Goal 2: Zero Hunger
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
Global Bio Fund – Supporting entrepreneurs addressing global challenges in food security
University of Auckland alumna Ipshita Mandal-Johnson is the CEO of the Global Bio Fund (GBF), an impact fund with a world-leading approach to growing diverse entrepreneurs (especially women-led companies). GBF is building the world’s first seed accelerator fund focused on the best diverse entrepreneurial teams addressing global challenges in healthcare, food security and climate change.
It operates to serve a number of functions – building research and learning experiences through an open network of thought leaders and entrepreneurs, sharing knowledge through consulting and advisory services to raise capital or scale businesses, and directly investing through two vehicles: the Global Bio Xcellerator and the Global Bio Fund. Read more
Maara Fresh – Feeding hearts, minds and stomachs
An innovative business idea developed by Manurewa’s home-grown entrepreneurs will benefit more than 2,000 Manurewa High School students through Ka Ora, Ka Ako, the Government’s healthy school lunches programme, starting in 2021. Maara Fresh is a social enterprise that literally grew out of the Manurewa Community Garden.
Developed with the support of the University of Auckland Business School’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), it provides a structure to ensure the financial sustainability of initiatives run out of the gardens. These include growing fresh produce to supply to local families, community kitchens and food banks in Manurewa and an education programme about horticulture for students to ensure sustainability. Read more
GreenSpot Technologies’ Ninna Granucci receives acclaim from the European Union
Dr Ninna Granucci is a scientist and CEO of Green Spot Technologies, which ferments and upcycles natural food byproducts from food processing industries to produce highly-nutritious ingredients. It’s a circular economy venture, which aims to help reduce the amount of plant-based product that is annually wasted, currently estimated at 32% by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation. Green Spot’s responsible technology makes use of product such as brewery spent grains, winery grapes marc and beverage apple pomace while generating only clean water as waste. The resulting flours are high fibre (including prebiotics), high protein, rich in minerals and clean label. Read more
Student’s pilot maggot farm in India creates chicken feed
A student’s venture which uses maggots to process waste into fertiliser and chicken feed has set up its first treatment plant in India. Hexacycle is the brainchild of University of Auckland PhD student Neil Birrell, an entomologist who is studying insects for human consumption in the Faculty of Science. His idea to use the larvae from the Black Soldier Fly to reduce organic waste in landfill was first developed when he participated in the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s Summer Lab programme. Hexacycle has received mentoring and support from the University’s Velocity entrepreneurship programme to scale up the concept, taking it from a prototype fly hatchery in Neil’s back garden to India’s first black soldier fly treatment plant in less than three years. Read more
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THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND BUSINESS SCHOOL
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