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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Fs6

Surplus Veggies and High-Tech Farm Cooperatives: FS6 Accelerator Announces New Cohort

Food System 6 (FS6), a San Francisco Bay Area-based food and agriculture accelerator program, just announced the participants for its fifth cohort. The six chosen startups are focused on creating sustainable solutions for farmers, ranchers, and other upstream food producers.

All participating startups will receive a year of mentorship and support in areas like business development, marketing, and R&D. Through FS6’s partnership with investment fund 1st Course Capital, each cohort member will also get a $25,000 cash investment after they complete the accelerator program (in exchange for 1.5 percent in equity).

Without any further ado, here are the participants in FS6’s newest cohort:

  • Firebrand Artisan Breads – Oakland-based bakery supporting the local community through employment and high-quality breads and pastries.
  • Central Grazing Co. – Regenerative farming enterprise selling lamb and leather made from animals raised on the company’s zero-waste Kansas farm.
  • Matriark Foods – Upcycles surplus farm produce to create healthy vegetable products for large foodservice establishments like hospitals, food banks and schools.
  • Revel Meat Co. – Small-scale butchery and meat wholesaler focused on local meats raised in the Pacific Northwest.
  • Farm Generations Cooperative – Piloting GrownBy, an online sales platform for direct market farmers.
  • Keller Crafted Meats – Whole-animal butcher and charcuterie producer and distributor, purchasing from local farms.

These startups are more on the ag side of agtech, but all are thinking creatively to reinvent a certain aspect of how our food is produced. Farm Generations Cooperative and Matriark especially are tapping into some trends we’ve been seeing a lot of at The Spoon, like online marketplaces and upcycled food.

Food accelerator and incubator programs are so hot right now. It seems like practically every company, especially Big Food brands, is rolling out their own, hoping to attract a pool of startups to potentially acquire (and help then keep a finger on the pulse of innovation). As a nonprofit, FS6 has a slightly different agenda — though both are hoping that through mentorship and investment, they can help a new group of companies succeed.

We’ll check back in a year and see how FS6’s Cohort 5 is doing.

Here Are the Latest Foodtech Accelerators You Can Apply to Right Now

As I mentioned earlier this year, foodtech is making up for lost time in terms of innovation, and part of what’s driving that is the number of accelerator programs out there. And while we’re halfway through 2018, there are still plenty of programs to which food startups of all shapes and sizes can apply—so many, in fact, that it’s not really possible to fit them all into a single post. We’ve hand-picked a few here and listed them in order of application deadlines. Feel free to add yours in the comments below.

BSH Future Home Accelerator (new)
Applications: Accepted starting July 23rd

BSH Home Appliances (BSH Hausgeräte GmbH) is teaming up with Techstars to create the “BSH Future Home Accelerator Powered by Techstars”, an accelerator targeted at “early stage companies with innovative digital business models that want to accelerate their ideas around the connected kitchen of the future home.”

The program, which will kick off in February 2019 with an initial cohort of 10 companies, will have a total of three cohort classes over the course of three years (2019-2021) and mentor a total of thirty startups.

Land O’Lakes Dairy Accelerator
Applications Due: June 29

Those companies wanting to disrupt the dairy space should apply to the Land O’Lakes’ Dairy Accelerator, which kicks off in mid-September. Participants don’t have to fully relocate to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, but are expected to travel there for the session days taking place throughout the program. All companies receive a $25,000 stipend to offset travel and other costs, as well as training, mentorship, and networking opportunities.

Land O’ Lakes wants companies using dairy as a prime ingredient in their products (duh) and who have done around $200,000 or more in revenues over the last 12 months. Detailed information is in the accelerator’s FAQs.

Chobani
Applications Due: July 2

Greek yogurt maker Chobani has one of the more high-profile incubators coming from a CPG. As Catherine Lamb noted recently, the current round of applications are for the fourth iteration of the program. The chosen ones will be early-stage food and beverage startups who already have some traction in the market (roughly under $10 million in revenue).

Six to seven companies in the manufacturing space will be selected. Chobani provides pretty thorough details on its selection criteria, so you can easily determine if you’re an appropriate fit.

In addition to the company’s high-profile incubator, Chobani just launched a new food tech residency program focused specifically on food and ag tech startups. The program, which is targeted at early stage startups with strong technical pedigrees that could benefit from access to Chobani’s food expertise, will run simultaneously with the Chobani incubator program and culminate in a joint demo day in December. Applications for this new program are also due July 2nd.

FoodForward

Applications Due: July 29

FoodForward is a new food tech accelerator managed by Deloitte Italy in partnership with a group of Italian corporate partners such as Amadori, Cereal Docks and Gruppo Finiper and food innovation entities such as Innogest, Digital Magics, Seeds & Chips and Federalimentare Giovani. The accelerator is open to both Italian and non-Italian startups that fit into the following themes: new foods, quality and traceability of food, healthy lifestyle, circular economy, new delivery models, smart packaging and precision agriculture.

The program, which will accept seven startups in its initial cohort, will run between January and May 2019 in Milan. Each startup will receive a commitment of access to €20k in cash contribution and €50k in services in direct investment in exchange for 6% of of the company’s equity.

Food-X

Applications Due: July 15

“We use a pragmatic, data driven approach to perfect your offering, your operation, and your message,” claims the Food-X website. In terms of how that helps your growing startup, that means access to Food-X’s extensive network of mentors, investors, and other partners, including AWS, Hubspot, California Technology Council, and DigitalOcean. Chosen participants also get $50,000 in cash upon starting the program (in exchange for 7 to 10 percent equity).

Food-X looks specifically for early-stage companies at the “product-market fit” stage. The accelerator takes place at the company’s NYC offices over a 14-week period.

Accel-VT Ag & Food-Tech
Applications Due: August 15

Accel-VT cohort members are chosen based on their company’s ability to use technology to solve an issue related to agriculture—supply chain management/traceability, reducing energy usage, and food distribution, to name a few. The accelerator consists of three, four-day sessions onsite in Burlington, Vermont. There are webinars and homework assignments in between sessions.

Those looking to apply should be at startup or seed stage, have at least two team members, and demonstrate, according to the Accel-VT site, “market adoption in the form of a pilot or paying customer.”

FoodFutureCo
Applications Due:On a rolling basis

The Food Future Co folks pride themselves on being a slightly different kind of accelerator, namely one that caters to founders wanting to scale up their concepts and solutions. Its four-month program, which runs twice per year, looks for entrepreneurs who have some proof of concept and are on track to gross $1 million and up.

FoodFutureCo just wrapped Cohort 3, which took place at Project Farmhouse NYC. For future cohorts, four to six companies will be selected and receive mentorship as well as an in-kind value of up to $100,000 per company.

Food System 6
Applications Due: On a rolling basis

FS6 looks specifically for companies wanting to solve challenges in the food system, be it finding pesticide alternatives to reducing food waste and creating tools for regenerative agriculture. The four-month program takes place twice per year, all of which take place in the San Francisco Bay Area. A mix of for-profit and non-profit companies are selected to participate.

The chosen few (6 to 10 companies) receive training and mentorship, as well as opportunities to connect with partners and investors.