Sustainable Food Accelerator launches to help food ventures secure pilots, investment and scale

The Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein and Undaunted at Imperial College London have launched the Sustainable Food Accelerator, a new 12-month, equity-free programme designed to help sustainable food ventures move from lab validation to pilots, investment and commercial scale.

Built around live industry challenges defined with premium corporate partners Cargill, Danone, Kerry and Mars the accelerator responds to one of the most difficult gaps in sustainable food innovation: turning promising technologies, ingredients and processes into solutions that corporates can validate, investors can back and the market can adopt.

The Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein and the Microbial Food Hub at Imperial College London are working to help drive a sustainable food revolution. Supported by the Bezos Earth Fund and UKRI, they enable cutting-edge research into new technologies that address key challenges across the food system, spanning sustainability, accessibility and health.

Why this accelerator, why now

Promising science needs a clearer route to market

The Sustainable Food Accelerator has been created in response to a clear bottleneck in sustainable food innovation: promising science often lacks a clear route to market.

The food sector has no shortage of scientific ambition. Across ingredient innovation, founders are developing technologies with the potential to reshape how food is produced, sourced and scaled. Yet many promising ventures reach the same difficult transition point. Their science may be strong, but they often lack the pilot-scale data, product performance evidence, regulatory clarity, cost modelling, technical specification and commercial validation needed to move from laboratory success to real-world adoption.

This creates a familiar bottleneck. Corporates need confidence before committing to pilots. Investors need evidence before backing scale-up. Founders need access to infrastructure, partners and market insight before they can generate that evidence.

The programme has been built to address theses gaps directly. Developed around industry challenges shaped with premium corporate partners including Danone, Cargill, Kerry and Mars it gives founders a clearer route to validation, feedback and commercial relevance from the outset.

Built around real market demand

From corporate challenges to commercial proof

If the bottleneck is evidence, the programme begins with the organisations that need that evidence to act. A core principle of the Sustainable Food Accelerator is that sustainable food ventures should build towards the technical, commercial and regulatory proof that industry actually needs.

Rather than supporting startups in isolation, the programme is shaped around real market demand. It is supported by four premium corporate partners: Cargill, Danone, Kerry and Mars. These partners will define commercial challenges, help clarify the evidence required to progress towards a pilot, and commit pilot budgets for ventures that meet agreed milestones.

The programme is also delivered with collaborators across the foodtech investment ecosystem, including Beyond Impact, Big Idea Ventures, biotope by VIB, Clay Capital, Döhler Ventures, FoodLabs, Newland Ventures, OysterBay, SOSV, Synthesis Capital and The Mills Fabrica.

The aim is to help founders graduate with more than a pitch deck. Selected companies will work towards the technical data, validation, commercial proof and partner confidence needed to secure pilots, attract investment and scale.

What we are looking for

The challenges shaping the future of ingredients

As the programme begins with real market needs, the first cohort will focus on ventures developing technologies that can respond to the evidence, performance and scale-up challenges facing sustainable ingredients today. 

The accelerator is looking for solutions that can improve production economics, deliver stronger ingredient performance, unlock circular food system inputs and de-risk the journey from lab to industry. Across these areas, selected ventures will be supported to build the technical data, validation and commercial proof needed to progress towards pilots, investment and scale.

Making sustainable ingredients cost competitive at scale
Breakthroughs that improve production efficiency, reduce costs and unlock competitiveness at industrial scale.

Winning ingredients built for taste, nutrition and performance
Solutions designed to meet real consumer expectations, delivering on flavour, texture, nutrition and functional performance.

Turning side streams into scalable food inputs
Technologies that transform waste streams and low carbon feedstocks into high value, sustainable ingredients for next generation food systems.

De risking scale up from lab to industry
Infrastructure, tools and capabilities that enable real world validation, bridge the gap to manufacturing and accelerate commercial readiness.

A connected scale up pathway

From early discovery to product validation

Once ventures understand the evidence industry needs, they also need the infrastructure to generate it. A defining feature of the Sustainable Food Accelerator is its integrated scale up infrastructure.

Selected startups will be able to access a connected network of research and innovation facilities spanning discovery and strain engineering, bioprocessing, pilot scale up, downstream processing, analytical characterisation, food application and product prototyping.

This includes capabilities across Imperial College London, UCL, University of Cambridge, Aberystwyth University, AberInnovation, Quadram Institute, University of Reading and University of Greenwich, with further access to scale-up partners across the UK and Europe.

The network is designed to help ventures move across the development pathway, from early-stage discovery and strain engineering through to pilot scale production, food grade product development, sensory analysis and commercial validation.

At the heart of White City

A new home for the next generation of food innovation

The startups selected for the Sustainable Food Accelerator will be based at the heart of the White City Innovation District, working within one of London’s leading deep-tech ecosystems. The programme will bring founders together with researchers, corporate partners and investors, creating a connected environment in which ventures can develop, validate and scale their technologies. Applications are now open, and the programme team looks forward to welcoming the first cohort of ventures shaping the future of sustainable food.

What our Directors say

Bringing together science, industry and investment

Professor Rodrigo Ledesma Amaro, Director of the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein at Imperial College London, said:

“Many of the technologies needed to transform the food system already exist in laboratories, startups and research teams. The challenge is helping them become scalable, investable and useful to industry. The Sustainable Food Accelerator has been designed to close that gap. By connecting founders with corporate demand, scale up infrastructure, regulatory insight and investment networks, we want to help promising science become commercial reality.”

Alyssa Gilbert, Director of Undaunted, Director of Innovation at Imperial Grantham Institute, Co-Director of Imperial School of Convergence Science: Sustainability, said:

“Food innovation has enormous potential to reduce environmental impacts and strengthen global food security, but too many promising technologies struggle to make the journey from lab to plate. Since 2012, Undaunted’s accelerator model has helped talented green startups achieve an 88% survival rate – we’re excited to build on that success with the Sustainable Food Accelerator. This partnership strengthens pathways between deeply technical scientific discovery, and commercial success, helping founders leverage cutting-edge research, specialist expertise and infrastructure across Undaunted and Imperial, in tandem with overcoming technical, commercial and investment barriers to growth with strategic corporate partners. We encourage ambitious entrepreneurs with bold ideas to apply and join us in shaping a more sustainable, resilient and climate-friendly food system.”

About our partners

About the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein and the UKRI Microbial Food Hub

The Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein and UKRI Microbial Food Hub at Imperial College London brings together world-class research, innovation and partnerships to accelerate the development of sustainable protein and sustainable food technologies. The Centre works across disciplines to support new approaches to food production that are safe, scalable, sustainable and commercially relevant.

About Undaunted

A partnership between Imperial’s Grantham Institute and The Royal Institution, Undaunted powers early-stage climate innovation across London, the UK and beyond. 

Its mission? To nurture a thriving ecosystem that enables talented cleantech founders to deliver significant emissions reductions and climate resilience sustainably and at pace. Undaunted’s programmes create new routes into green entrepreneurship and help startups to scale and commercialise. Since 2012 its alumni companies have raised more than $1.3 billion investment, created over 1,600 jobs in 30 countries, and maintain a survival rate of 88% compared to the industry average of 10%. Undaunted also draws together a strategic network of climate innovation supporters across London, the UK and globally. Whether you’re a founder, funder, investor, policymaker, student or other climate innovation supporter, find your place in the ecosystem: sign up to the Undaunted newsletter to stay in-the-loop.

About Cargill

Cargill is committed to providing food, ingredients, agricultural solutions, and industrial products to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. Sitting at the heart of the supply chain, we partner with farmers and customers to source, make and deliver products that are vital for living.  Our 155K+ employees innovate with purpose, providing customers with life’s essentials so businesses can grow, communities prosper, and consumers live well. With 160 years of experience as a family company, we look ahead while remaining true to our values. We put people first. We reach higher. We do the right thing today and for generations to come. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.

About Danone

Danone is a Paris-headquartered global food and beverage company built around three categories: Essential Dairy and Plant-Based, Waters and Specialised Nutrition. Home to brands including Activia, Alpro, Evian and Aptamil, we employ close to 100,000 people across more than 55 countries and sell products in over 120 markets. Our mission is to bring health through food to as many people as possible.

About Kerry Group
Kerry Group plc is a world-leading provider of taste and nutrition solutions, serving the food, beverage and pharmaceutical markets in more than 50 countries. Working in partnership with customers, Kerry combines scientific expertise, consumer insights and global reach to create innovative products that help nourish consumers while supporting a more sustainable food system.

About Mars

Mars, Incorporated is driven by the belief that the world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today. Based on combined Mars and Kellanova 2025 net sales, we are now a $65bn family-owned business, with a diverse portfolio of quality snacking and food products that delight millions of people every day, and leading pet care products and veterinary services that support pets all around the world. We produce some of the world’s best-loved brands including ROYAL CANIN®, PEDIGREE®, WHISKAS®, CESAR®, M&M’S®, SNICKERS®, EXTRA®, Pringles®, Cheez-It® and BEN’S ORIGINAL™. Our international networks of pet hospitals, including BANFIELD™, BLUEPEARL™, VCA™ and ANICURA™ span preventive, general, specialty and emergency veterinary care, and our global veterinary diagnostics business ANTECH® offers breakthrough capabilities in pet diagnostics. The Mars Five Principles — Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom — inspire our approximately 170,000 Associates to act every day to help create a better world for people, pets and the planet.​​