Clusaga and ICEX present the Desafía FoodTech programme as part of BFFood

The Galician Food Cluster (Clusaga) hosted today in Santiago de Compostela the ICEX Desafía FoodTech Netherlands 2023 Programme Infoday, an activity included within the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, funded by the European Union through the NextGeneration EU Fund. This event forms part of the activity of the Business Factory Food (BFFood) accelerator, driven by the Cluster, whose purpose is to promote innovative FoodTech entrepreneurship projects that provide solutions to the challenges of the Galician food industry.

The meeting was attended by Roberto Alonso, Director of Clusaga; Xosé Ramón Vázquez, Head of BFFood at Clusaga; María Jesús Abellán, from ICEX; Lucila Carminatti, from the consultancy UNKNOWN specialising in the Netherlands; and representatives of the FoodTech companies participating in the BFFood programme.

ICEX presented to attendees all the programmes it is promoting this year for the internationalisation of FoodTech companies, with a focus on the Desafía Netherlands Programme, which includes immersion and support for companies with the aim of improving their scalability and growth. The initiative includes networking and workshops, company visits and innovation in working procedures, among other activities. All of this is aimed at facilitating contact with the main stakeholders and companies in the FoodTech ecosystem in the Netherlands, one of the most advanced worldwide.

During the event, information was provided about the programme, and the companies received individualised advice on how to take part and had the opportunity to take part in bilateral interviews with the Head of BFFood and the representative from UNKNOWN.

The event, which coincided with the closing meeting of the acceleration programme of the 4th Edition of BFFood, enabled the companies, which were able to develop their minimum viable product thanks to the accelerator, to have the opportunity to learn about the support available to develop the growth strategy in international markets, as well as to do networking to identify new opportunities.

BFFood, driving innovative entrepreneurship

The BFFood accelerator has already made it possible to accelerate and consolidate more than 40 innovative entrepreneurship projects, and has just selected the 14 projects that will be part of its 5th Edition.

In this way, BFFood continues to establish itself as a driving force for open innovation and entrepreneurship, addressing the challenges of the food industry and attracting talent to the sector’s value chain, making it stronger overall to compete efficiently on a global scale.