How should startups approach today’s food and beverage space?

What can new startups do to get a head start in their respective sectors?

It’s an exciting time to be a start-up in the food and beverage sector. The breadth of opportunity to tap into new trends and create offerings to meet the ever-evolving preferences of consumers makes it an increasingly competitive space to play in, too.

To get a head-start, start-ups need to make sure they perfect the basics, by delivering an innovative product, with a simple value proposition that appeals to a clearly defined target audience.

This may sound simple, but with the multitude of tasks an entrepreneur has to juggle during the early stages of business development, it’s crucial to get this clear and front of mind from the beginning. Having a point of difference is also key, entrepreneurs need to ask themselves “what need can I meet that others haven’t yet?”. Above all else, when it comes to food and beverages, taste still reigns supreme. Those who can strike a balance between delicious and nutritious are certainly on the right track.

A strong network of mentors, advisers and fellow entrepreneurs can help provide additional perspectives on the business challenges they might be facing. This can help them understand which areas of the business they might need to start stepping away from as they grow, finding the people and partners to trust to run those parts well.

What spaces within the food and beverage industry are the most lucrative for startups?

Consumers are increasingly looking for more nutritious food and beverage options, and products that use ingredients to cater specifically to people’s lifestyle choices is a big focus area at the moment.

Lower sugar, ‘superfood’ or plant-based ingredients are all very on-trend currently. Veganism continues to grow in popularity, and with that we’re seeing the rise of ‘clean-label’ products, with short, simple ingredient lists.

For example, with a product such as Yofix yoghurts, it’s the simplicity and brevity of the product’s ingredient list that sets it apart from other alternative yoghurts on the market. Yofix yoghurts are made with a combination of oats, lentils, sunflower and sesame seeds, and coconut. Through this, CEO Steve Grun claims there is no waste in their production process, which will naturally appeal to those consumers looking to live and eat more sustainably – another key trend which shows no sign of slowing.

How can well-established businesses learn from entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurs are passionate people. They’re passionate about their business, their product, and work tirelessly to reach their goals.

Their energy is infectious, so I always come away from meeting any start-up feeling inspired and ready to inject even more enthusiasm back into my day-to-day work. One of the major learnings for me has been their mindset of “make to learn” compared with the more traditional “learn to make” mindset of larger companies.

Entrepreneurs are inherent risk-takers and they’re prepared to take action and trial a proposition even if what they have isn’t perfect, as it allows them to learn, build and relaunch something even better using that knowledge.

This agility is definitely something bigger players can learn from – how to respond to the ever-changing pace of consumer demand is becoming increasingly important to maintain a competitive edge, for both large and small businesses.

Do you see a difference in approach to incubator schemes between US and European startups? Does this depend on geographical region, or other such factors?

In this technological age, the business challenges are relatively similar for us here in Europe and in the US. Our North American colleagues recently launched Nutrition Greenhouse for US and Canadian start-ups, following a very similar programme and building on the learning curves our experiences in Europe brought.

Looking at it geographically, having one large unified market does, on the surface of it, make it slightly easier and quicker for North American companies to grow to a scale that is appealing to professional investors. While in Europe, most early-stage companies are funded by family rather than angel investors, so the capital with which to grow can be much smaller.

But, the basics of having an interesting, scalable product, supported by a strong management team delivering a well-defined plan in a cost-effective way is similar on both sides of the Atlantic.