Home
27 August 2024
Use case - Nestlé Purina
“We are currently pursuing an active collaboration with one of the start-ups that was a finalist in this competition!”
– Claire Molas, Expert-Senior Innovation Research Scientist, Nestlé Purina
PURINA is a major player in the pet food industry worldwide and in France. For over 125 years, PURINA has been a pioneer in the development of high-quality, complete, balanced, and cutting-edge nutrition. In France, the company has five factories and one R&D center, and markets more than 400 products under renowned brands such as FELIX®, PURINA ONE®, GOURMET®, PROPLAN®, and FRISKIES®. PURINA has been part of the Nestlé Group since 2001.
Their needs
As agroecology is a strategic issue within Nestlé Purina, the company responded positively to the opportunity to become a partner in 2021 of the Eco-Agrifood Challenge, an international start-up competition organized by Vitagora and its partners..
Solutions provided
As a partner of the EcoAgrifood Challenge, Nestlé Purina played a key role in the competition: :
- Defining the competition's priority themes, which helped guide the profiles of the start-up candidates
- Access to a pool of start-ups via all the application files, obtained thanks to the promotion and active prospecting carried out by the organizers
- Participation in the selection committee for the finalists and in the jury for the final, enabling the winners to be selected
- Visibility among the European start-up community, in particular thanks to a special prize on the theme of their choice
- Privileged access to finalists to initiate exchanges
Results obtained
This start-up challenge met Nestlé Purina's sourcing expectations, generating nearly 200 applications from 20 countries and improving their knowledge of the European start-up ecosystem.
The 14 start-ups selected to participate in the final corresponded to the areas of interest of the various partners in the competition.
The final, which took place in person in Dijon, allowed the partners to engage in discussions with the finalists in a friendly setting.
“The entire Eco-Agrifood Challenge experience was very interesting in terms of understanding the ecosystem and benefiting from privileged contacts with start-ups. We are now actively collaborating with one of the start-ups that was a finalist in this competition!”– Claire Molas, Expert-Senior Innovation Research Scientist, Nestlé Purina
About Vitagora
Vitagora is a professional association in the agri-food sector, certified as a competitiveness cluster for the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Île-de-France regions.
For nearly 20 years, we have been working to improve the performance and competitiveness of our members by offering a range of collective services and tools, as well as individual support tailored to the needs of agri-food businesses.
