Rabobank and SF New Tech Announce Lineup for FoodBytes! 2.0 Summit

Most Innovative and Promising Technology Startups in Food and Agriculture to Demo:

Craft Beer Subscriptions, Ready-to-Grow Foods, Insect Protein Production, Gourmet Fungi, and Much More

SAN FRANCISCO & NEW YORK--()--Rabobank, the world's premier bank to the food, agribusiness and beverage industry, and SF New Tech, San Francisco's largest and longest-running tech showcase event, today announced the lineup for FoodBytes! 2.0, the second in a series of unique half-day conferences designed to bring together new ideas in food, innovation, technology, and venture capital.

FoodBytes! 2.0 is scheduled for Thursday June 25, 2015 at the Bluxome Street Winery in San Francisco starting at 2:00pm PT. The half-day event is dedicated to helping investors in the food industry meet new companies that are disrupting and/or innovating in food-related software and applications, distribution, manufacturing, production and more. FoodBytes! 2.0 welcomes the TeraByte sponsors, DesignMind and Sensiba San Filippo LLP, to showcase their leading services to the food tech and ag tech communities. The event is expected to draw 200 attendees. For more information, the full agenda or to purchase a ticket to attend FoodBytes! 2.0, visit: http://www.foodbytessummit.com.

“Innovation should be embedded within the mindset of all food and agribusiness companies, whether they are startups or well-known established brands,” said Manuel Gonzalez, Managing Director and Rabobank’s West Coast Head of Corporate Clients. “Rabobank has a seat at the table with F&A companies around the world, and we know that making food available, appealing and sustainable is critical to satisfying consumers’ changing needs and preferences, and feeding the world in the years to come. We are proud to deliver an event like FoodBytes! that we believe will help make these things happen."

“SF New Tech prides itself with providing a platform for innovators who have great stories to tell,” said Weissleder. “There is an amazing amount of forward-thinking and disruption when it comes to building new products, services and all-around efficiencies in food and agriculture. We are at the cutting edge of a revolution and FoodBytes! is designed to shine a light on some of the most promising ideas that are surfacing in the food industry. We are grateful to work with our amazing partners and sponsors, and of course, the entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of food.”

FoodBytes! 2.0 attendees - investors, technologists, media, and others - will see live demonstrations from rising stars who are innovating and disrupting the food industry, converse with food industry leaders, and network with food industry peers and opinion leaders, among many others.

The event will include a fireside chat between William Rosenzweig, Dean and Executive Director at The Food Business School, Sofia Elizondo, Director of Business Intelligence at Hampton Creek, Cyrille Filott, Global Strategist Consumer Foods, Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory (FAR) at Rabobank, and Rob Leclerc, CEO at AgFunder, which will be a spirited conversation on the intersection of food and technology.

Presenting Companies

A call for demos by companies looking to present at FoodBytes! 2.0 went out in March 2015, soon after the very successful FoodBytes! 1.0 Summit. From over 150 applicants, only 10 were selected. From consumer goods (food and beverages) to AgTech and software, these companies are innovating for a more sustainable, smart and healthy future.

Demo companies at the upcoming FoodBytes! 2.0 Summit will include:

  • Back to the Roots (Co-Founder, Nikhil Arora) – on a mission to make food personal again through its award-winning line of "ready-to-grow" and "ready-to-eat" products that include the Mushroom Farm, Water Garden, Garden-in-a-Can, Stoneground Flakes Cereal, and Breakfast Toppers.
  • Ipiit (Co-Founder, Betty Toth) – matches people with food based on their preferences.
  • Noble Brewer (CEO, Claude Burns) – the only craft beer subscription service that works with home brewers to bring their masterpieces to life and ship them directly to craft beer lovers' doors.
  • Thistle (CEO, Ashwin Cheriyan) – makes eating nutritious, organic and local foods incredibly convenient and accessible.
  • Tiny Farms (CEO, Daniel Imrie-Situnayake) – builds a platform for the production and distribution of insects as commodity agricultural products.
  • Myco Technology (CEO, Alan Hahn) – created a food-processing platform that uses gourmet fungi to transform agricultural products taste, value and nutritional characteristics.
  • Corigin (CEO & Co-Founder, Mike Woelk) – converts forest & farm waste into bio-sustainable products for farmers including broad spectrum organic pesticides, organic amendments to neutralize alkaline water, and soil amendments that help growers cut water & fertilizer use, increase crop yield and sequester carbon for centuries.
  • Acadia Harvest (CEO & Chairman, Edward Robinson) – a sustainable land-based producer of premium marine seafoods, fresh from the coast of Maine.
  • No Food Wasted (Founder, August de Vocht) – connects grocery inventory systems to consumer facing mobile apps to provide real-time deals for best before date products on consumers' interest and location.
  • NoukaTech (CEO & Co-Founder, Regina Gindin) – uses a unique platform of robots sensors machine learning to provide data analytics to increase growers revenues and net profits.

FoodBytes! 2.0 People’s Choice Award

FoodBytes! 2.0 attendees will have the opportunity to vote on the startup that should win the FoodBytes! 2.0 People’s Choice Award. Attendees will vote on the 10 presenting demo companies at the end of the evening and the startup with the highest rank will receive the right to use the FoodBytes! 2.0 People’s Choice Award logo in its marketing material, and is invited to attend Rabobank’s premier client event in December, which attracts c-suite representation from 300 of the leading food, beverage and agribusiness companies in North America.

Additionally, the FoodByes! 2.0 People’s Choice Award winner will receive a scholarship from The Food Business School, the executive and graduate education center of The Culinary Institute of America—and the world’s first business school dedicated to food entrepreneurship and innovation. The Food Business School scholarship, valued at $7,800, includes up to two spots in an upcoming Innovation Intensive workshop of the winner’s choosing.

FoodBytes! 2.0 Partners with AgTech Week Conference in June

The world of food and technology will take center stage as FoodBytes! 2.0 has also partnered with the inaugural Global AgInvesting (GAI) AgTech Week in San Francisco, scheduled for June 22 to 24. This groundbreaking conference will provide two and a half days of keynote presentations by industry leaders, thought-provoking panels, innovative company presentations and interactive workshops, all designed to educate and inspire investors and entrepreneurs with a broad range of investment opportunities in the food and agriculture technology sectors worldwide.

Trends in Food & Technology

According to Dow Jones VentureSource, food- and beverage-related startups attracted $1.1 billion in venture capital world-wide in the first half of 2014. In all of 2013, the industry saw $1.59 billion in venture funding, which constitutes a 39% increase from the $1.14 billion the industry saw in 2012.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predicts a 60% increase in food demand by 2050. According to the Rabobank report Unleashing the Potential of Global F&A, the industry should prepare for that growth by investing in innovation. The report suggested innovations should be focused in two areas: research and development and business models.

About Rabobank

Rabobank Group (www.Rabobank.com) is a global financial services leader providing wholesale and retail banking, leasing, real estate services and renewable energy financing in more than 40 countries worldwide. Founded a century ago as a Dutch farmers’ cooperative, Rabobank today ranks as one of the largest banks in the world, with nearly $1 trillion in assets, and remains committed to its core mission to create customer value. Rabobank is recognized as a premier bank to the global food, beverage and agribusiness industry, providing a compelling combination of deep sector expertise, strategic counsel and specialized financial solutions to clients across the entire food value chain. Rabobank. The financial link in the global food chain.® @RaboWholesale

About SF New Tech

SF New Tech (SFNT) is a world-renowned live platform for technology startups to showcase their latest innovations in front of 100s of tech-minded founders, engineers, investors, media, and more. Since 2006, over 700 companies have leveraged SFNT to launch and/or demo their new products, services, and features, including such internet luminaries Evernote, Waze, 23andMe, Flipboard, Twilio, Splunk and many other pre-fame startups. As a cornerstone of the San Francisco technology community and as SF's largest, longest-running, and most-loved technology event, SFNT is laser-focused on putting innovators and their innovations in the spotlight in front of their peers -- and beyond. SF New Tech is been supported by amazing companies including Fathom Law, Akamai, Microsoft, Twitter, DoubleDutch, Telerik, Macworld, The New York Times, and many others. For more information, visit http://www.sfnewtech.com @sfnewtech

Contacts

Media:
For Rabobank
Catharine Rossano, 212-808-2576
catharine.rossano@rabobank.com
or
John McCartney, 415-480-4059
john@wisepublicrelations.com

Contacts

Media:
For Rabobank
Catharine Rossano, 212-808-2576
catharine.rossano@rabobank.com
or
John McCartney, 415-480-4059
john@wisepublicrelations.com