Foodvalley and Latin American partners join forces to accelerate sustainable food innovation

During The International FoodTech Forum in São Paulo, Brazil, NIZO Food Research and Food Innovation Park Netherlands from Europe, together with FoodTech Hub Latam from Latin America, announced a strategic collaboration aimed at accelerating sustainable food innovation between both regions.

The partnership brings together complementary expertise in food science, industrial innovation, fermentation, biodiversity, startup ecosystems, and scale-up infrastructure to create a long-term collaboration platform connecting Europe and Latin America.

Responding to global food challenges through international collaboration

The global food system is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by climate change, food security challenges, changing consumer expectations, biodiversity concerns, and the urgent need for more sustainable and resilient food production systems. Addressing these complex challenges requires international collaboration that goes beyond regional efforts.

At the same time, advances in food processing, fermentation, alternative proteins, biotechnology, and ingredient innovation are creating new opportunities to reshape the future of food.

Latin America – and Brazil in particular – is well positioned to play a major role in this transition. With its rich biodiversity, strong agricultural foundation, rapidly growing foodtech ecosystem, and increasing focus on sustainable innovation, the region offers significant potential for future food solutions.

Meanwhile, Europe has developed strong capabilities across food science and technology, including fermentation, functional ingredients, product development, and scale-up infrastructure.

Against this backdrop, the three partners aim to build a strategic bridge between European scientific expertise and Latin American innovation ecosystems, industrial partners, startups, and biodiversity resources. The ambition is to accelerate the development, validation, and commercialization of sustainable food solutions with global relevance.

Building a cross-continental innovation platform

Despite the geographical distance, the three organizations share a common vision: accelerating sustainable food innovation, supporting startup growth and scale-up, enabling pre-competitive collaboration, and strengthening international innovation ecosystems.

In the coming years, the partners will explore joint projects, innovation programs, consortium opportunities, and long-term collaboration mechanisms across Europe and Latin America.

Each organization contributes complementary strengths to the collaboration. NIZO Food Research and Food Innovation Park Netherlands bring expertise in food science, fermentation, product development, industrial R&D, and pilot-scale infrastructure – including precision fermentation up to 10,000L and food-grade downstream processing capabilities. FoodTech Hub Latam contributes its strong innovation ecosystem, startup network, corporate connections, and regional foodtech platform.

Paulo Silveira, CEO & Founder of FoodTech Hub Latam, sees the partnership as an important step toward deeper collaboration between both regions:

"The partnership announced today will be the platform to develop the food of the future involving Latam and the Netherlands. The EU-Mercosur agreement, signed last year after 30 years of negotiation, will open avenues of opportunity not only in trade but also in research and joint projects, exploring Brazilian biodiversity with the technology and capabilities that NIZO brings to the partnership. We are glad to collaborate on the future together.”

Nikolaas Vles, CEO of NIZO Food Research, highlights the importance of international collaboration in addressing global food challenges:

"Sustainable food innovation requires bold collaboration across borders, connecting ambitious startups, scientists and industry leaders. By combining our ecosystems and expertise, we can help breakthrough ideas scale faster and create meaningful impact.”

With the collaboration now formalized, the partners will begin exploring concrete joint initiatives that bring together science, industry, and innovation ecosystems across both regions.

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