAPSA FOOD, and Alejandro Álvarez, financial director at Cafés Candelas, addressed the challenges facing the food industry.

Subsequently, Roberto Alonso, manager of the Galician Food Cluster, reviewed the first edition of Business Factory Food, whose six selected projects (AlphaCloud, CERTO, Essence Food, Monkey Market, Muutech Monitoring Solutions and oSIGris) have been accelerated and mentored since last June. For his part, Javier A. Osuna, head of BFFood, presented the real challenges of food companies for which participating projects must find solutions and the 14 tractor companies participating in this second edition.

The event was closed by Fernando Guldrís, director of Xesgalicia, Norberto Penedo, director of the competitiveness area of the Galician Institute for Economic Promotion (IGAPE) and Pedro Arenas, director of the services area of the Galician Innovation Agency (GAIN), who explained the economic support instruments of this second edition of BFFood and highlighted “the opportunity that Galicia has with this accelerator to act as a lever for change to boost our competitiveness.”