SHIFT Invest is a Dutch environmental impact venture capital fund that invests in early stage innovations related to food & agriculture, green industries, energy transition and sustainable mobility & logistics.  The investments are focused on achieving a positive environmental impact and financial return. Together with its partners, SHIFT Invest offers entrepreneurs an extensive network and knowledge in various sectors.

SHIFT Invest

Eastern NL is the development company of Eastern Netherlands. We are strengthening the regional economy on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate and the provinces of Overijssel and Gelderland. We do this by investing with public money in entrepreneurs in the Eastern Netherlands. In addition to these financial resources, Oost NL also makes its knowledge, expertise and network available. We are active in the top sectors Food, Energy, Health and Tech. An optimal balance between financial and social return is of great importance to us. We allow entrepreneurs to innovate, invest and internationalize to accelerate their growth. This is how we ensure the sustainable growth of the regional economy and employment. In addition, we create favorable conditions for solving global, social issues. We offer entrepreneurs money and resources for creating social returns. With focus on sustainability, smart industry and concepts for a healthy life.

OostNL

Founded in 1994, Pymwymic is the “Put Your Money Where Your Meaning Is Community”, a co-owned organisation of European wealth holders who take a frontrunner role in the transition towards investing with care for people and planet. A community that consists of over 150 individuals, families, entrepreneurs and angel investors of different backgrounds, ages and nationalities. We currently invest through the Pymwymic Healthy Ecosystems Impact Fund, a venture capital fund for companies that seek to conserve and restore our ecosystems, with a specific focus on sustainable food systems. By combining our knowledge, passion and money, we bring credibility to the impact investing industry and continuously push for higher standards until investing with care for people and planet is is the new norm.

Pymwymic

Halma Ventures operate as an investment arm of Halma.

Halma Ventures

OneThird

Blockchain, Food Loss, Food Waste, Food Tech, Supply Chain, Big Data, Ag Tech, Digitization, AI, Shelf Life Prediction, Quality Assessment, Fresh Produce, Dynamic Routing, UN SDG 12.3, Spectroscopy, Mobile App, and NIR Spectroscopy

OneThird is a Netherlands-based food tech company that predicts the shelf life of produce using AI. The company offers an AI-powered scanning technology that allows growers, food distributors, retailers, and consumers to predict the shelf life of fresh produce accurately. It provides real-time information to supply chain stakeholders to make informed decisions that minimize food waste, such as optimizing best-before codes, choosing to ship the produce locally or over a shorter distance to maintain shelf life, or converting the produce into other products like smoothies, dry frozen products, soups, and more.&nbsp;

Tech solutions for achieving global anti-wastage targets

Food Waste

Hitachi Digital Services, OneThird Tackle Food Waste with Real-Time Data Platform

Hitachi

OneThird has selected Digital Services from Hitachi Vantara, a new entity known as Hitachi Digital Services, to combine its Azure cloud and application expertise with their in-depth understanding of sensing and AI technology and together they created a real-time data insights platform to enable a smarter and more flexible food supply chain.

Startups that prevent food wastage by prolonging the lifetime of food or better managing food production through the supply chain. Companies that develop products such as sanitizers, containers, and machines that allow food to stay fresh longer are included here. Startups that develop algorithms to determine food preservation strategies are also included.

OneThird is a Netherlands-based food tech company that predicts the shelf life of produce using AI. The company offers an AI-powered scanning technology that allows growers, food distributors, retailers, and consumers to predict the shelf life of fresh produce accurately. It provides real-time information to supply chain stakeholders to make informed decisions that minimize food waste, such as optimizing best-before codes, choosing to ship the produce locally or over a shorter distance to maintain shelf life, or converting the produce into other products like smoothies, dry frozen products, soups, and more.&nbsp;OneThird claims to have developed a different method of predicting shelf life than the typical approach. According to the company, most quality control is based on lab-based measurements like brix or acidity that require destructively testing a sample of the produce. OneThird's method eliminates the need to destroy any part of the produce or send it to the lab. Its handheld scanner can predict shelf life within a second and with an accuracy of +/- 1 day.&nbsp;As of&nbsp;October&nbsp;2024, the technology covered tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, and avocados and&nbsp;was set to expand to a total of 10 produce types. The company&nbsp;was yet to commercialize successfully and&nbsp;was looking to enter new markets in North America and Europe, as well. The company targets preventing 150 million kg of waste through 2028.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsIn&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19456">June 2023</a>,&nbsp;OneThird partnered with Bakker Barendrecht, the sole supplier of fresh produce for the Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn, to deploy its AI-powered scanner technology in Bakker Barendrecht’s supply chain.OneThird also partnered with Hitachi Digital Services in January 2024 to support the former in the development of its AI food waste technological solution using Hitachi’s Azure cloud.

Apeel Sciences is a California-based food technology company that produces edible coatings made of plant materials that extend the lifetime of fruits by 2x–3x to prevent food wastage in regions where refrigeration is scarce.&nbsp;The coatings are intended for use on fruits and vegetables, with a primary focus on avocados, apples, mangos, cucumbers, and citrus fruits.&nbsp;According to the company, US retailers that used Apeel experienced a 50% reduction in waste alongside a 5%–10% growth in sales on average. As of&nbsp;April 2024, Apeel Sciences reported to have saved&nbsp;over&nbsp;60 million pieces of produce from going to waste at retail stores by partnering with small family-owned farmers, local organic growers, grocery stores, and large food brands.&nbsp;As of October&nbsp;2024, the company was offering its solution to a network of 30 suppliers and 40 retailers across eight countries, including the US, UK, Spain, Netherlands, and Kenya. The company focuses on expanding its market presence across North America and the EU.In May 2020, Apeel announced plans to expand to Sub-Saharan Africa, Central, and South America—all regions where food wastage was increasing.&nbsp;Following this, Apeel expanded to Sub-Saharan Africa in 2022 and began its expansion to South America in 2024.In May 2021, Apeel Sciences acquired&nbsp;the&nbsp;startup Impact Vision for an undisclosed amount. Impact Vision’s technology allows suppliers to see inside their fresh produce and ultimately reduce post-harvest loss and optimize distribution while continuing to extend shelf life.&nbsp;Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;Apeel has partnered with various distributors for the distribution of its avocados, including The Kroger Company in September 2018 for Cincinnati, Calavo Growers in January 2021, and Nature’s Pride for Europe in March 2021.&nbsp;The company also collaborated with Topline Farms in February 2023 for the development of the Apeel-Protected Mini Cucumber and licensed its coating technology to Limoneira in May 2023 for use on lemons.&nbsp;

Apeel Sciences

Shelf Engine provides demand forecasting tools,&nbsp;which leverage AI and machine learning, for perishable food items to reduce inefficiencies in the ordering system and minimize overall costs. According to Shelf Engine, more than 30% of highly perishable foods in grocery stores such as meat and vegetables expire before the sell-by date. Shelf Engine’s scan-based trade (SBT) technology guarantees sales and pays for any items that remain unsold. Via the SBT, Shelf Engine manages orders, pays vendors, and only charges the retailer for what sells while still paying suppliers for their full order and increasing its accuracy over time. Shelf generates revenue by charging a markup on the product from the vendor to the retailer.As of October 2024, Shelf Engine operated in more than 3,000 grocery stores and claimed to increase profit margins by more than 50% by reducing food waste by as much as 32%.&nbsp;Shelf Engine also reported that it prevented 5.2 million lbs of food wastage, decreased 8,200 tons of CO2, and saved 500 million gallons of water.Key customers and partnershipsIn January 2024, Shelf Engine partnered with Dollar General to implement fully automated AI-powered ordering for produce, aiming to enhance inventory management and reduce food waste across Dollar General's stores. This collaboration would leverage Shelf Engine's technology to optimize ordering processes and improve the freshness of perishable items.Shelf Engine also worked with supermarket and grocery chains Whole Foods, Target, Kroger, Walmart, Ralphs, Harmons, and Bi‑Rite to manage orders and reduce food waste.

Shelf Engine

Afresh began as a research project in 2017 to develop AI-powered software that optimizes the entire food supply chain. Specifically, the company offers an in-store solution for grocery stores that applies artificial intelligence to manage the freshness of food. According to the company, the implementation of its technology has led to a 25%–45% reduction of in-store food waste and increased gross margin of fresh produce sales by 4 percentage points. The company generates revenue under a SaaS model. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16835">March 2023,</a> the company expanded into fresh departments, including meat, seafood, deli, and food service.As of&nbsp;October 2024, the company’s technology was deployed across 3,000 stores in 40 states in the US and it reported that it was able to triple its customer base in 2021.&nbsp;Afresh also reported that it prevented 44 million lbs of food wastage as of 2024 while reducing 24 million kg of CO2 emissions and saving 886 million gallons of water.Key customers and partnershipsSome of Afresh's key customers include Fresh Thyme Market, WinCo Foods, and Heinen’s. In 2019, the company also reported that it had established partnerships with three US grocery chains, each with more than 100 stores in operation.&nbsp;&nbsp;The company also collaborated with Bashas’ Supermarkets Inc. (a chain of grocery stores based in North America with over 100 stores) in September 2021 and New Season Market (a chain of 19 privately owned grocery stores) in October 2021 to pilot the “Afresh AI-driven software solution” at selected stores.In December 2022, Afresh partnered with SpartanNash to pilot the AI-powered Afresh platform at 10 of SpartanNash’s Family Fare grocery stores.&nbsp;&nbsp;In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15786">January 2023</a>, Afresh and Albertsons Companies announced the completion of an enterprise rollout of the Afresh predictive ordering and inventory management platform.&nbsp;Afresh also partnered with Albertsons Companies again in October 2024 for the launch of Afresh DC Forecasts, where Albertsons was its first customer.

AFresh

UK-based Winnow Solutions identifies and measures waste in commercial kitchens. The company records the reason for the waste, calculates the value of the wasted food, and keeps track of this data in the cloud. The company’s self-titled product shares technology with autonomous vehicles, using cameras to record and learn about food being wasted and calculate the financial and environmental cost of this discarded food. Winnow Vision also provides a Waste Monitor solution to help kitchen staff track how and what food is wasted to adjust their spending on food ingredients and eliminate overproduction.As of October 2024, Winnow Solutions reported that it had annually saved over 50 million meals, reduced 87,000 tons of CO2, and saved USD 70 million for customers.Key customers and partnershipsWinnow’s customers include the catering company&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5386">ISS</a> and hotels such as Accor, Fairmont, The Westin, Four Seasons, and Hilton Tokyo Bay.&nbsp;In September 2023, Winnow Solutions partnered with Ne’ma, the UAE’s National Food Loss and Waste Initiative, to support Ne’ma with data, benchmarking, and best practices for the hotels, restaurants, and catering (HoReCa) sector.&nbsp; Following this, Winnow was selected as a preferred food waste management vendor by Dayblink GPO in November 2023.

Winnow Solutions

Hazel Technologies is a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded technology company that develops packaging that releases vapors that slow the aging process and prevent fungus or decay. Its solution is claimed to double the shelf life of produce. Hazel operates a B2B business that targets large enterprises. The company has reported treating&nbsp;5 billion lbs of produce as of October 2024, saving about 4 billion lbs from going bad. The company has a target to save one billion&nbsp;lbs of produce from going to waste by the end of 2021. Hazel operates in&nbsp;13 countries&nbsp;across the US, South America, and Europe, as of October 2024.&nbsp;Hazel works with around 250 food service and produce companies including the likes of Sysco, Mission Produce, Zespri, Calavo, and Oppy.&nbsp;As of October 2024, the company offers Hazel Endure, its antimicrobial packaging for berries, grapes, and other fruit, which uses an anti-fungal pad to extend the shelf life and quality of fruits and other produce.Key customers and partnershipsHazel Technologies has formed several partnerships to reduce food waste and extend the shelf life of various produce. These included collaborations with Mission Produce for avocados in July 2020, Migiva Group for grape trials in March 2021, Specialty Crop Company for figs and Symms Fruit for apples in May 2021, Oppy and Brar Farms for California-grown table grapes in July 2022, and Kliewer Farms for kiwifruit in November 2022.

Hazel Technologies

These startups ensure work to reroute surplus food to different sets of end-users including charity organizations and consumers seeking discounted items. This segment mainly consists of on-demand online platforms that connect producers, retailers, and restaurants with consumers via mobile app.

Startups that recycle food waste for industrial uses such as soil enrichment.

Startups that recycle food waste into edible food and beverages.

Solutions that keep food waste out of landfills

Recycling and upcycling food waste to keep them out of landfills

IoT-enabled waste prevention techniques for purposes such as longer shelf-life and inventory management

Waste prevention analysis platforms use AI/ML

OneThird

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