Good Food Makers, Barilla's call for innovation in agribusiness kicks off

Applications are now open for Good Food Makers 2025, Barilla's open innovation programme dedicated to start-ups, spin-offs and companies, now in its seventh edition. The three winning companies will take part in a four-week collaborative course with professional figures from Barilla and its partner companies.

"With Good Food Makers, we want to consolidate our commitment to open innovation, capable of generating concrete value along the entire supply chain," comments Claudia Berti, Barilla Head of Open Innovation. "In a rapidly evolving context, we believe that collaboration with innovative realities is fundamental to tackling complex challenges such as sustainability and the digitalisation of agrifood systems, to further improve the way we operate. This year's special edition Ecosystem allows us to work side by side with strategic partners, in a structured path that aims to transform ideas into ready-to-implement solutions. It is a concrete opportunity to innovate together and with real impact'.

Three challenges were identified this year: "AgTech for Climate Resilience" was developed in collaboration with Open Fields and aims to identify innovative technologies to improve basil cultivation and wild herb management, with a focus on climate and sustainable good agricultural practices; with "New Frontiers in Detection", developed together with Bizerba, "cutting-edge solutions are sought to enhance the reliability and accuracy of detection systems in production plants, helping to strengthen quality, efficiency and control in industrial processes"; the "Best on Scelf" challenge, realised in collaboration with Conad Nord Ovest, is aimed at "those who can offerinnovative tools to monitor the presence and visibility of products on the shelves, while improving shop management and the consumer shopping experience".

From 2019 to date, Good Food Makers has collected over 900 applications from 25 countries and has already collaborated with 26 start-ups, accompanying them on a path of growth and experimentation in the field. Applications are open until the end of July. The programme will get into full swing from September with a structured path that will end during January 2026 with the Innovation Day.

Among the most successful cases reported by the company are: Connecting Food, which has digitised the entire supply chain of fresh basil destined for Barilla pesto, making it fully traceable thanks to blockchain technology and accessible to consumers via QR Code; Nosh Biofoods, which is now collaborating with Barilla in the field of innovations in the field of fermentation, "which allow the creation of sustainable ingredients, with high nutritional value and low environmental impact"; Manual.to, which participated in the last edition of the programme, has already seen its technology applied in a concrete way: "the platform, which simplifies training and company procedures, is currently being implemented at the Cremona plant," they say from Parma.