FOOD TRENDLETTER N°8: EDITORIAL

Food & beverage venture capital records an all-time-high in Q2/2017, as CB Insights reported. Especially seed investments dominated the investments. The money gives many food startups the financial background to establish their brand on the market and to deliver new food experiences and services for the consumers. With this, the formerly big food dominated food and gastronomy landscape gets much more multifaceted.

We see how tight the topic food is connected to health and lifestyle when pharmaceuticals groups (e.g. Otsuka / Japan bought a plant-based diary producer) and publishing houses (e.g. Gruner + Jahr’s food hackaton) are investing in and supporting food and beverage startups. This shows how much the trend food & health turned into a megatrend. Especially plant-based nutrition is associated with health.

As far as Austria as startup location is concerned, it seems that Austria has to catch up. In particular bureaucracy, tax issues and low sponsorships hamper that more international startups get settled in Austria.

Looking at the trend Healthy Indulgence within the ice cream sector – for the first time a healthy ice cream (Halo Top) outperformed the indulgence classic Ben & Jerry’s. It is also interesting to see how the healthy trend is affecting ice cream packaging: is getting lighter, airier, whiter, and the calorie-information come to the fore.

In this spirit: have a nice summer!