EIT Food announces recipients of €6.17 million COVID-19 Innovation Fund
Winning innovations include an edible anti-viral coating for food, a test for micronutrient deficiencies’ effect on disease strength and dynamic pricing technology which can decrease supermarket food waste by over 40%.
EIT Food has announced the final list of initiatives that will be awarded EUR 6.17 million of funding as part of the COVID-19 Rapid Response Call for Innovation projects. The Call was designed to fast-track product or service solutions that could have a significant and immediate impact to the challenges brought about by COVID-19 on the agrifood sector.
The funding is being awarded to 13 projects in total, made up from consortia representing 52 global organisations. Lead organisations include the Technical University of Munich (TUM) from Germany, INL from Portugal, SwissDeCode from Switzerland, Wasteless from Israel, UNIBO from Italy, Matis from Iceland, Rikolto from Belgium, UCSC from Italy, Queen’s University Belfast from Northern Ireland, and SmartRetail from Belgium.
As part of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT)’s Crisis Response Initiative, this activity directly contributes to the European Union’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the leadership of the EIT, EIT Food and its other Knowledge Innovation Communities (KICs) have been able to deploy these COVID-19 Response Calls at an unprecedented speed, ensuring that industries across Europe are being supported in their time of need.
The COVID-19 Rapid Response Call for Innovation was launched in May 2020 alongside the COVID-19 Bridge Fund, which was designed to support startups that have been adversely affected by the pandemic. The total available amount awarded to EIT Food is EUR 10.25 million for both funding opportunities. Implementation of projects started in early July 2020, a mere 6 weeks after the call was launched.
The COVID-19 Rapid Response Call for Innovation focuses on supporting three food system specific challenges that EIT Food is currently tackling:
Improved Nutrition (EUR 2.05 million awarded to five projects in total)
Supply Chain Disruption (EUR 2.18 million awarded to five projects in total)
Food Safety Risks (EUR 1.94 million awarded to three projects in total)
Further details on all of the fund recipient projects are available on the dedicated COVID-19 pages on the EIT Food website here.
An impressive number of high-quality applications were assessed as part of EIT Food’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Call for Innovation, and we are very pleased with the final 13 that were chosen. They demonstrate the ingenuity and dedication of the agritech community in a time of great uncertainty and disruption, and we are as committed as ever before to supporting their resilience – as well as that of the wider European Food System. We look forward to the implementation of these urgently needed innovations to help the sector collectively respond to the pandemic and rebuild our economy sustainably
Andy Zynga, CEO of EIT Food
In August 2020, EIT Food will also announce the recipients of the COVID-19 Bridge Fund, which will help ventures adapt to the crisis and continue critical innovation activities whilst bridging the gap so they can secure follow-on funding. The aim is to provide timely financial support of between EUR 200 000 and EUR 500 000 to a select number of agricultural and food ventures that address one of EIT Food’s key focus areas. By deploying a rapid response mechanism, all EIT Crisis Response activities will be completed by the end of 2020 to help Europe recover.
These funding initiatives come on top of already-launched initiatives from across the whole EIT Food partner community to support the European food system through the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has included the launch of ‘Robin Food’, a soup brand in Belgium with EIT Food partners (and now a COVID-19 Rapid Response Call for Innovation recipient) that is using fresh surplus vegetables from farmers, and aims to distribute 20 000 litres to vulnerable families through food banks and social grocers. With learnings from the Robin Food program, similar initiatives are already being rolled out across other regions in Europe. In Spain for example, EIT Food has announced the ‘initiative to provide over 60,000 healthy lunch boxes to children in need affected by the COVID crisis. EIT Food is also helping to improve the knowledge of the public by launching a free online course that is exploring how agrifood supply chains are coping during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Further information on the EIT Food COVID-19 response calls and the fund recipients can be found on the dedicated COVID-19 pages on the EIT Food website here.
If you’d like to join the EIT Food Community and help make the food system more sustainable, healthy and trusted then please see our Get Involved web pages.