Voxpopme Celebrated as a Good Food Makers 2024 Winner
We are thrilled to announce that Voxpopme has been recognized as a category winner in the prestigious Good Food Makers 2024 program. Recognized by Barilla and Plug and Play, this milestone highlights our continued commitment to transforming qualitative consumer research through artificial intelligence.
From AI to Energy Optimization: Barilla and Plug and Play Recognize the Most Innovative Food-Tech Startups
Four startups active in the food industry are the winners of Good Food Makers 2024 will now develop and test their technology with the support of an 8-week collaboration with Barilla.
Parma, 21 November 2024 – Barilla and Plug and Play, the world’s largest open innovation platform, have announced the four winning projects of Good Food Makers, a program launched in 2019 with the goal of stimulating the development of innovative and sustainable food solutions. The winners of Good Food Makers will participate in an eight-week program, working closely with Barilla managers to develop and test new technologies, benefiting from the vision of a company that has been dedicated to producing good and high-quality food for 147 years.
The winners of the four categories in the 2024 edition—AI for Consumer Insights, Tasty and Healthy, Energy Shift, and Smart Start: Operators Onboarding—are:
- Voxpopme: A UK-based startup that is revolutionizing qualitative consumer research using artificial intelligence. The platform enables quick and in-depth understanding of consumer opinions, analyzing video and text data to highlight specific customer needs. This helps businesses create products that align more closely with market expectations and establish more authentic, personalized relationships.
- Phynova: Also from the UK, Phynova focuses on the power of natural ingredients for well-being. The company rediscovered the value of plants like white mulberry for blood sugar control, offering healthy solutions aimed at prevention through nutrition.
- Ecop: An Austrian company that specializes in advanced technology for high-temperature rotary heat pumps, optimizing heating in production processes and significantly reducing energy consumption and environmental impact.
- Manual.to: Based in Belgium, Manual.to simplifies manufacturing training and procedures with a platform that enables the creation and sharing of visual instructions, making learning easier and helping businesses ensure quality and safety at every stage of production.
To support their growth journey, the four selected startups will receive a total amount of €40,000 and the opportunity to collaborate with Barilla Group in the future.
A Global Open Innovation Project
Now in its sixth edition, the initiative is supported by Plug and Play, a network with over 78,000 startups, 570 global companies, and hundreds of venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies.
“Good Food Makers has once again demonstrated how research and new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, can contribute not only to a sustainable and responsible food future but also to making people, both inside and outside the company, ever more central to innovation.” said Claudia Berti, Barilla Global Open Innovation Senior Manager. “In this edition, we engaged with many new players in the digital and food-tech sectors, who are at the forefront of key processes for the future of our industry. By continuing to promote programs like Good Food Makers, we are helping create an open, collaborative model that not only supports new ventures but also enriches the processes of a company with 147 years of history and leadership in the sector.”
“Once again, we are proud to partner with Barilla on the Good Food Makers program, a leading initiative in open innovation for the food-tech sector. This year’s four selected startups are delivering groundbreaking solutions in key areas: leveraging AI to address consumer needs, using natural ingredients to promote wellbeing, optimizing energy efficiency in production processes, and introducing digital tools to enhance operational training. Through our global platform and close collaboration with Barilla, we have identified trailblazing startups poised to reshape the future of sustainable food,” said Tommaso Maschera, Director of Plug and Play Italy.
With nearly 1,000 applications from over 30 countries, including France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States, Good Food Makers has already supported projects from 26 international companies, which, thanks to Barilla, have had the opportunity to engage with a global leader based in Parma, at the heart of Italy’s Food Valley. As an example Nosh Biofoods, the winner of 2023 edition, is carrying out joint research projects with Barilla.
Blockchain and Pesto: A Good Food Makers Case Study on Innovation and Traceability
Collaboration with innovative companies is part of Barilla’s business approach. In 2024, Barilla completed the full digitalization of its fresh basil supply chain for Pesto Barilla alla Genovese, ensuring full traceability and efficiency. The basil (fresh and semi-processed) used in the pesto was the first in the world to be tracked using blockchain technology, thanks to the collaboration with Connecting Food, a company selected in a previous edition of Good Food Makers. By scanning a QR code on the packaging of Barilla’s Pesto Barilla alla Genovese (and its garlic-free variant), consumers can trace the origin of the basil and access all relevant information, including textual and photographic details about the producer. The project involved 50 operational units, 19 farms, and 6 suppliers, in addition to the Rubbiano facility in Parma.
Nosh Biofoods was awarded in the 2023 edition of the program for its innovative proposal focused on solutions that address the growing needs for sustainability and nutrition. The company, which is still collaborating with the Barilla Group, stands out for its use of fermentation technologies to produce high-quality ingredients that are nutritionally rich and functional. This approach enables the creation of foods with a reduced environmental impact, offering a concrete and healthy alternative to traditional food production models.
“The Good Food Makers program has been an extraordinary experience for us,” says Alix Chausson of Nosh Biofoods. “Barilla and our teams have worked closely together, with constant collaboration and continuous communication, which have been key features of this partnership. This collaboration has increased our visibility and accelerated product development.”
Innovation at the Heart of Barilla’s Business Model
To reaffirm its position as a global leader in the food industry and explore new frontiers in food, Barilla invested €230 million in innovation in 2023, with €45 million dedicated to Research and Development. A new Research and Development Center is currently being upgraded and expanded. Spanning 12,000 square meters with new laboratories, the new center will concentrate all of Barilla’s technical expertise at the Group level, significantly increasing its research and innovation capabilities. The company continues to work with increasingly interdisciplinary and international teams, as well as dedicated project teams, in continuous collaboration with external partners, including startups selected through Good Food Makers.
About Barilla Group
Barilla is a family business, not listed on the Stock Exchange, chaired by the brothers Guido, Luca and Paolo Barilla. It was founded by their great-grandfather Pietro Barilla, who opened a bakery in Parma in 1877. Today, Barilla is renowned in Italy and around the world for the quality of its food products. With its brands – Barilla, Mulino Bianco, Pan di Stelle, Gran Cereale, Harrys, Pavesi, Wasa, Filiz, Yemina, Misko, Voiello, Academia Barilla, First, Catelli, Lancia, Splendor, Back To Nature and Pasta Evangelists – it advocates tasty, hearty and wholesome nutrition, inspired by the Mediterranean Diet and the Italian lifestyle.
When Pietro opened his shop over 145 years ago, the main aim was to make good food. That principle has now become the Barilla way of doing business, with almost 9,000 people working for the company and a supply chain that shares its values and passion for quality.
The Group’s commitment is to offer people the joy that good, well-made food can bring them, produced with selected ingredients from, as far as possible, responsible supply chains, to contribute to a better present and future.
Twitter: @barillagroup; LinkedIn: Barilla Group; Instagram: @barillapeople
For further information, contact:
Global Contact – MSL Group
Barilla Group Media Relations
Elena Botturi: elena.botturi@barilla.com , +31642472860
About Plug and Play
Plug and Play is the world’s largest open innovation platform: on one side, it connects startups with leading corporations; on the other, it invests in and fosters investments to help startups grow, all with a global approach that facilitates internationalization and relationships with Silicon Valley. Launched in 2006 and co-founded by Saeed Amidi in the legendary Lucky Building in Silicon Valley, which saw Google, PayPal, and Dropbox take their first steps, today Plug and Play operates in over 50 cities worldwide and stands as a leading innovation platform with more than 550 corporate partners, a database of 68,000 startups, and a total investment value exceeding $12 billion in companies like Dropbox, PayPal, N26, and Hippo.
In Italy, local offices (with associated acceleration programs) are currently focused on the sectors of Food & Beverage, Fintech, Sustainability, Automotive, and Aerospace. In April 2019, Plug and Play opened its first Italian office in Milan, focused on the Food & Beverage sector (in partnership with Tetra Pak and Barilla) and Fintech (with UniCredit), later followed by Sustainability (with A2A, Poste Italiane). In July 2021, the Modena office was launched, dedicated to the Automotive sector with the introduction of the Motor Valley Accelerator (in partnership with CDP Venture Capital, CRIT, Fondazione Modena, UniCredit, and corporate partners STMicroelectronics, Dallara, Sabelt, Unipol, and OMR). In April 2022, a new office dedicated to Aerospace and Advanced Hardware was inaugurated in Turin, Takeoff Accelerator—an initiative of CDP Venture Capital, promoted by co-investors from the UniCredit Program and Fondazione CRT, with OGR Torino as Innovation and Networking Partners, and corporate partners Leonardo, AVIO, and Unione Industriali Torino, along with the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency as members of the Scientific Advisory Board. In 2024, DualTech by Takeoff was launched, an acceleration program based in Turin as part of the NATO-created DIANA network, designed to accelerate the development of cutting-edge dual-use technologies for both defense and commercial purposes.
Press office
Disclosers
Daniela Monteverdi – daniela.monteverdi@disclosers.it – + 39 3493192268
Valeria Volpato – valeria.volpato@disclosers.it – + 39 3489263279
Micaela Longo – micaela.longo@disclosers.it – + 39 3395800192
Plug and Play Italy
Ilaria Battistutta – i.battistutta@pnptc.com + 39 328 3180979
