The start-ups are evaluated on their technology, business strategy, leadership, and market positioning
In recent years, the majority of growth in the food and beverage industry has gone to companies outside the top 20 players, with smaller and more agile brands capitalizing on the demand for personalized products and rapidly shifting consumer behaviour and the farm and fork growing more connected every year.
Lux’s food and agriculture experts continuously monitor and evaluate these and other industry megatrends and events to target and analyse promising start-ups capable of capturing the opportunities created. These start-ups are evaluated on their technology, business strategy, leadership, and market positioning, and those companies awarded a “Lux Positive” or “Lux Strong Positive” rating were published in Lux’s market map “Top Food and Agriculture start-ups of 2020.”
“Numerous challenges, from climate to COVID to human migration, aligned in 2020 to stifle growth across food and agriculture, laying bare technology, food, and health system weaknesses,” explains Josh Haslun, Ph.D., Senior Analyst at Lux Research.”
The startups are categorized into four key trends the agrifood industry should be tracking:
Doing more with Less
Companies whose businesses rely on consumption for top-line growth – from foods to agrichemicals face pressure to diversify. Meanwhile, producers are reducing resource use, driven by concerns of affordability and scarcity. With the exception of new product innovations, linking services and products to measurable outcomes through digital integration is becoming increasingly important.
Transformative innovations disrupt the entire Ecosystem
Major transformative innovations underlie the products and services that drive consumer markets; innovations in bioinformatics, POU sensing, and ingredient informatics are disrupting the space to reduce the cost of and resource investment in discovery.
Consumers’ relationships with health are evolving toward prevention and personalization –Prevention and personalization are reshaping consumers’ choices, empowering them to make lifestyle decisions that explicitly influence health outcomes. This will drive massive market potential.
Haslun said, “This is not to say that the momentum towards the food company of 2050 or consumers’ relationships with health trends are underdeveloped. In fact, the strong presence of key ingredient developers and emerging presence of health IoT and personalized nutrition solutions are synonymous with momentum across food and agriculture. The collective result presents well the leading areas to engage and the types of players to interact with in 2021 as these trends continue forward.”
The named top start-ups include: TerraCycle, Aphea.Bio, Agrorim, Agritask, Montana Microbial, Solynta, FoodLogiQ, Ceradis Crop Protection, Supplant, ProAgni, Growcentia, SmartSolve, eLEAF, Plantix, SatAgro, Saturas, Azotic Technologies, Pacific GeneTech, Vibe Imaging Analytics, Enko Chem, Tropic Biosciences, Conagen, Descartes Labs, Brightseed, Lavie Bio, Biomeme, Ectosense, LifeFuels, Notpla, Prolupin, Inbiose, and Perfect Day.
