BFFood has its origin in the need of food sector companies to find new solutions for their main technological challenges to promote their competitiveness. It is also grounded in the commitment of the Regional Government of Galicia to entrepreneurship and innovation as a way to improve the quality of life of citizens. It is, as well, intended to serve as a source of and way to attract high value-added activities.

The accelerator aims to implement programmes to support entrepreneurship and consolidation of projects specialised in the food sector and their transformation into innovative, viable and scalable companies. Specifically, it identifies, promotes and supports innovative business projects that respond to challenges in the food processing industry. These challenges are related to digitalisation and automation, traceability, quality and food safety, logistics, sustainability, new product development, and process and marketing innovation.

The accelerator is focused on solving the challenges of the companies in the sector, for which it periodically launches public announcements whose objective is to search for, identify and select projects that are aligned with the resolution of the challenges exposed and to help them reach the market with greater guarantees of success.

BFFood has two specific support programmes for participating projects: acceleration and consolidation. The programmes are designed to boost projects according to their degree of development, from the initial idea with the acceleration programme, to the consolidation of sales with the consolidation programme.

The acceleration and consolidation designation responds to the maturity stage of the project. Acceleration projects are entrepreneurial initiatives in their initial phase, in which the company may or may not be established (less than 42 months old). You must be developing or have developed minimally viable products or services and have a sketch of your business model.

Consolidation projects are a later stage, in which the company is already established and has already developed products or services, has a fully defined business model and has already made its first sales.

BFFood's programmes include mentoring, training, coaching, networking and access to a catalogue of infrastructure, resources and technical services that allow the projects to advance in the development of the entrepreneurial initiative. It should be noted that each of the projects has a specific mentor belonging to a leading company in the food sector that guides and facilitates their development in the sector's ecosystem. The projects will also have access to specific financing in the form of direct aid and participative loans to promote their unveiling and consolidation.

The programme is in its fourth edition, and the fifth edition is scheduled to start this year. From the four announcements made, 47 entrepreneurial projects have been supported, of which 29 correspond to acceleration projects and 18 to consolidation projects, bringing solutions to the different challenges set by the food industry.

All projects are a success

At the Food Cluster of Galicia, they consider all projects to be success stories, as they all continue to work and continue their trajectory in the market, as is the case of ODS Protein, Triple Alpha, Galinsect and Eliter.

ODS Protein is a company that produces alternative protein from mushroom fermentation with a suitable approach and texture to be added as ingredients in different products of the food industry.

Triple Alpha is a technology company specialised in the development of solutions based on the application of artificial intelligence and data analytics techniques applied to the maximisation of performance in the field of production and industrial operations.

Galinsect is a company specialised in insect farming for the production of high value-added protein for food use, chitin and essential oils for the pharmaceutical industry and organic fertilizer with high biological contribution.

Eliter developed a platform for the certification of dairy cattle that allows the revaluation of calves from dairy farms, accrediting the origin and care received by the animal to improve traceability.