10 European innovation organisations join forces to develop a European agri-food and digital acceleration network

Food-scalEUp is an initiative that has been set up in the framework of the Smart Sensors 4 Agri-Food partnership whose main objective is to support all agri-food companies and associated organisations to make the leap to Industry 5.0 and for the agri-food sector to evolve towards an interconnected, people-centred, resilient and smart agri-food system in Europe.

The European Food-scalEUp project, which is funded by the Horizon Europe programme, is coordinated by the Galicia Food cluster (ES) and is developed in close collaboration with CEIN (ES), AgriFood Capital (NL), FoodValley (NL), Food-Processing Initiative (DE), CTRIA (HU), Innov'Alliance (FR), Valorial (FR), Technopole Quimper- Cornouaille (FR) and Normandie Incubation (FR).

The ultimate objective of the Food-scalEUp project is to develop and optimize new high- quality acceleration services for SMEs and startups. The acceleration services will mainly target businesses and local actors operating in agri-food industry that want to implement innovative digital solutions in emerging and moderate innovation regions. To achieve this goal, Food-scalEUp consortium partners will focus on the following actions:

• Identify agri-food innovation and digital acceleration ecosystems best practices

• Expand connections between the different regions and foster continuous improvement of the acceleration ecosystem across Europe

• Establish knowledge exchanges and collaborations between the scale-up support organisations while boosting the agri-food digital innovation ecosystems

• Foster the progress of startups and SMEs and the creation of local jobs with high added value

Focus on regional agri-food digital innovation ecosystems

The recent boom in digital-based innovations for the agri-food industry has placed providers of such solutions as enablers of the creation and exploitation of new value chains, as well as vital actors in the continued optimisation of pre-existing value chains. In addition, five main subsectors have been considered in growth phase in terms of average rise in early-stage funding deals: agtech & new food, blockchain, advanced manufacturing and robotics, AI & big data and fintech. Several of these subsectors have very relevant applications in the agri-food industry.

Food-scalEUp is focused on regional European agri-food digital innovation ecosystems, which are regarded as composed of the following groups of stakeholders:

• Core of the agri-food production chain (primary production, food processing, retail, etc.);

• R&D partners, such as technology centres, universities, RTOs, etc.;

• Process technology supply partners, e.g. machinery, packaging and logistics providers;

• Providers of digital-based solutions, mainly start-ups and highly innovative SMEs (novel sensors, systemic integrations, process management and optimisation solutions, etc.).