SAN FRANCISCO & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--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 that Back to the Roots, a startup specializing in "ready-to-grow" and "ready-to-eat" products, has won the People’s Choice Award at the FoodBytes! 2.0 Summit.
FoodBytes! 2.0 took place on June 25, 2015 at the Bluxome Street Winery in San Francisco. The half-day event was 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.
The People’s Choice Award was decided by the more than 250 FoodBytes! 2.0 attendees, who voted via the FoodBytes! 2.0 mobile app. At the end of the evening, Back to the Roots was the top winner, receiving the majority of votes. Following Back to the Roots as runner up was Tiny Farms, a platform for the production and distribution of insects as commodity agricultural products.
By winning the People’s Choice Award, Back to the Roots receives 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 in New York City, which attracts c-suite representation from 300 of the leading global food, beverage and agribusiness companies. Additionally, Back to the Roots 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.
“We are honored to be chosen the People's Choice for FoodBytes 2.0. Back to the Roots is excited to have such incredible support as we work to undo food and connect the next generation back to where it comes from. We believe the future of food goes beyond natural and organic—it’s built on radical transparency and simple, delicious ingredients,” said Co-Founders Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora.
FoodBytes! 2.0 attendees - investors, technologists, media, and others - saw live demonstrations from rising stars who are innovating and disrupting in the food industry, converse with food industry leaders, and network with food industry peers and opinion leaders, among many others. Video clips are on Rabobank’s YouTube FoodBytes! 2.0 playlist: https://youtu.be/IciZX-Ms31Q.
Manuel Gonzalez, Rabobank’s West Coast Head of Corporate Clients, said, “Congratulations to Back to the Roots on winning the FoodBytes! 2.0 People’s Choice Award, and to all of our participating demo companies. We’re thrilled to see the continued strong support behind FoodBytes! where food is the only focus - an event for people working in food, developing ideas around food, and taking progressive risks in food technology. We look forward to continuing the FoodBytes! mission and bringing the event to other U.S. markets.”
“FoodBytes! is all about bringing the latest and freshest innovations in food and agriculture into the spotlight -- and it comes with great excitement to see how Back To The Roots resonated with attendees to be crowned the winner of the People’s Choice award,” said Myles Weissleder, founder of SF New Tech. “Industry watchers, media, investors and those keeping tabs on what’s ‘around the corner’ are well-served by following the news coming out of FoodBytes! We’re thrilled to be able to offer a glimpse of the future of food -- today.”
In addition to Back to the Roots, Tiny Farms, eight other companies pitched their business ideas at FoodBytes! 2.0:
- 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.
- 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.
“Rabobank is pleased to continue the trend with FoodBytes! 2.0; we see a tremendous amount of value in helping smart new businesses showcase fresh ideas to their peers and investors,” said Rajiv Singh, CEO of Rabobank’s corporate business in North America. “As premier bank to the food, beverage and agribusiness sector, we want and need to see what the future of food will look like so we can work with businesses across the food chain in their efforts to provide sustainable, safe and healthy products to people around the world.”
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
About Back to the Roots
Back to the Roots is a startup whose mission is to undo food as we know it and reconnect families to it through fun, innovative, and delicious Ready to Grow and Ready to Eat products (Organic Mushroom Farm, Water Garden, Garden-in-a-Can, Organic Stoneground Flakes, Organic Breakfast Toppers, and Organic Stoneground Crisps). Back to the Roots currently sells its products in over 14,000 stores worldwide, including Whole Foods Market, Target, Costco, The Home Depot, Nordstrom, Petco, Cost Plus World Market, Loblaw, Giant Eagle, Wegmans, The Fresh Market, Crate & Barrel, Urban Outfitters, Safeway, and Kroger. Founded in 2009, Back to the Roots is led by Co-Founders Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora. Both Velez and Arora have been honored with several awards recognizing their efforts in sustainability and entrepreneurship including BusinessWeek’s “Top 25 Entrepreneurs under 25,” Inc.’s “30 Under 30,” Inc. 500, Forbes’ “30 Under 30,” and CNN’s “10 Next Entrepreneurs to Watch.” In addition, Back to the Roots was named a 2013 Martha Stewart Top Ten American Made honoree and recognized by President Obama as Champions of Change. For more information, visit www.backtotheroots.com @bttrventures
