Innovation

Robots, circular economy and novel food: 10 start-ups (almost) ready to enter the agro-industrial system

The Vaih Foodtech Incubator selected from 78 projects submitted those that can most help solve the problems of the agro-industrial production system

by Natascia Ronchetti

12 December 2025

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

From robots to handle fresh and delicate food with extreme precision, reducing waste and lowering labour costs, to technology that valorises oil production waste, grafting a circular economy onto the supply chain. Moving on to innovative ingredients made by processing vegetable oils. And again: 24-hour pest-proof greenhouse cultivation. New natural and additive-free ingredients to create desserts, creams and alternatives to dairy products. Waste recovery and valorisation. New non-thermal high-pressure C02 technologies to naturally extend the shelf life of fresh food without compromising quality, taste and nutritional properties.

Among the admitted projects is one that develops biodegradable nanocapsules for fertilisers and biostimulants that release active ingredients only when the plant needs them. Based instead on artificial intelligence is the idea of digitising the field notebook that integrates field and warehouse data, labels and specifications, generating treatment plans that comply with European regulations.

There is a common thread linking the ten business ideas that passed the selection - from 78 projects - of Foodtech Incubator, the nationwide scouting programme promoted by Verona Agrifood Innovation Hub (Vaih). This fil rouge is technologies that can have a real impact on the market.

"The ideas we have favoured are those that could solve the problems of the agro-industrial system the most," says Carlotta Candelaresi, senior programme associate and incubation manager of Eatable Adventures (headquarters in Spain, one of the leading foodtech accelerators globally) partnering with Vaih together with a group of industrial realities, credit institutions and institutions in the Veneto region.

Gli startupper selezionati da Food Tech Incubator

Now these ten business projects have entered the incubation process that will end in February with the presentation to an audience of businesses and potential investors. An articulated path that combines scientific mentorship, business development and entrepreneurial accompaniment, thanks to the coaching system set up by Vaih to transform innovative ideas into agrifood start-ups with the right credentials to scale the market.

Ideas came mainly from northern Italy, but also from Lazio and Tuscany. Overall, applications came from thirteen Italian regions, with Veneto, Lombardy and Piedmont leading the way. All were characterised by a high technical and scientific level. With the majority (over 58%) being between the prototyping and conception stages, while around 60% came from the university world, from groups of students or researchers. Some are already spin-offs, others are following the process. The other four projects that passed the examination are two start-ups and two business ideas submitted by young entrepreneurs who already have a start-up history behind them.

"As far as the profile of aspiring entrepreneurs is concerned, we are mostly in the engineering and biotechnology field, with an average age under 30 and a fair number of women, 37% of the founders or co-founders,' Candelaresi explains. 'We are not yet at 50%, but we see, based on the other calls we make, that women are steadily increasing.

30% of the projects concerned crop production and agriculture, 17.5% health and functional foods, and 15.8% food industry equipment. Four criteria were used to skim them: the team, technological innovation, uniqueness of the project and scalability.
"In an incubation phase it is not easy to assess the team, in which knowledge and figures more connected to the business are often lacking," Candelaresi continues. "That is why we focused on the potential for developing economic and financial skills. The contribution we can make to the ideas we have selected is also given by the comparison with reality. Often we are faced with very interesting technologies that, however, outside the laboratory are unlikely to have a concrete impact on the productive world. It is then a question of verifying whether the project is the most appropriate one to respond to a given problem'.