The Venture Studio Building What the Food Industry Actually Wants
FOOD FOUNDERS Studio’s Giacomo Cattaneo on the problem-first, CEO-first model turning “trapped” food science into real adoption.
Hey folks!
Thanks for being here. For Issue #123 of Better Bioeconomy, I had the opportunity to speak with Giacomo Cattaneo, co-founder of FOOD FOUNDERS Studio, a Zurich-based venture studio turning food science into products the industry actually wants.
In our chat, we unpacked how the studio tackles two persistent problems in food tech: breakthroughs that never leave the lab (“trapped technology”) and startups built around solutions looking for a problem. Giacomo shared how his problem-first, CEO-first model builds ventures the market will pay for by starting with real industry pain points and ending with technologies ready for the production line.
Let’s jump in!
Europe’s food sector doesn’t suffer from a lack of innovation. It suffers from two intertwined problems: a history of technology looking for a problem, and what Giacomo Cattaneo calls “trapped technology,” where good science stays in universities because the bridge from lab to market is brittle.
FOOD FOUNDERS Studio, the Zurich-based venture studio Giacomo co-founded with Alexandre Morel, is built to address this pragmatically. It starts with problems the industry will pay to solve, mines universities for enabling science, and builds B2B companies around commercial founders who can sell from day one.
Giacomo’s rule is simple: people do not eat technology, they eat food. From that, the studio fixes three things in Europe’s pipeline: how problems are chosen, how science transfers, and how founding teams form.
Adoption beats invention when budgets tighten and timelines shrink
In recent years, large food companies have cut back or reshaped early experiments. Some have closed in-house brand pilots, others have turned incubators into corporate VC groups, and most have raised the bar for trials. The appetite for innovation did not die, but the path changed: fewer bets, clearer targets, and faster integration. A studio dedicated to B2B enabling capabilities fits this shift and gives founders a route from credible lab insight to a purchasable slot in the supply chain.
Giacomo arrived at this model through his personal experience. After co-founding EverGrain inside AB InBev, he wanted to keep building companies that make food more sustainable and more nutritious, without sacrificing the things consumers care about most: taste, followed closely by price. When he went back to universities looking for one technology to build around, he found many. The constraint he realised was not the science. It was getting the science to market.
Start with real industry pain points, then hunt for the science
The process begins with problem definition. Before scouting technology from universities, the team interviews industry operators and buyers. The core question is: if we had a magic wand, what would you want on your desk in five years? This removes vague wishes and locks on to jobs to be done where price, performance, and timing are explicit.
Key recurring industry needs and pain points emerge from those conversations. For instance, food industry leaders might want solutions that reduce off-flavours and improve flavour release in plant-based foods or create a meat-like texture without high costs.
Once the industry needs are identified, the studio then maps these problem statements to the research frontier through three channels:
Open innovation calls across research networks, amplified by non-profits like the Good Food Institute
Targeted literature scans to find active labs and principal investigators.
Direct work with technology transfer offices (TTOs).
Most TTOs from Giacomo’s experience have playbooks attuned to medtech, biotech, or software. Food falls through the cracks because IP valuation is murkier, validation takes different infrastructure, and the field can look unglamorous next to pharma.
FOOD FOUNDERS offers flexible deals to increase buy-in from innovators. If the academic inventor wants to be a CTO, great. If they prefer to remain in academia, they can support as an advisor while still participating in upside. That flexibility, said Giacomo, is what makes the deals work as it respects academic career realities while keeping the commercial tempo intact.
Hire commercial founders first to avoid ‘technology looking for a problem’
By default, the studio does not start companies around technical inventors. It hires the CEO first. The right CEO profile is commercially biased, comfortable with customers and pilots, and “allergic to technology looking for a market.”
Only then does the studio pair with a CTO, sometimes the original inventor and sometimes a new technical lead. The CEO co-recruits the CTO so the working relationship is built, not arranged.
In food, integration and cost decide outcomes. If a process cannot be explained to a buyer, validated on an existing kit, and priced to move, it stalls. A CEO-first approach keeps the team focused on manufacturability, spec-level wins and channel pull, not technology in search of a problem.
One venture at a time, with capital and hands-on help
FOOD FOUNDERS chooses focus over volume, creating only one new company per year. The first company, SentiaNova, came from the studio’s first university partnership and is led by CEO Daria Reisch.
The holding company aims to raise ~CHF 3 million to build three startups in sequence, ~CHF 1 million per startup. The studio has already closed CHF 1.2 million from private backers, anchored by a Swiss family office.
Each build gets senior attention, a strong advisory network and enough capital to move from early technical seed to a company ready for its own fundraise. Since technology scouting begins with industry interviews, customer discovery starts warm. Operators are already expecting a call once the technology reaches the right readiness levels.
As Giacomo mentioned, this is a strong pitch to experienced founders that the studio aims to recruit as CEOs. They get a validated problem, a seed-stage technical starting point, direct lines to buyers, and concentrated support.
Corporates have not lost interest, they have changed the interface
It’s fashionable to say big food lost faith in startups. That’s not quite right. The interface is what has changed. Many companies have narrowed their focus to capabilities they can plug in quickly and scaled back on unfocused brand experimentation.
For founders, the lesson is to build products that fit how food is actually made and sold. For studios, it suggests an opportunity to aggregate the messy early‑stage work universities can’t do and corporates won’t do, then deliver it as a de‑risked option with pilot data, a clear cost story, and a pathway to integration.
The first venture launched by FOOD FOUNDERS shows this. SentiaNova targets off-flavours in legumes like peas, fava, and chickpeas. The goal is a cleaner, more repeatable taste without high costs. Early internal tests in a chickpea-milk application showed clear sensory improvements versus control while maintaining functionality. The method is gentle and line-ready, so it avoids extra regulatory hurdles.
The decision to tackle the particular issue came from demand, not ideology. Off-flavours block repeat purchases and trigger costly reformulations. If you fix that at line speed with existing equipment, you move trial and repeat, which are the metrics that matter.
A small ask from Giacomo
Giacomo is looking for commercially minded CEOs to lead problem‑first spinouts. For academics or TTOs, he wants under‑the‑radar food science with real market pull, and he is open to flexible collaboration models so researchers can stay in academia, join later, or step in as CTOs.
For industry partners, he is seeking concrete challenges around taste, texture, cost, and manufacturability to validate early and build against. And for investors, he is assembling a focused, sequential pipeline of B2B enabling‑tech ventures built hands‑on around validated demand.
To connect, reach out to Giacomo at: giacomo@foodfounders.studio
Takeaways from the conversation
Build for adoption: Start with a buyer’s job to be done, design for existing equipment and competitive cost, and assemble buyer-grade evidence (spec-tied analytics, line-survivable sensory, stability, cost story).
Put commercial leadership first: Hire the CEO first to anchor manufacturability, specifications, and channel pull. Pair with a CTO (sometimes the inventor) who can turn customer evidence into factory-ready experiments.
Fewer, better bets with more support: One venture per year, ~CHF 1 million per build, with warm introductions to the buyers who helped define the problem. This raises the odds of an earlier first purchase order and repeatable sales.
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