Sigma, Campofrío’s parent company, has announced the seventh edition of Tastech by Sigma during the 8th edition of ftalks Food Summit, one of the world’s leading international gatherings of food-innovation driven by KM ZERO Food Innovation Hub. With this new call, the company launches three challenges aimed at startups worldwide to identify innovative solutions that help accelerate the transformation of the food sector.
Tastech seeks to combine the strengths on both sides of the ecosystem: the agility, creativity, and innovative capacity of startups with the market knowledge, industrial experience, infrastructure, and scalability of a global food company like Sigma.
As Florencio García, director of Sigma Ventures, explains, “for startups, Tastech offers the opportunity to validate their solutions in real-world business environments, access markets and international networks, and explore new growth avenues alongside a strategic partner. At the same time, it reflects Sigma’s commitment to open innovation and the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, facilitating collaboration opportunities and access to our Corporate Venture Capital team, which can invest in the participating startups in the program.”
Key Areas of the Program
The new program call focuses on three major priority areas for Sigma:
- Health Through Foods: seeks evidence-based food solutions that contribute to improving consumers’ well-being. Specifically, it focuses on innovations related to digestive and metabolic health, as well as proposals for functional and preventive nutrition.
- Responsible Protein: the goal is to identify innovations that help define the next generation of proteins and transform how they are sourced, produced, and brought to consumers. Solutions capable of combining nutrition, quality, and sustainability are sought, addressing the new needs of both industry and consumers.
- Operational Excellence: focuses on technologies capable of improving how the food industry operates across the entire value chain, enabling increased productivity, optimized processes, and efficiencies in key areas of Sigma’s activities.
Through its Always Open model, Tastech lets startups present their solutions at any time of the year. Proposals that address Sigma’s strategic needs can be incorporated into the evaluation process and move through different collaboration phases, from designing and executing pilots to building the business case and, when there is potential, scaling the solution.
Imperia SCM, a Case of Spanish Innovation Within Tastech
The international character of Tastech also offers opportunities for the Spanish ecosystem. Among the national startups that have already collaborated with Tastech is Imperia SCM, a Valencia-based company that has developed an AI-powered Supply Chain Planning platform. Its technology enables demand forecasting and optimization of inventory planning, purchasing, and production, helping to reduce costs and improve service levels.
“For Imperia, participating in Tastech by Sigma is an opportunity to connect innovation, business, and scalability. Tastech’s guidance and collaboration with the Sigma teams have accelerated learning and decision-making, reinforcing our conviction that open innovation creates real impact when it combines the agility of a tech company with the knowledge and capacity of a large corporation, laying the groundwork for a long-term collaboration,” says José Tomás Carrascoso, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Imperia SCM.
Tastech currently has a global network of more than 200 allies, including accelerators, universities, innovation hubs, and organizations within the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Since its inception in 2019, more than 2,500 startups from 64 countries have submitted proposals to Tastech, leading to more than 50 pilot tests across eight countries: Mexico, the United States, Spain, Portugal, Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic.
