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Ten FoodTech companies have been awarded prizes in the Affordable Nutrition Scale-Up Challenge launched by EIT Food, an arm of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and Blendhub, a global food production platform and multi-localized network that aims to help any farmer, startup or scale-up, launch their novel food product.

The competition challenged startups to come up with innovative ingredients or food formulations that would promote healthy and sustainable diets in Europe. The idea behind the challenge was to help professionals and food companies speed up the time it takes to ideate, test, and launch a new product onto the market and deliver more nutritious, healthier, and affordable food products to consumers. The selected companies come from Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark and Israel in the fields of alternative proteins, plant-based ingredients and more sustainable food formulations to mitigate food waste,

“The challenge is not just an opportunity to accelerate innovation in the nutrition space, but also a pathway to improve food systems through cutting-edge innovations,” Adam M. Adamek, Director of Innovation at EIT Food, said in a statement.
One of the competition’s winners, a Krakow, Poland-based company called Rebread, treats stale bread that would normally be thrown away as a valuable resource that can be turned into new breads and tasty snacks; probiotic drinks and breadbucha, umami seasoning and meat substitutes, vegan cosmetics, craft spirits; biodegradable packaging and biofilament for 3D printing.
Read on to learn more about this story and the week's most important technology news impacting business.

Tech entrepreneurs, policy makers, and corporate executives gathered in London at the CogX Festival this week to discuss "How Do We Get The Next Ten Years Right?' Speakers included Jordan's Queen Raina, LinkedIn Co-founder Reid Hoffman, AI researcher and entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman; computer scientist and AI ethics thought leader Stuart Russell and Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur Jack Hidary, who is currently focusing on leveraging the combination of quantum technologies and AI.
Jennifer L. Schenker, The Innovator’s Editor-in-Chief, is pictured here moderating the "A Quantum Leap For Business" panel with Terra Quantum's Vishal Shete and British Computer Society CEO Rashik Parmar.

Paying subscribers can get the key takeaways from the conference. The article will be available on The Innovator's website on Monday.

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Quantum computing taps into the unusual behavior of atomic and sub-atomic particles to perform far more complex calculations at a massively increased speed compared to today’s computers. The hope is that this could lead to breakthroughs in drug discovery and previously unsolvable problems.

Terra Quantum offers corporates quantum algorithms, software that can run today on classical computers, while the development of quantum hardware proceeds. The company, which is co-headquartered in St. Gallen, Switzerland and Munich,Germany, is targeting the energy, financial services, automotive and life sciences sectors. Customers include HSBC, Thales Group and Volkswagen.

“With our hybrid solutions you don’t have to wait for the technology to mature, you can extract value from quantum computing today,” says Vishal Shete, Terra Quantum's Global Head of Commercialization.

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Amount the household products and personal care sector could generate in annual business value by 2030 if it puts sustainability at the heart of operations, according to new World Economic Forum research. This is part of the $10.1 trillion in business opportunity which could be unlocked if nature-positive solutions are adopted more widely by the private sector, according to the Forum. By prioritizing water stewardship, responsible sourcing, nature conservation and circularity, the household products and personal care sector, which generates about $700 billion in annual revenue, can transform and play its role in halting and reversing nature loss by 2030, says the Forum. The cosmetics industry alone, for example, produces 120 billion packaging units a year and palm oil – a common ingredient in many cosmetics and detergents – accounted for 7% of global deforestation from 2000 to 2018. Plastic production from the sector generates 3.4% of GHG emissions globally, higher than aviation’s carbon footprint, according to the report. Reusing only 10%-20% of plastic products could prevent the equivalent of nearly 50% of marine plastic pollution every year, according to the Forum's research.