1871 Announces First-Ever Foodtech Innovation Lab 2023 Cohort

CHICAGO, August 30 – 1871, non-profit global innovation hub, announces its first-ever list of cohort members for their 2023 Foodtech Innovation Lab, built with industry expert Nate Cooper, Founder and Managing Partner at Barrel Ventures, and supported by World Business Chicago, Farmers Fridge, Human Co, and Planting Hope. 

This lab is designed to connect growth-stage and late-stage startups with corporate innovators, VCs, and industry experts to collectively solve key challenges within food tech and drive industry transformation. 1871 currently has 5 Innovation Labs, this new lab runs in parallel with 1871’s Supply Chain Innovation Lab, returning for its second cohort in 2023.

The 29 cohort participants will collaborate with each other and the food tech innovation ecosystem through 4-months of curated programming, workshops, and group problem-solving sessions. Cohort members have solutions that span the end to end food tech and cover key focus areas for the 2023 lab: Agtech, Food Innovations, and Manufacturing & Packaging. 

Cohort Members – Agtech 

AgTools Inc. | Martha Montoya, CEO 

Real time data across the globe of over 500 commodities for farmers, buyers, and others on the food supply chain to execute better planting, harvesting, forecasting, hedging and improving financial outcomes, manage ESG benchmarks & lower CO2 impact. 

Brighten AI Inc. | John Burkey, CEO / CTO 

A new consumer and enterprise Ai electronics brand, maker of the Brighten AI Smart bulb. Projected magical menus in restaurants that you can talk to.   The waiter acts as your waiter, you can order your food instantly.

Cultivation Connect | Alex Wisniewski, CEO & Co-Founder

Cultivation Connect provides an easy-entry to precision agriculture for small to medium sized controlled environment farms. Farmers connect their choice of data logging sensors or control applications with our visualization tool to enhance their ability to independently detect issues and generate insights. By analyzing genetic, nutrient, and environmental data, Cultivation Connect enables data-driven decisions resulting in higher yields, better quality crops, reduced costs, and minimized waste. 

DeNovo Foodlabs | Jean Louwrens,CEO 

De Novo Foodlabs is committed to providing healthy nutritional ingredients for food, beverage and personal care categories. Using fermentation, biophysics and bioinformatics, we create traditionally unsustainable or impossible-to-obtain nutrients allowing for new product innovation in nutrition, taste and texture. From sweet proteins to animal-free proteins, our ingredients boost human performance, reduce the need for sugar and conventional animal agriculture.

Krado | Eric Lo, CEO

Krado is a Hardware as a Service (HaaS) plant data company transforming the approach to research and data collection through their consumer product, leaflet®. Leaflet can collect plant data at scale–5,000 customers equals 3 billion data points a year—because, unlike other consumer solutions, Leaflet is the science of AgTech. Their platform will revolutionize sectors where high research costs currently limit data collection and analysis, like agriculture and climate science.

Plantaform | Alberto Aguilar, CEO & Co-Founder 

Plantaform is an innovative agtech startup revolutionizing indoor gardening through its unique product, Rejuvenate, a smart indoor garden system powered by water-efficient fogponics technology. With a simple button click, users can effortlessly grow up to 15 varieties of plants, requiring minimal maintenance and offering harvests in as little as four weeks. Plantaform is making home-grown, fresh produce accessible to everyone, promoting sustainable urban agriculture.

Plantennas | Alexanda Moran, CEO

Plantennas connects data and automation integration with plant life cycle tools to maximize value for the agriculture sector. Plantennas is solving for the crushing expense of human labor within ag expense budgets, providing plant life cycle chain of custody from seed to shelf, and creating supply chain data opportunities for the ag sector. A Plantenna is a patented propagation pot with a readable/writable RFID and has access to a three-marketplace. Plantennas solves for unit level sensors at the individual plant level for supply chain management applications.

Pollen Systems | Keith McCall, CEO & Founder  

Pollen Systems delivers Advanced Agricultural Analytics with proven impact: enabling farmers to better manage crop growth and vitality, identify irrigation and moisture issues, and note pests and disease problems by incorporating data collected from sources including drones, satellites, IoT Sensors, and mobile devices.

Remote Kitchen | Tim Zhang, CEO & Founder 

Remote Kitchen is a cutting-edge technology company revolutionizing the restaurant industry. Our innovative software platform empowers restaurant owners to streamline operations, enhance online presence, and boost profitability. With features like menu optimization, order integration, automated accounting, and virtual brand creation, we provide a comprehensive solution for restaurants to thrive in the digital age. Our proven track record, with 84 secured contracts and $80,000 in incremental sales, showcases the effectiveness and demand for our platform. Join us in transforming the restaurant industry with our game-changing solutions.

Cohort Members – Food Innovation 

AquaCultured Foods, Inc. | Anne Palermo, CEO & Co-Founder 

Aqua Cultured Foods is developing seafood alternatives with a realistic appearance, taste, and texture plus high nutritional value — considered a holy grail in alt-protein — to mitigate global challenges such as overfishing, climate change and sustainably feeding the world’s expanding population. Aqua’s first products (whole-muscle cut, sushi-quality tuna and whitefish, calamari, shrimp, and scallops) are targeted for foodservice and B2B. These products will be available for commercial launch early 2024 and at commercial scale will beat price parity.

AWSM Sauce | Carl Starkey, CEO & Co-Founder 

AWSM Sauce is the world’s first sustainability focused sauce & condiment company – our dry blends mix with water to make all of the sauces that you know and love. Big Flavor, Sweet Savings, Happy Planet – Our mission is to provide premium products that are good for you and for the planet. By reducing the weight, waste and carbon emissions associated with traditional water based sauces we help you Sauce Responsibly.

EQUII | Monica Bhatia, Co-CEO 

EQUII’s core strength is a highly versatile complete protein platform that leverages the beneficial properties of microbes found in fermented foods. Our proprietary technology is able to leverage the properties of protein to deliver taste and texture identical products starting with Bread. Our business model utilizes an omni-channel approach to reach mainstream consumers. Having launched our bread on e-comm and Amazon, our goal is to connect with consumers in retail grocery and foodservice outlets, starting in Oct 2023. Our bread has so far been endorsed by thousands of loyal fans, including Oprah, who trust EQUII to deliver their daily protein in a well-loved format of sliced bread.

High Time Foods | Aakash Shah, CEO & Co-Founder 

High Time Foods is on a mission to change how people consume food. Our first product is a plant-based chicken alternative that doesn’t require refrigeration and can be used in cuisine. Over 30 food service locations including schools, colleges, and restaurants in New England use our product in different cuisines and dishes. In the long run, we see a big potential in geographies lacking cold supply chains as well as disaster relief. Our next step would be to expand our business development to the Chicago Foodservice space.

Hoppy Planet Foods | Matt Beck, CEO 

Hoppy Planet Foods is a sustainable protein company addressing the increasingly dire need to shift the sources of global protein consumption. We leverage our proprietary Acheta Protein platform to create our Hoppy Planet brand of delicious, more nutritious, and sustainable snacks sold in major grocery retailers. We also supply our Acheta Protein to foodservice and 3rd party production partners so that they can improve the sustainability of their food programs and deliver on key demands of Millennial Parents and Gen Z consumers.

Mimio Health | Chris Rhodes, CEO 

Mimio Health is a nutri-technology company making first-of-their kind biomimetic supplements designed from human biology to recreate our body’s natural regenerative systems. Their first product is the world’s first fasting mimetic supplement designed from clinical research at UC Davis to recreate the body’s natural response to a prolonged fast and give people the cellular health and longevity benefits of fasting without having to fast. Their formulation has been clinically shown to recreate the same anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, metabolic, and cardioprotective effects of fasting and even extend lifespan in model organisms by 96%. Mimio is currently available for purchase at mimiohealth.com and select longevity and functional medicine clinic partners.

Rainfed Foods | Sujala Balaji, CEO 

Rainfed is a food tech startup transforming under-utilized drought-resistant crops like millets into CPG products and ingredients for both B2B and B2C, with high nutritional value and lower costs. Developed using our world-leading technology platform, Rainfed Milk is the first product in the industry that offers great taste, similar nutritional profile, foams, cooks and blends like dairy.

SEO2 | Michael Sigel, CEO 

SCO2 leverages award-winning, patented, extraction technology to upcycle food and ag waste into high-value flavors, fragrances, and functional ingredients for use in food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications. SCO2 tech shatters the status quo of typical supercritical CO2 extraction resulting in new standards for throughput, fractionization and scale. Need a new revenue stream? Need to valorize your waste or side stream? Looking to meet your sustainability goals? Contact SCO2 today.

Spira | Elliot Roth, CEO 

Spira engineers DNA to create designer materials using algae grown by a global network of farming partners to scale better materials for people and the planet. Spira has become breakeven, generating over $560k in revenue from 142 active clients with 1000+ samples sent out of their 4 different pigments. They work with a network of 83 farms in 14 countries to build a biomanufacturing capacity of 566 metric tons of algae which is being used in the food, cosmetic and textile markets. Spira is raising $3,000,000 as a means of delivering ingredients to waiting customers and to build an automated biofoundry to enable faster ingredient innovation. This fundraise should enable us to return millions in sales, expand their color portfolio, and release a spirulina protein isolate on the market.

Superfrau | Melissa Martinelli, Founder 

Superfrau is on a mission to fight food waste and climate change by repurposing or “upcycling” surplus nutrition in manufacturing supply chains into delicious, nutritious products designed for the next generation of consumers. Superfrau doubles the productivity of a quart of milk by partnering with Greek yogurt manufactures to rescue surplus liquid whey that would otherwise be wasted, and repurposing it or “upcycling it” into refreshing super drinks that are naturally loaded with B Vitamins, electrolytes, and gut-beneficial acids.

Cohort Members – Manufacturing & Supply Chain 

Circulr Inc. | Charles Binks Collier, CEO 

Circulr is building a platform for companies in the grocery space to reuse their packaging. We help grocery stores and producers reuse their product packaging by sourcing reusable packaging formats, operating collection and washing systems, while also deploying technology to handle deposits.

Dots Platform | Yaroslav Tsyhanenko, CEO 

Dots Platform is a B2B SaaS that provides tech solutions for launching hyperlocal ordering and delivery services just in 2 weeks, without capital investments, paid-per-use.  We believe great companies need full control of all processes and direct interaction with customers to know them better, sell them more, and build a sustainable future without intermediaries. That’s why Dots Platform includes all tools businesses need: branded ordering apps and website, orders management and CRM, software for back-office and logistics management, integrations, and reports. All these things run smoothly as one system, creating a new incredible experience for end customers, dramatically reducing costs, and boosting profits. Funded by Google for Startups. Processed over 3 million orders.

Growin Co. | Raphael Traticoski, CEO & Co-Founder  

Harness the potential of co-manufacturing, co-packing, and a vast network of suppliers for ingredients and packaging. We seamlessly connect our clients to an array of supply chain possibilities, ensuring your products come to life in a fast and cost-efficient way. Call us the “Airbnb of manufacturing”.

Kadeya | Manuela Zoninsein, CEO & Founder 

Kadeya’s patent-pending kiosk for the first time ever washes, sanitizes, inspects, and refills bottles, combining a bottling plant with a dishwasher and a soda fountain in a unit the size of a vending machine. We decentralize the entire linear and inefficient beverage supply chain to the point of use, eliminating practices that are environmentally unsustainable and financially expensive while increasing access to safe drinking water to at-risk populations and improving unit economics in order to enable the easy transition of incumbents in the industry away from single use.

Nutjobs Inc. | Marta Kephart, CEO 

Our mission is to transform nutshell waste into bio-benign plastic alternative products that are bio-based, compostable and derived from secondary agricultural waste. By transforming nutshell waste into bio-benign plastics, we are creating plastic substitutes that are cost effective and environmentally sustainable.

Papkot | Manuel Milliery, CEO & Founder 

Papkot is a pioneering company that is transforming the packaging industry with our innovative, plastic-free solutions. We’ve developed a unique chemical compound that imparts the surface properties of glass or plastic to paper, while maintaining the natural end-of-life characteristics of paper. This breakthrough technology allows us to create high-performance, sustainable coatings for paper and cardboard. Our goal is to lead the shift towards sustainable packaging, presenting a compelling investment opportunity in a market with significant growth potential.

Peelon | Taraka Ramji Moturu, CEO 

Peelon is a leading provider of biodegradable packaging solutions designed to address the challenges of food waste and plastic pollution in the fresh produce supply chain. Our proprietary blend of natural materials creates a microclimate around the produce, significantly extending its shelf life. By reducing food waste, Peelon helps businesses save costs and minimize their environmental impact. Our innovative packaging solutions are not only biodegradable and compostable but also offer superior performance and protection, making them an ideal choice for farmers, exporters, and food distributors.

PlantSwitch | Dillon Baxter, CEO  

PlantSwitch turns plants into plastic. PlantSwitch’s proprietary technology converts agricultural residues into a zero-waste plastic alternative that performs better, is less expensive, and is more sustainable than any other plastic alternative. PlantSwitch recently launched its first commercial production facility in North Carolina with over 50M lbs of annual capacity and is working with industry-leading foodservice brands on items like cutlery, straws, cups, lids, containers, and more.

REUSO | Neil Misak, Co-Founder 

REUSO’s technology increases the adoption of reusable, returnable food service ware, with quantifiable data to measure impact. REUSO was the Winner of the First-Ever Climate Champion Award at the 2022 Chicago Innovation Awards as a result of their efforts to eliminate thousands of single-use food and beverage items from events and festivals through Chicago. In July 2023, REUSO launched its first Software as a Service (SaaS) product to solve universities’, restaurants’, and existing reuse operators’ challenges with return rates of reusables. Through the digitization of each container and cup entered in REUSO’s management system, operators now have unparalleled visibility into the usage on a per item basis to maximize economic and environmental benefits of their reusable packaging program.

SAVRpak | Bill Birgen, CTO

SAVRpak’s patented sachets leverage the dewpoint temperature to quickly remove excess moisture. This fights food’s #1 enemy, moisture and condensation. Dryer air keeps produce fresher longer without chemicals and keeps you delivering hot food crunchy and crispy. SAVR pak makes and sells its hardware to food service suppliers and companies, like Aramark and Sysco foods as well as to produce growers and distributors.

About the program 

Cohort members will participate in 4-weeks of hybrid programming, alternating each week for virtual and in-person experiences in July, August, September, and October 2023. 

The program culminates with a capstone-like event, the Foodtech Innovation Summit, open to the public on 10.04.23. 

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For inquiries about involvement in partnering with us or learning more about sponsor options for the Foodtech Innovation Summit, connect with our team. 

About 1871

1871 is Chicago’s innovation hub and the #1 ranked private business incubator in the world. It exists to inspire, equip, and support early stage, growth stage, late stage,  and corporate innovators in building extraordinary businesses. 1871 is home to ~400 technology startups, ~200 growth stage companies, and ~1,500 members, and is supported by an entire ecosystem focused on accelerating their growth and creating jobs in the Chicagoland area. The member experience includes virtual and in-person access to workshops, events, mentorship, and more. The nonprofit organization has 350 mentors available to its members, alongside access to more than 200 partner corporations, universities, education programs, accelerators, venture funds and others. Since its inception in 2012, more than 850 alumni companies are currently still active, have created over 14,500 jobs, and have raised more than $3.5 billion in follow-on capital.