A first look at covid-19 impact: is it accelerating, threatening or changing the future of food?

This report is our take on the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the FoodTech ecosystem. Depending on their product or service, startups can be either affected or a solution to the current situation.

As we are still “living” it, this report does not aim to provide a definitive analysis but rather more some insights on what’s happening and how it may affect the evolution of the ecosystem.

We are observing three broad categories of foodtech startups when looking at their response to the crisis:

1- delivery startups, notably restaurant delivery, marketplaces and meal kits which are thriving but are targeted by concerned customers by the safety of their workers and the social utility of their operations.

2 – foodservice startups, providing hospitality businesses with payment and ordering services. These startups are basically put on hold, some switching to B2C, others facing dim perspectives.

3 – direct-to-consumer food startups for which the situation will really depend on how well funded they already are and how strong their underlying trends were. If everything’s ok for meat alternatives startups, it will be more complicated for far fetched concepts.

Many entrepreneurs, no matter how big their startups are, are finding incredibly positive answers to the current situation.