Innovation

Unilever is trialling its first ânano factoryâ, which operates within a 40 foot sea container to deliver flexible production lines that can be moved all over the world. âThis trial is assessing a de-centralised production model,â one of the engineers behind the innovation tells FoodNavigator.

#DeepSpaceFoodChallenge twitter.com/csa_asc/status…

MEDIA – Developing innovative food production technologies with the #DeepSpaceFoodChallenge — the CSA and @NASA tackle food accessibility in space and on Earth: canada.ca/en/space-agenc…. pic.twitter.com/mrqDBEhHD3

Greenhouse growers deal with plenty of pests, and it’s the ones below ground, like root-knot nematodes, that can be especially frustrating. More greenhouse pepper growers are looking for non-chemical ways to control these microscopic, parasitic worms. In the search to find ways to make bell pepper…

UbiQD has closed a $7M Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Scout Ventures and Keiretsu Forum, with key participation from Sun Mountain Capital, Epic Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, Arcview Collective Fund, and others. UbiQD partner, Nanosys, also joined the round as a strategic investor.…

Research, innovation and internationalization are the key words that characterize Idromeccanica Lucchini. The global socio-economic scenario is constantly changing and so are its people' needs. Growers must therefore keep up with new trends and be able to put quality first and support macro-economic…

For the company Contec, 2021 will be a year marked by innovation. Indeed, an innovative system for creating artificial rain is being developed and new subsidiaries will be opened. Contec started out as a manufacturer of prestressed concrete transmission poles, but in the meantime it has grown into a…

Taste meets zero-waste efforts with Harmless Harvest’s delicious whole-coconut yogurts and drinks.

Some crops need a lot of water to grow. There are different kinds of irrigation options, but we haven't seen this one before! Smart solution!

Bell peppers can now be graded automatically and precisely thanks to Bulltec. Master Fruit from Licata (Agrigento) chose this technology for a number of reasons. "Master Fruit focuses on innovation and needed a customized line for the electronic grading of bell peppers. The system is made up of different…

Over the next four years, a multidisciplinary team of experts from 22 institutions and entities from 7 countries - Bulgaria, France, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Taiwan - will work on the Harnesstom project to obtain new tomato varieties that have better taste and quality, and are more…

Hannah and Suzi explore technologies including 5G cows with 'connected collars' and meet the innovators behind ideas such as layered 'vertical farms' ...

Rabobank recently unveiled the start-ups that will take part in its virtual FoodBytes! Pitch 2020 competition. Those selected provide an interesting window into trending topics in food and agriculture. FoodNavigator speaks to Anne Greven, Global Head F&A Startup Innovation at Rabobank, to find out more.

WUR researchers will participate in the new EU research initiative HARNESSTOM. In this project breeding companies, scientists and farmers join forces to increase resilience and quality of tomato varieties. Tomato is a paradigm of crop domestication: a widely cultivated and consumed vegetable but with…

Bayer AG has announced that the company confirms its adjusted outlook for 2020 and expects 2021 sales at approximately 2020 levels despite significant headwinds from the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the agricultural market. Core earnings per share in 2021 are expected to be slightly below 2020 levels at constant exchange rates. To further advance Bayer in a market environment that continues to be challenging, its Board of Management has decided to introduce additional operational savings of more than 1.5 billion euros annually as of 2024, on top of annual earnings contributions of 2.6 billion euros as of 2022, which were announced in November 2018. The incremental cash flow from these efforts will mainly be allocated for investments in further innovation, profitable growth opportunities and debt reduction.

500Foods shared this story from FP.com. The Wonderful Company announced the launch of the Wonderful Innovation Challenge. Offering up to $1 million in funding and development resources to innovators, the competition seeks to discover economic and environmentally friendly pilot ready solutions for the 50,000 tons of pomegranate husks generated…

Compac’s UltraView produce inspection module has been recognized by the New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards program as the 2020 winner of the Most Innovative Agritech Solution of the year.

UltraView was launched by Compac, which is part of the TOMRA Food family of companies, in late 2019.

UltraView maximizes the performance of Compac’s Spectrim, a powerful grading platform for fresh fruit and vegetables. UltraView’s advantage is its capability to reliably find defects in fresh produce that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to detect because of shape and/or location.

The UltraView module contains a set of high-resolution multi-spectral (color and infrared) cameras and LED lights which are located close to the fruit, parallel to its direction of travel. In this position, the UltraView cameras generate high-quality images for close inspection of the fruit’s stem bowl and tip regions.

Syngenta has launched the campaign Un País de Tomates 2.0 (Tomato country 2.0) to present the company's new tomato varieties. Rafael Salinas, Syngenta's Product Manager for Tomatoes, said that they are developing rustic varieties with a high level of resistance to pests and diseases; varieties that are…

Today, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, participated in the inaugural meeting of the Canadian Agricultural Youth Council, where she invited the 25 members who were selected from over 800 applicants from across the country to share their perspectives on the future of the sector.

In a small town in Eastern Kentucky, the future of agriculture is growing. A 2.76 million-square-foot facility is being created on 60 acres of land which will utilize environmentally-friendly techniques to help feed a nation with an aging farmer population, declining farmland and a changing climate. The…

The Governments of Canada and Ontario are providing more than $5.4 million through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership to help food processing businesses improve food safety, increase labour productivity and enable better access markets. These strategic investments will support more than 75 projects across Ontario and strengthen the province’s crucial agri-food supply chain.

Broccoli, 3D-printed into unusual shapes to tempt a picky toddler. Beef stew, produced in the same way to make it easy to swallow for an elderly relative. Pork and potatoes, also rendered by a machine for a patient with oral cancer who can’t chew. Advances in 3D-printing mean printed food is becoming…

Sakata Seed is continuously working on developing new vegetable varieties with improved eating experience for the consumer while including extended shelf life. In addition, the breeding process focuses on improved labor efficiency and increased productivity for growers. Recently, an exciting new range of…

Netled and a Polish agritech start-up, Vertigo Farms have announced a new technology partnership. Vertigo Farms will use Netled’s Vera vertical farming technology in its indoor growing projects. The collaboration has already started, and the goal is to have the first plants growing at the beginning of…

A new collaborative study led by researchers from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) in Barcelona and the Institute for Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMCP) in Valencia describes a promising strategy to improve the nutritional…

Companies from the Canadian province of British Columbia continue to further agricultural innovation, using technology to develop new products and processes that will support food production and food security in the province. The governments of Canada and British Columbia are supporting 14 new projects…

The following 14 projects received more than $2.4 million in support from the Canadian Agricultural Partnership under the Canada-BC Agri-Innovation Program. This brings the total funding to over $7.3 million since the program began in April 2018.

B.C. companies continue to bring innovation to the farm, using technology to develop new products and processes that will support food production and food security in British Columbia.

It is with the support of new technologies that entrepreneurs succeed in developing new products, improving production methods, deploying new marketing strategies and implementing new business processes.

The Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit is going virtual. This year’s summit will be live online on July 23, 2020, providing an opportunity for the industry to meet, network and exchange ideas at this critical time for our industry. Farm operators, food retailers and investors will present live, before…