From pineapple fiber to ginger chocolate: Startups shape the future at Grüne Woche

How can we prevent pineapple plant waste from being incinerated? Can proteins also be produced from microorganisms? And how does a ginger shot taste in the form of a chocolate bar? At the Grüne Woche Startup Days, it once again becomes clear how many bright minds are thinking about the future of agriculture and the food industry. Ten companies from the agtech and food industries will present their innovative business ideas in the exhibition area around the Grüne Woche stage in Hall 27.

The Startup Days are an indispensable part of the Grüne Woche and are taking place for the eighth time this year. On Wednesday, January 21, at 3:00 p.m., Katharina Schrapers from PerformaNat, Maria Palmieri from ZukunftGründen, and Ursula Braunwell, President of the German Country Women's Association, will speak on the topic of equality versus reality in agriculture under the title GrünerFemaleLeadership. A special highlight is the Startup Award, which will be presented on Wednesday evening in cooperation with the Andreas Hermes Academy and Rentenbank during the networking meeting on stage at the ErlebnisBauernhof in Hall 3.2.

Inspired by the startup award

“We won this award last year, and it gave us a real boost,” says Janosch Thomsen, CCO of ValueGrain. The Hamburg-based company impressed the jury with a technology that processes spent grain from breweries into a liquid flour. ValueGrain can replace up to 35 percent of conventional flours such as wheat flour in products such as bread, pasta, pizza, or cookies and can be used as the main ingredient in meat alternatives. In an interview on stage on Tuesday, CEO Tim Gräsing revealed that ValueGrain is currently developing a hot dog bun in collaboration with IKEA. In two weeks, ValueGrain will travel to Japan at the invitation of the Chamber of Foreign Trade.

This year, there is no shortage of diverse and innovative concepts: biotechnology start-up Micro Harvest is presenting new ways of producing protein from natural microorganisms and agricultural by-products, while Merit Ulmer-Kasak explains how she wants to use eco:fibr to process pineapple plant residues into fibers for construction, packaging, and paper. “In Costa Rica alone, more than four and a half million tons of pineapple plant residues are produced annually, which are usually burned,” she says. Gordi Finger from Hamburg has developed Ginger Shoc, a bar that tastes like a ginger shot. “I found his presentation incredibly appealing. You can tell that this is a project close to his heart, and I believe that Gordi could also sell himself well as a personal brand,” says Janosch Thomsen, last year's winner and a member of the jury for the start-up award.

Miss Mineva's hard-hitting analysis

All ten companies presenting their business ideas in three-minute pitches on stage meet at least one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. These include autonomous field robots and biosensors that make weed control and fertilization more precise and sustainable, as well as a fully electric tractor with a modular energy supply. The first round of pitches took place on Tuesday. The seven-member jury was particularly impressed by Minever Zevker from Bielefeld. With Miss Mineva's, she has turned an everyday problem into an innovation: based on the centuries-old tradition of fermentation, she has used modern ideas to create a soup powder for quick preparation that contains fiber and plant proteins and is vegan, free of artificial additives, industrial sugar, and palm oil. “I found the presentation incredibly strong and am also impressed by how rigorously she analyzed the competition,” said Kirsten Müller, jury member and deputy division manager at Rentenbank.

On Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., visitors will once again have the opportunity to experience the pitches live on the Grüne Woche stage in Hall 27, get to know all the companies, and engage in dialogue with the exhibitors at the Zero Waste theme island.