One of our portfolio companies, Regiothek (www.regiothek.de), is one of five Start-Ups worldwide, presenting its innovation at the Global Food Summit in Munich, Germany. The Global Food Summit is a scientific conference featuring innovations in the food sector.
Regiothek is the very first online platform for local food which is actually assessing the regionality or „localness“ of food. Its innovation and unique selling point is the geographical visualization of supply chains on a map: Restaurant A gets its pretzels from bakery B, which buys wheat flour from mill C. The wheat used by the mill comes from the farmers D and E. By making these supply chains transparent, Regiothek wants to create as much traceability for consumers as possible — from farm to fork. Doing so, the Start-Up acts as a marketing and digitalization partner for the benefit of small farmers, food crafters, restaurants and retail stores. By creating a Regiothek profile, they can meet consumers who look for as much food transparency as possible and who increasingly use digital devices to inform themselves online.
As a spin-off from the Chair of Data Science of the University of Passau and already rewarded by several German and one European innovation awards, the first (German-speaking) version of the platform already runs in the pilot region Eastern Bavaria. Once the user interface and the usability will be enhanced, Regiothek is going to scale the plattform geographically. The long term goal is to create a Europe-wide, multilingual social network, instigating a genuine „regiovolution“; thus, making people buy what they consider to be “good food”, corresponding to ecological, social and cultural-gustative criteria. By promoting local farming and a sustainable agriculture, preserving traditional handicraft and culinary diversity, Regiothek wants to contribute to a 21st century Europe worth living in.
As the Global Food Summit committee explains, the UN Sustainable Development Goals with its Agenda 2030 will lead to new technologies, such as Regiothek. The Global Food Summit discussed those new options for the future, with experts from China, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, and the U.S.
Five Start-Ups had the opportunity to present themselves at this year’s Global Food Summit. In order to be selected, the Start-Ups needed a recommendation from venture capital holders, business angels and industry experts as well as the subsequent nomination by the Global Food Summit team for the pitch. Ideas and products from the areas of Smart Urban Farming, Circular Systems, Data Analytics, Biotech and Packaging were in demand. Regiothek is one of them:
