Mission Ventures has launched an incubator scheme to help 10 healthier challenger brands launch into the mults.
The startup consultancy has created The Good Food Programme in partnership with non-profit organisation Impact on Urban Health, which is part of Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation.
The programme aims to make healthier food options “more widely available and accessible, particularly to families on lower incomes, by investing in healthier challenger brands and helping them reach supermarket shelves at an affordable price”.
It is offering 10 founders of progressive food and drink startups up to £15k of equity-free funding and two years of “practical brand and business support to accelerate growth”.
The programme is specifically seeking UK or EU registered companies that have created or that have the potential to develop products that are healthier than existing options on shelves.
The Good Food Programme is “especially interested” in hearing from healthier soft drinks lines and sugar confectionery brands.
It would also “particularly love to hear from entrepreneurs who have lived experience of the problem we are trying to solve, and who may be from groups underrepresented in entrepreneurship”.
Applications are open until 14 September 2022.
The launch follows a successful pilot scheme – the Good Food Fund – which ran from 2020 to earlier this year.
As part of the pilot, 13 healthier challenger brands went through an accelerator programme or received funding from Mission Ventures.
The cohort of brands included non-HFSS doughnut brand Urban Legend, veg biscuits brand Rootles, healthier chocolate spread supplier Jim Jams, and HFSS-compliant snacks challenger Insane Grain.
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