It has become a commonplace. Lisboa is known for its incomparable light, heritage, and gastronomy. When you add technology and innovation to food, the recipe for attracting new businesses and disruptive projects is guaranteed success. At least judging by the growing number of foodtech startups joining Lisboa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Proof of this was the recent ‘Unicorn Capital Tour,’ dedicated to this theme. The space at Delta in Matinha was too small to accommodate all participants in the initiative promoted by the Lisboa City Council.
Marta Miraldes, coordinator of the ‘From Start to Table’ acceleration program, Eunice Costa from Delta Ventures, Afonso Pinheiro (CEO & Co-founder of Pleez), Emiliano Gutierres (CEO & Co-founder of Raiz Vertical Farms), and Rui Catalão (Co-founder of Kitchen Dates) analyzed the challenges and opportunities facing the sector from different perspectives.
In a world so marked by tradition, such as the food industry, what changes can innovation and technology introduce? Eunice Costa explains how a traditional company like Delta sees the issue: “A traditional company like ours sees innovation as a very positive thing because it can improve tradition, and that is interesting because tradition reinvents itself. In fact, what we see is that in the restaurant industry, there is a return to traditional dishes but reinvented. For example, in the case of Delta, in our acceleration programs, we are supporting a company to scale. It is a startup that focuses on vegetarian alternatives. In addition to refreshing tradition, the innovation that startups bring in the field of food can be useful in the fight against waste, namely through new cooking processes,” says this representative of the business group that recently invested in an innovative ‘urban farm’ producing mushrooms from coffee grounds.
Technology helps in everything. It can even be the secret ingredient for the success of managing a dining space. Afonso Pinheiro explains: “We work a lot with restaurants, and one of the issues/problems we sought to solve was making it easier and more efficient for the customer to decide what to eat. And, both in dine-in and delivery, a QR code can solve a lot.”
Emiliano Gutierrez’s focus is on innovation for sustainability: “Bringing sustainable production to restaurants may seem difficult at first because we are very accustomed to production chains. However, if we think in terms of resource optimization, why not get products from decentralized gardens? In some way, they also contribute to urban regeneration.”
All these new ways of thinking about the food sector in its various aspects are taken into account in the Start-up Lisboa acceleration program, ‘From Start to Table.’ Since 2018, ‘140 startups have already passed through there, and it continues to show very positive evolution. It has internationalized, and currently, over 75 percent of its participants are foreigners,’ emphasizes Marta Miraldes.
Product quality is a crucial factor when thinking about the food and beverage sector. Therefore, food literacy is particularly important in this context, highlights Rui Catalão. Vegan, vegetarian, organic, healthy are very different concepts that abound on supermarket shelves and on our plate. We need to know well what we consume, and the responsibility of those who produce and work in the sector thus increases substantially. “It would be important for Lisboa to have a foodtech laboratory. That would help a lot in the production and certification of new proposals,” some of the participants in this tour argued during the debate that followed the reflections of the guests. An idea to digest.
