Description
Foodback is a website and online community that supports innovation in the agriculture and food sectors, building bridges between various actors in the food and agriculture ecosystem, supporting impact-oriented start-ups through acceleration and incubation programmes, and providing investment, financing and internship opportunities in Türkiye and the European Union. It facilitates the Food’s local operations of Europe’s leading innovation initiative – the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), providing women-led agri-food start-ups with educational tools, mentoring, community building, access to EIT Food resources and pre-seed financing (USD 5000–10000).
Technology
The community operates both online and offline, with events held in person and in hybrid formats. The website is connected to such social media communities as Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Target
The main users of the website are impact entrepreneurs operating in the agri-food sector in Türkiye.
Business model
The website is open and free to access for anyone in Türkiye, and organizes demo days and awareness-raising events, bringing together diverse actors (universities, corporates, researchers, entrepreneurs) to empower innovators and entrepreneurs in the development of solutions to societal challenges, thus spurring growth.
Impact
The community has hosted a variety of awareness-raising events, trainings and demo days. One such event was Champ Sharing, hosted by EIT, which featured awareness-raising events, mentorship & matchmaking programs for entrepreneurs, bootcamps and demo days. The main topics of the awareness-raising events held to date have been food waste, food innovation, agriculture and food sustainability, where experts and ventures explained their sustainable food chain experiences. The bootcamps feature workshops/training sessions during which creative idea-generation exercises are hosted to encourage the creation of food entrepreneurs, and where the participants benefitted from the feedback in their groups. Seed funding amounting to EUR 30 000 (USD 32 778) was awarded to two of the participating ventures based on the outcome of a Jury.
Partners
Food of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT Food)
Four Betters
Better production
Better nutrition
Better environment
Better life
