Sustainable food systems
Brabant: from Agrifood tradition to global food innovation. The entire agrifood value chain comes together in Brabant, from primary production to animal genetics, and from vertical farms to global wholesale. Both the complete chain and its sub-segments are strongly represented. What truly sets Brabant apart is its unique mix of traditional agricultural expertise with the disruptive power of high-tech innovation.
With this foundation, Brabant has all the ingredients to develop innovative and sustainable food systems and bring them to markets far beyond its borders.
Driving the Protein Transition
Feeding the world’s growing population requires a shift from animal proteins to alternative sources such as algae, seaweed, or insects. Brabant offers the perfect conditions for this transition:
- A mature and diverse traditional protein value chain (animal and plant-based).
- A thriving innovation ecosystem where high-tech disruptors introduce groundbreaking concepts such as protein breweries, vegetarian butchers, and advanced insect breeding.
Global frontrunners like Protix, Royal Cosun, BioscienZ, Revyve, Rival Foods, and The Protein Brewery are developing the future of alternative proteins right here in Brabant. With almost 50% of the Netherlands’ insect breeders located in the region, Brabant has become a true hotspot for protein innovation.
Innovation Under Pressure
Brabant is a densely populated region with a powerful agri-food industry. This creates pressure on the living environment — a challenge that stimulates the development of smart solutions with minimal impact on people, animals, and nature. And since these challenges are increasingly global, the knowledge and innovations developed in Brabant are in demand worldwide.
Brabant: The Scale Up Plant of Europe
Where agriculture, technology, and food converge, Brabant provides a unique breeding ground for scaling up innovations — from lab to field, from factory to plate. This is where ideas grow into impact.
Brabant is The Scale Up Plant of Europe.
Brabant: The Scale Up Plant of Europe is an ambition and initiative of the Province of North Brabant, REWIN and BOM. It addresses the growing need for a pilot, test and scale-up hub where expertise, facilities, networks, suppliers and capital come together. This enables companies to further develop their food ingredient innovations safely and efficiently and prepare them for commercial production.
The goal: to position Brabant among the European top 5 scale-up locations for plant-based foodtech innovations, driving the transition towards a circular and sustainable food system.
Food system Technology niches
Plantbased Biotech
Animal-based foods are more resource-intensive than plant-based foods. A global shift in people’s diets towards eating more plant-based proteins instead of animal proteins will be much better for our planet. For every food calorie generated, animal-based foods – and ruminant meat in particular – require multiples more in terms of feed and space and emit far more greenhouse gasses than plant-based foods.
The challenge is to help make this shift through innovation and working together. And Brabant is the place to do so.
Smart processing
Based on a history of over 100 years of Agrifood innovation, Brabant is the location for validation and upscaling of Agri-tech concepts due to the ideal crossover of strong knowledge in agricultural farming and the high tech sector in Eindhoven. This means the region will be the frontrunner in developing solutions to the sustainable food challenges we face heading towards 2030 and later.
Business Insights
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Brabant: The Scale-Up Plant of Europe
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Position paperPosition paper: Towards a sustainable & decentralized energy system
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Editorial: Agrifood ecosystem in Brabant
