Good Food Makers is seeking innovative business solutions to four challenges in the food industry: reducing waste, improving food delivery, developing digital nutrition guides, and creating easy meal routines.
Good Food Makers is a collaboration between Barilla Group’s venture group, BLU1877, and the incubator KitchenTown. The San Francisco-based company supports start-ups that aim to drive change in, and improve the sustainability of, the food system.
“Solving challenges and scaling solutions for these big, tricky food systems issues needs as many creative minds coming together as possible,” KitchenTown Director for Good Food Makers Sarah Sha tells Food Tank. “Accelerators are a great way to do that — it focuses a lot of creativity and passion into a short burst of productivity.”
The program will select one start-up per challenge area to receive US$10,000. Each of the four winners will also have eight weeks to work with a team of Barilla experts to develop and implement their food system solution.
Good Food Makers is looking for ways to upcycle pasta regrind, wheat bran, and bread crust to create a more circular food system. The accelerator also wants to improve the preparation, logistics, automation, packaging, and recipe development for restaurant-delivered food. Another goal is to create transparent, honest, and accurate nutrition guides that eaters can access online. Barilla is also looking to develop quick and easy meal kits and food products that don’t sacrifice on nutrition or sustainability.
“The pandemic accelerated a lot of big changes for the food system: restaurants have pivoted to optimize for delivery, the food industry needs to optimize the use of their by-products, busy at-home workers are looking for convenient ways to stay nourished, and people understand the importance of eating well to stay healthy,” Sha tells Food Tank. “You can see all of these issues reflected in this year’s challenges.”
Good Food Makers is accepting applications through August 2021 and the eight-week program will kick off in September.
Photo courtesy of Good Food Makers
