Plug and Play Alberta Announces 16 Startups for the Second Cohort of its Food & Beverage Program
CALGARY, ALBERTA, October 5, 2023 - Plug and Play Alberta has announced 16 startups selected for the second cohort of their Food & Beverage program. The aim of this initiative is to bring global innovation to the region through the expansion of businesses, providing guidance, and facilitating pilots and proof of concepts among selected startups.
An Advisory Panel has been established to jointly select and guide the participating startups, including Valerie Sershon from PepsiCo, Joseph Lake from McCain Foods, Konrad Kiss from Coca Cola Bottling, Mike McGee from BioEnterprise Canada, and Hubba Khatoon from CFIN.
"The second cohort of the Food & Beverage program is welcoming 16 top of the line startups this fall," said Lindsay Smylie, Director of Plug and Play Alberta. "These cutting-edge companies are driving innovation in alternative ingredients, processing and upcycling technologies, agtech and more. Over the next 3 months we’ll work to connect them with our ecosystem and advisory panel to help continue their innovation journeys at every step of the Food Value Chain."
The Plug and Play Food & Beverage program focuses on the technology behind farm-to-table processes and innovations. This program connects the best and brightest startups with some of the world's largest food and agricultural institutions to reach new heights in the industry.
The Food & Beverage 3-month program officially launched on March 6, 2023 and will run until the next Plug and Play Alberta EXPO on November 28, 2023 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada which marks the highly anticipated graduation of Plug and Play’s Fall 2023 cohort.
Learn more about the 16 startups participating in the program:
Cubbi is a food services platform for businesses that makes providing healthy and fresh meals for staff easy and inexpensive.
ZeroIN's Sweet Fiber, the most scalable and cost-efficient, sugar substitute consumers want.
We automate cold chain temperature monitoring using modern IoT technology, reducing food loss and digitizing compliance data in the supply chain.
We help manufacturers to prevent unplanned downtime by detecting early signs of machine failures with smart sensors and AI-powered analytics.
Hyper-localizing and decarbonizing food & beverage manufacturing with autonomous micro-factories.
An Online Platform Connecting Farmers and Food Artisans Directly with Local Consumers Across Canada.
Genuine Taste is creating cultivated fat to improve the taste, texture, and nutrition of alternative meat.
Neptune converts organic fishing waste into advanced nanotechnology that solves the performance and sustainability challenges of the plastics, composites and paper industries.
Peelon is a biodegradable packaging solution that can triple the shelf life of fresh produce, addressing the issues of food waste and plastic pollution in the fresh produce supply chain.
We help fruit growers grow better fruits and make their work easier by using computer vision technology and machine learning to monitor fruit tree growth cycle from dormancy to harvest and provide farmers with actionable insights about their orchard.
Creating cost effective bioplastics from food waste.
ShareWares is a B2B reusable packaging company that has developed a technology to make zero waste living easy, affordable, and scalable.
Susgrainable upcycles spent grains from craft brewers to create nutritious, delicious, and easy-to-make upcycled barley flour and baking mixes
BrewNature technology is designed to help reduce the amount of organic waste that ends up in landfills, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
Forging an algae revolution.
Harnessing microbial fermentation to sustainably produce high-value molecules for the food industry.
About Plug and Play Alberta
Plug and Play Alberta is building a world-class innovation platform to attract top technology and investment to the region and support Albertan entrepreneurs to scale and grow, hire tech talent, and propel digital transformation across the province. Plug and Play is part of the Alberta Scaleup and Growth Accelerator Program that is run by a consortium led by Alberta Innovates. The consortium, which also includes the Government of Alberta, Edmonton Unlimited, the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund, and Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan), allocated $35 million over three years to retain business accelerators. It’s part of the Alberta government’s goal to help create 20,000 jobs and increase technology firm revenue to $5 billion by 2030.
About Plug and Play Tech Center
Plug and Play is the leading innovation platform, connecting startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we're present in 45+ locations across 5 continents. We offer corporate innovation programs and help our corporate partners in every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. We also organize startup acceleration programs and have built an in-house VC to drive innovation across multiple industries where we've invested in hundreds of successful companies including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal, and Rappi. For more information, visit www.plugandplaytechcenter.com.
Plug and Play Contact
Carly Beckman
Program Manager, Food & Beverage
Plug and Play Tech Center
c.beckman@pnptc.com