More than 150 attendees come together to listen to agrifood experts, leading companies, and startups in the V FUN&FAN
During the 9th and 10th of October, San Mamés Stadium (Bilbao) welcomed the fifth edition of the FUN&FAN to talk about entrepreneruship, innovation and many other topics in the agrifood sector.
'Five years improving the food together'
For 5 years in a row, EIT Food has been organising one of the most important event of entrepreneurship and innovation.
This year’s event has been held in the football stadium of Bilbao, San Mamés Stadium, during the days of October 9 and 10.
Throughout the 2-days event several agrifood experts and leading entrepreneurs, like Andreas Blüthner, Founder & CEO at DR. Blüthner & Partner, and Beatriz Magro, CEO and Co-founder at Komvida Kombucha, got the chance to talk about the biggest challenges of today, such as malnutrition, climate change, poor soil health, and water scarcity.
'All about agrifood innovation and entrepreneurship'
On October 9 early morning the football stadium opened its gates to warmly receive the first day of the V FUN&FAN. The event offically began with the institutional welcome of Begoña Pérez Villarreal, Director at EIT Food South; Olatz Goitia, General Director at Beaz Bizkaia; and Raúl Perez Iratxeta, Quality and Food Industries Director at the Basque Government.
Laura Cristóbal Gracia, Director at EFE Agro, and Damien Jourdan, Open Innovation Director at Danone, took the floor to talk about entrepreneurs and their impact in the agrifood sector. Jourdan pointed out the importance of creating sinergies between farmers and manufacturers to support local proyect.
'One in three produced food is thrown away. There are many opportunities to move forward in sustainable packaging, carbon footprint measurement, or the studies of nutritional values'
Next to talk was Andreas Blüthner, Nutrition Exdirector at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and now CEO at DR. Blüthner & Partner, who shared inpiring insights on how to create a business to fight food waste. Righ after, Alicia López de Orcáriz, Medicine Director at Cinfa Laboratories, and Josune Ayo, CEO and Co-founder at Gembioma, joined the stage to analise the accessibilty of new nutritional alternatives, highlighting the use of probiotics, always using them as a supplements and never as a replacement.
The day continued with many agrifood entrepreneurs. The first to interact was Mary Grace Gasco, Founder of ScapeCrop, who has developed an agricultural software to help farms manage irrigation and increase crop resilience through satellite date and AI. She took attendees through all her entrepreneurial story and gave advice on how to start a startup from scratch.
Sara de Berandis and Oscar González, both members of EFSA, closed the morning with an explanatory presentation of EFSA’s function to ensure food security and all the phases a startups must overcome to finally launch their product in the market.
After a refreshing break, it was time for Roberto Ruiz, Head of Animal Production Department at Neiker, Pablo López, Co-founder at Innogando, and Javier Teja, Technician at Kaiku, to restart the event. During the roundable, Roberto Ruiz presented the keys to reduce animal impact in livestock farm; Teja explained Kaiku’s plan to decrease carbon footprint, which is base don farmers and manufacturers alliances. Finally, Pablo López, showcased RUMI, an app with GPS location created by Innogrande that monitors the state of cattle in real life.
The last session of the day was moderated by Melissa Comellas, Agriculture Project Manager South at EIT Food, who invited Jose Luis García de Castro, Director at Poultree, and Massimiliano Miatton, Regenerative Agriculture Training Programme Coodinator for Italy at EIT Food, to join the stage to debate about regenerative agriculture and ways of improving agrifood value chain.
'Woman entrepreneurship in the 21st century'
The second day of the V FUN&FAN set the light to woman in the agrifood sector. Step by step we see more successful woman in food industry, a great example is Beatriz Magro, CEO and Co-founder at Komvida Kombucha, who opened the day with an inspiring speech about her leading and growing company.
Begum Mutus, General Director at Yildiz Holding, was another excellent keynote speaker that talked about her consortium, which is one of the main agrifood consortium of Turkey. The second day went also hand in hand with many ground-breaking woman, for instance, Inês Santos Silva, Co-Initiator & Ops Lead at AthenaDAO, Neta Lavon, Co-founder and CTO at Aleph Farms,Sabiha Apaydın, Wine Expert at Root Origin Soil, Vanessa Archontidou, Founder at AWomanCanBe.org, and Anna Fedulow, Founder & Managing Director at Croton Capital.
To give a great end to the 5th edition of the event, Ramón Perisé, R&D Head Cheaf at Restaurante Mugaritz, give a motivational speech to encourage entrepreneurs to keep innovating the agrifood industry.
In addition, after the event was closed, another side event was carried out named after the EIT Food programme 'Corporate Venturing Launchpad'. The event gathered corporates from the Southern Europe to identify areas of collaboration and establish connections within the agrifood value chain.
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