On the 10th April, the “Food Incubators: Portugal vs USA” event was held at Altice Labs’  ENTER space, which brought together the most active community in the startups market around the food business: incubators, products, technologies and projects of impact.

Jaqueline Silva, a fellow of the US-supported YTILI programme – Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative – brought Hermoine Malone from Roux Carré (food industry incubator from New Orleans, USA) as a special guest and was supported by Margaret Young (USA Embassy).

At the same time, the portuguese ecosystem was represented by João Borga (Rede Nacional de Incubadoras), Marta Miraldes (Startup Lisboa), José Damião (Madan Parque), Francisca Gorjão Henriques (Mezze), Margarida Pedroso Ferreira (CRIO) and Ana Guerreiro and Teresa Pinto Basto (Cozinha Partilhada da Alfazina). Tiago Cunha Reis (Matter Dynamics), Bashara Hinnawi (Hummus), Raquel Antunes (Mushi), Isabel da Nova (BistrôBekas), Luis Miguel Rato (Street Food Portugal), Bruno Carrilho (Musa Beer), Orlando Lopes (Eat Tasty) Sandra Santos (Blog Papinha da Xica) and Jalpa (Guacamole) that brought the entrepreneurs’  vision.

The Dots (startup incubated in ENTER) organized the event in three different moments:

Round Tables – Best Practices USA vs Portugal (private)
Show Food – Transatlantic Opportunities (public)
Talk – Urban Food – From an idea to market (public)

In addition to the usual moment for networking among market players, this event allowed to outline some of the Food Incubators trends:

1. The challenge of incubators

– The profile of support services similar to technological incubators, with financing being the large variable that changes, due to the scalability difficulty in this type of business.
– The role of broker, along with technologies, suppliers and logistics is essential to achieve scale values, ​​as well as exposure to technologies, management tools and production management.

2. The challenge of “Food” startups

– Promotion in scale, more than brand, word of mouth, presence in networks and access to the retail market.
– The big challenge is the focus on the process and not “dream”: how to do, implement, manage all production details, logistics and legal procedures.

3. The industry trend in Portugal

– The market is growing, both by the emergence of innumerable niches (vegan, healthy, sports) and by the tourist boom which increases the business volume in the restaurant sector.
– However, it continues to be a small scale market, and it is necessary to aim at export and production in large quantities, in which there is a great problem of co-packers absence in the food / production sector.

With the ENTER space, Altice Labs reinforces its position in Open Innovation and value creation together with national and international partners.

Watch a video with some of the moments that marked this event.