Science City-partners launch labs to boost food start-ups
New ingredients, processes, and foodstuffs is a rich field for start-ups, but to develop anything for the food industry, you need more than mom’s kitchen. In order to meet the needs of would-be food-founders, Copenhagen Science City-partner Symbion have now opened the easy-access, low-cost lab CPHLabs Food in collaboration with University of Copenhagen and REBBLS (Rising Entrepreneurs in BioBusiness and Life Science). By Jes Andersen.
Food, science and networking
CPH Labs-Food is an off-shoot of the shared life science lab CPH Lab and is aimed specifically at early-stage start-ups with research-based ideas for new ways of feeding the masses. Power, water, air, basic equipment and storage is included in the rent, and apart from lab-space, the start-ups get access to shared office space and the full network potential of working in Symbion.
I feel that our local community is really our biggest asset. Here, start-ups can work in co-working spaces with other start-ups. They can go to networking events such as our own “Ventures & Wine. They can get business advice in Erhvervshus Hovedstaden. They can find collaborators through the network organisation Food and Bio Cluster and we even help them in the search for funding and for incubator- and accelerator programmes”: Lotte Lambertsen, Manager, CPHLabs.
Share and share alike
No start-up can rent more than two of the six lab-benches. The restrictions are in place to ensure that start-ups also meet like-minded founders in the lab. In another initiative to foster a sense of community, all teams are encouraged to share their specialist equipment. In order to make it easy, all tools in the lab are marked with colour-codes to indicate fully-, limited- or not- shared tools.
An innovation district is only as strong as the collaborative spirit that infuses it. We are delighted to see low-key solutions to creating this sense of community, and I look forward to seeing many new food-start-ups coming out of our partners University of Copenhagen and Københavns Professionshøjskole and through CPHLabs-Food”: Kristoffer Klebak, Head of Secretariat, Copenhagen Science City.
Success from the get-go
CPHLabs and its food offshoot is supported by the Danish Industry Foundation . Even before the official inauguration on November 23rd. three start-ups had rented lab-benches in the shared labs.
- Algenious Foods are developing caviar and other luxury foodstuffs based on seaweed.
- Plheese are developing plant-based alternatives to dairy products.
- Biofynt are developing a new protein supplement based on mealworm.
The lab-manager is especially thrilled by one aspect of the founders.
All three start-ups are characterised by diversity. They all have female founders, and the teams have crew from Poland, Lithuania, India, Mexico, Colombia and even Southern Jutland”: Lotte Lambertsen, Lab manager, CPHLabs and CPHLabs-Food.
About Symbion
Denmarks largest start-up community with six locations in Copenhagen. Symbion also runs the incubator- and accelerator programme Accelerace and is part-owned by University of Copenhagen.
About University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen houses several programmes specifically about nutrition and even more programmes such as pharmaceutical sciences, biology or biotechnology, where alumni will have learnt skills that could qualify them for space in CPHLabs-Food.
About REBBLS
REBBLS is a volunteer-run organization in Copenhagen focussing on events and networking for recent graduates and young professionals with a passion for bioentrepreneurship and life sciences.
About UCC Københavns Professionshøjskole
The University College Copenhagen, or KP, provides the programme “Nutrition and Health”, which is an education for anyone wishing to promote health, prevent disease and understand the role of diet in rehabilitation.
Learn more about CPHLabs Food
