Pladis has revealed the 12 start-ups chosen for its 2025 Accelerator Programme, designed to scale-up cutting edge food and ingredient innovation.
The eight-week programme will see founders coming together to tackle some of today’s biggest challenges, including obesity, food waste, sustainable sourcing and the growing demand for personalised nutrition.
The 12 successful businesses for this year’s programme were selected from 300 applications across five continents. Securing a spot gives the start-ups the opportunity to pilot projects or co-develop solutions with pladis, providing real-world validation and market exposure; along with direct access to key players in the food-tech, retail tech and innovation ecosystem.
“There’s so much creativity in this group. What stood out is how practical their thinking is. This cohort has big ideas that are grounded in real science and they’re ready to be tested in the real world,” said Jennifer Moss, Chief R&D Officer at pladis.
Among the dozen chosen businesses is Fermtech, founded by Andy Clayton in 2022. The UK business headquartered in Oxford has created a cocoa alternative by fermenting food industry side-streams. This has resulted in a product which it claims has a 98% lower carbon footprint than traditional cocoa powder.
Another start-up in the programme is PulseON Foods, which was formed in 2021 by the Quadram Institute, King’s College London and New Food Innovation to support the commercialisation of its unique, whole-cell pulse flour. Targeting gut health and satiety, the business mimics the biological pathways triggered by new weight-loss medications with legumes.
Meanwhile, German-based brand Just Nosh – founded by Shewta Pahuja-Markull, Timo Schütz and Lars Markull in 2020 – is turning waterlilies into a snack. Using the puffed seeds of the spiny water lily, it has developed a vegan, gluten-free, naturally low-fat, 100% natural, popcorn-like snack.
Nuritas has also nabbed a spot - the business was founded in 2014 by Dr Nora Khaldi and uses AI, deep learning, and genomics to discover and unlock precision cell-signalling peptides from natural plant sources, creating a new category of bioactive ingredients.
“We applied to the pladis Accelerator because we’re looking for partners who understand both science and scale,” commented Khaldi.
“The access to mentors, technical expertise and commercial insight is exactly what we need to bring our next generation of functional plant peptide ingredients to market.”
The accelerator programme is powered by Yıldız Ventures – the innovation arm of pladis’ parent company Yıldız Holding – while pladis’ partner, Forward Fooding, helps it source and evaluate the applications using its insights into food tech trends and solutions.
“This selection process has been a highly collaborative and rewarding journey. The 12 companies selected for this programme truly represent breakthrough innovations that are well aligned with pladis’ mission to revolutionise snacking while addressing wellness and sustainability challenges. We’re excited to see how this programme will drive meaningful impact for pladis and the broader industry,” added Alessio D’Antino, co-founder and CEO at Forward Fooding.
The full 2025 pladis Accelerator Programme cohort:
Nuritas – Uses AI, deep learning, and genomics to discover natural health-boosting ingredients, specifically bioactive peptides, and then transforms these into ingredients.
BIOVIT – Provides food companies with the effective and sustainable vitamins and minerals.
PulseON Foods – Offers a patented, legume-based ingredient which helps support digestive wellness and keeps you fuller for longer.
Zya – Uses enzymes to transform how our bodies use food. Its first ingredient is called Convero – an enzyme that converts 30% of sugar into fibre after eating.
Kyomei – Uses technology to valorise crop waste green leaves into healthy, sustainable food ingredients for consumers.
Supernatural Foods – Presses vegetables in a way that preserves their nutritional value while delivering the satisfying crunch of a crisp.
Just Nosh – Offers a popcorn-like snack, which are naturally low-fat, 100% natural, and vegan.
Fermtech – Creates food without traditional farming by converting food industry side streams into nutritious, great-tasting ingredients. Its Koji Cocoa, a cocoa replacement, can fully substitute up to 75% of cocoa powder at a 1:1 ratio, while boasting a 98% lower carbon footprint than conventional cocoa.
MicroLub – Uses next-generation protein technologies to revolutionise texture in fat replacement and plant-based food products.
Pack2Earth – Developed the first materials that compost at ambient temperatures almost anywhere, while being suitable for packaging long-life dry, semi-liquid and liquid products - including food. These materials reduce CO2 emissions and protect both the environment and human health from toxins and microplastics.
Shiru – Transforms product innovation by using AI-driven discovery to unlock natural, scalable, high-performance ingredients.
Sun Bear Biofuture – Bioengineering the future of ingredients through microorganisms and precision fermentation.
