The agro-food sector is one of the largest economic sectors in the Netherlands. In addition, the Netherlands is the second largest exporter of agro-food products worldwide. This means the choices we make here have global consequences. What if we used this position to make a real impact across the food chain and accelerate the transition to a more sustainable food system?
With a series of events, a community, publications and accelerator programs, we bring together entrepreneurs, investors, consumers, government, corporates, and other organisations to accelerate positive change in the food sector. Interested? Join our Food Ecosystem!
Projects
Food Chain Accelerator 2021
APPLY BY 2 SEP
A successful accelerator designed for innovative startups or SMEs (MKB) working on a more sustainable food chain. Our Food Chain Accelerator helps food startups strengthen their revenue models, growth strategies, and impact over the course of 13 training days, with guidance from experts, mentors, financiers, and strategic partners!
Inclusief Eten
21 MAY - 15 JULY 2021
As part of the Sustainable Food Ecosystem, Impact Hub Amsterdam is launching the 2-month Inclusief Eten programme in collaboration with Stichting Albron. In Inclusief Eten, we match young people in search for purposeful jobs to initiatives that promote social inclusion by means of growing, cooking, saving or sharing food. This programme is in Dutch.
Business Model Challenge | Food & Packaging
2020
In this edition of the Business Model Challenge (BMC), we helped entrepreneurs turn their innovative ideas into a successful impact startup in just three months! We collaborated with experts, mentors and an inspiring group of entrepreneurs working to make food and its packaging more sustainable.
Impact the Food Chain Accelerator
2019 & 2020
A successful accelerator designed for innovative startups or SMEs (MKB) working on making the food chain more sustainable. Our Food Chain Accelerator helped startups strengthen their revenue models, growth strategies, and impact over the course of 13 training days, with guidance from experts, mentors, financiers, and strategic partners!
Soft Landing Program | Food
2020
During our softlanding trip to Berlin, we helped entrepreneurs break into a new market. We introduced entrepreneurs to all the relevant local actors from the local food and impact sector, including food industry players, regulation experts, and impact investors. The program is an initiative of Impact Hub Amsterdam and Amsterdam Impact.
Fix Your Food Hackathon
2020
A third of all food is wasted and eating meat negatively impacts the climate. Meanwhile, food is flown all over the world and we wrap it in plastic that ends up in the oceans. Time for change! Participants turned their business ideas into a concrete business plan with an interdisciplinary team.
Organic Food Against Climate Change
2017
Multinational food company Wessanen wants to contribute to a green future by changing the way we produce our food and by encouraging consumers to make more sustainable choices. The organisation opened up its network and expertise to entrepreneurs that address key challenges of the global food system.
Events
Join us at any of the following events and meet an inspiring network of people who are passionate about working together to build a new economy
Stories
17 February
COVID-19 as a Tipping Point | Where are they now?
Last summer, we published our research into how COVID-19 affected impact entrepreneurs in the food sector. Up next, the follow-up! How are they now and what happened in the meantime?
18 December
Meet the Food Startups | Impact the Food Chain Accelerator 2020
The Impact the Food Chain Accelerator, part of our Food Ecosystem, is a 5-month program growth programme for impact entrepreneurs who work on the transition to a more sustainable food system. For the 2020 edition, we selected 10 startups that focus on shorter and fairer value chains or sustainable (alternative) food products.
30 October
Report | COVID-19 as a Tipping Point
We investigated how impact entrepreneurs in the food sector and their stakeholders were affected by the COVID-19 crisis and identified interventions that can accelerate the transition to a sustainable food system.
22 October
Meet the Food Scale-ups | Soft-landing Program 2020
Impact Hub Amsterdam, Amsterdam Impact (the City of Amsterdam’s impact entrepreneurship programme) and ABN AMRO organised a 5-day digital soft-landing visit to Berlin for 6 sustainable food companies looking to expand into the German market.
8 September
Meet the Food Startups | Impact the Food Chain Accelerator 2019
Impact the Food Chain Accelerator, part of our Food Ecosystem, is a 5-month program for impact entrepreneurs who work on the transition to a more sustainable food system. For the 2019 edition, we selected 12 startups that focus on shorter and fairer value chains, circularity against food waste, or sustainable (alternative) products.
Publications
COVID-19 as a Tipping Point (2020)
Climate change. Loss of biodiversity. Famine and obesity. A national nitrogen crisis. Our current ways of food production and consumption are not sustainable. This report investigates two timely questions: how has Covid-19 impacted sustainable food entrepreneurs? And how should Impact Hb Amsterdam proceed to leverage its Food Ecosystem to accelerate the transition to a sustainable food system?
We proudly present our map of the Sustainable Food Ecosystem in the Netherlands. With the people and organisations of our sustainable food ecosystem, we’ve created 4 publications, 12 events, and 7 growth programmes, and accelerated 51 food startups since 2019!
Throughout the food chain – from soil to mouth – people and organisations are working on ways to make the food system healthier and more sustainable. They try to produce with less and less impact on the environment and climate, generating less waste and with more attention to animal welfare. Impact enterprises place this kind of issues at the center of their business operations.
In this report, five cutting-edge pioneers of the short food supply chain discuss their drive and their mission. The founders of De Melkbrouwerij, Herenboeren, Boerschappen, Vokomokum & Atlantis Handelshuis use innovative, short-chain business models to build a fundamentally different system.
