Chinese food tech VC Bits x Bites has created The China Food Tech Hub, a new model to foster cooperation between startups and corporations in collaboration with a multinational consortium of biotech firms, agricultural processors, flavor houses, consumer food companies.
This consortium that includes Coca-Cola, PepsiCo Greater China, Danone, and General Mills has agreed to help accelerate the food tech ecosystem in China through teamwork and shared insights, according to founder and managing director of Bits x Bites Matilda Ho.
“Like most parts of the world outside of EU and US, food tech is still in its infancy in China and there hasn’t been a strong ecosystem to support startups in this space,” says Ho. “As China’s first food tech VC, we see an opportunity to bridge and strengthen these partnerships and hopefully make it easier for startups and corporations to share insights and work together.”
Bits x Bites wants the China Food Tech Hub to provide a neutral platform for companies to cooperate with startups and each other as a smarter way to innovate, tackle business challenges, and create new growth opportunities. Through regular meetings, the companies will exchange startup insights and work with food tech startups to explore pilot projects and other forms of collaboration.
All of the founding member companies in the China Food Tech Hub are multinationals that are looking to grow their established presence in the Chinese market and increase their cooperation with early-stage food tech companies. These companies include:
Coca-Cola
Danone
General Mills
Givaudan
Griffith Foods
Louis Dreyfus Company
Novozymes
Nutreco
PepsiCo Greater China
Puratos
“The Chinese market evolves at an incredibly fast pace,” says David Machiels, R&I Director Asia Expansion and Innovation Acceleration at Danone. “To maintain our edge in the categories where we play, we believe that it is key to be able to identify emerging new ingredients, technologies, product formats and business models in order to define new innovation opportunities for our consumers. By working with the startup and corporate community through the China Food Tech Hub, we want to contribute to further build the food tech ecosystem in a collaborative way, feed our innovation needs and identify new project opportunities in China.”
The vice president of the food & beverages business operations of Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa for Novozymes TC Tan adds: “At Novozymes, innovation is the key to our business and in helping our customers drive business growth. With the ongoing consumption upgrade and increasing consumer focus on health, wellness and natural products, we look forward to exploring collaboration opportunities with food and beverage startups and other stakeholders to bring forth even more impactful innovations to meet the diversified demand of the Chinese consumers.”
To learn more about the China Food Tech Hub, email Bits x Bites at [email protected].
