Do you have a proposal that might change the future of agri-food or the bio-economy?
Let’s jointly create 
impact.
theBarn is an Open Innovation Platform powered by Südzucker Group. Our team consists of passionate “planthusiasts”, food innovators, bioeconomy specialists and entrepreneurial agronomists who share a vision of creating a more sustainable 
agri-food sector.
At this crucial turning point in our planet’s health, we believe we can use the power of plants for good. As an expert in food tech, Südzucker Group can draw on its core competencies and access to the complete supply chain from farm to fork to build partnerships with startups and entrepreneurs and co-develop the next big solution together.
Let’s Connect and Work Together
Whether you’re working on technologies or solutions for food, energy, sustainable packaging, or any other area defined in our search fields of interest, we can help you on your way to market readiness: from joint development to lab-scale testing & prototyping to market entry and commercial cooperations.
Co-Creating a Plant-Based Future
We want to work with future partners like you: entrepreneurs, technologists, innovators and disruptors in the agri food tech sector committed to changing the way we eat, move and package.
You benefit from collaborating with the leading integrated company for the development, production and supply of novel and sustainable bio-based solutions. We benefit from your innovative ideas. Sounds good?
Südzucker Group
Südzucker Group is an integrated group of companies with plant-based solutions for food, energy and beyond. We strive for a livable, healthy and sustainable world.
Südzucker
Südzucker is the world’s leading producer of beet sugar, sugar specialties and related co-products. Südzucker produces and sells organic beet sugars, fondants, pearl sugars, liquid sugars and sucrose-based excipients. We customize products according to customers’ requirements.
BENEO
BENEO and its state-of-the-art production sites offer plant-based ingredients for food, feed and pharma that improve the nutritional and technical properties of a wide variety of products, while maintaining or even improving taste or texture. Our diversity of expertise offers customers new product ideas and successful product launches.
cropenergies
CropEnergies stands for sustainable, renewable products from biomass. Every day, people use products made from fossil raw materials like crude oil, coal or natural gas. Our biobased products ensure that fossil carbons remain in the ground. For today, and for future generations!
Freiberger
Freiberger grew from a small pizza delivery bakery into Europe’s largest manufacturer of frozen pizzas, snacks and pasta products for retailer own-brands. We work closely with our trading partners to continue our pioneering work, not only technologically, but also in terms of own-brand category management, encompassing consumer wishes and eating trends from America to Cyprus.
Portion Pack Group
Portion Pack Group is a joint venture of specialists in the field of portion packs and the largest producer and supplier of portion packs in Europe. The production sites are spread across several countries and together the group sells around 15 billion portions a year. That’s more than 40 million portions a day!
AGRANA Starch
Starch is our strength. We manufacture starch products at the highest level – using modern and environmentally friendly methods. The raw materials: corn, potatoes and wheat. The result: high-quality starch products for a variety of applications in a wide range of industries.
AGRANA Fruit
In our newest segment, fruit, we have specialized in fruit preparations and fruit juice concentrates. Since 2003, we have relied on gentle, state-of-the-art production processes. Healthy nutrition continues to be a trend – as evidenced by the dynamic growth in this segment.
AGRANA Sugar
As an international sugar supplier, AGRANA is ideally positioned in central, eastern and southeastern Europe, where local production is declining. What sets us apart: High quality standards, new products from purely organic cultivation and the support for regional private labels.
Austria Juice
Austria Juice is one of the most important producers of high-quality food & beverage ingredients and develops customized beverage concepts — in close cooperation with the customer. The comprehensive product portfolio consists of innovative beverage compounds, flavors and fruit juice concentrates, as well as all-in-one fruit wine and cider applications.
Our Fields
of Interest
Novel, wholesome sweetening solutions
We take sweetening into the future.
Sustainable, alternative proteins farm to fork
We scout and develop new sustainable (plant) proteins.
Bio-based chemicals
We contribute to regenerative solutions in chemistry.
Sustainable farming
We are innovating agriculture to ensure safe raw material supply for future food, feed, energy and other sectors while protecting the climate and reducing the usage of resources.
Sustainable manufacturing
We explore new ways to make manufacturing more sustainable.
Novel, wholesome sweetening solutions
We take sweetening into the future.
We’re looking for future food tech – the disruptive and economical products, ingredients, technologies and solutions that allow sugar replacement or sugar reduction while providing great taste, clean label and good bulking/texturizing properties. Equally important are nutritional benefits and solutions that help to improve consumer perception in terms of naturality, clean label and wholesomeness. This includes rare sugars, dietary and soluble fibers, low/slow-digestible carbohydrates and related solutions adding value.
Sustainable, alternative proteins farm to fork
We scout and develop new sustainable (plant) proteins.
We’re looking for any future food tech, service or raw materials that can facilitate new options in our work with proteins: Starting in the field, over crop procurement, processing and extraction, texturization through to sales & marketing. Plant-based, cellular agriculture and mycoproteins comprise our major fields of interest with great potential in developing proteins as alternatives to meat, seafood and dairy.
Bio-based chemicals
We contribute to regenerative solutions in chemistry.
We’re looking for any technology, service or product related to bio-based chemicals, bio-plastics and materials. This includes alternative solutions and offerings based on any kind of renewable carbon, be it from biomass or CO2 and related to platform chemicals, polymers, paints/coatings, solvents, man-made fibers, surfactants, adhesives, plastic compounds, plasticizers including for, but not limited to cosmetics and personal care. Relevant feedstocks in this regard are: carbohydrates, ethanol and CO2.
Sustainable farming
We are innovating agriculture to ensure safe raw material supply for future food, feed, energy and other sectors while protecting the climate and reducing the usage of resources.
Technologies/solutions include:
- Precision farming, smart farming, drone based farming, satellite application for agriculture, phenotyping, weeding solutions
- Plant protection: Intelligent spraying systems like spot-spraying, camera guided spraying or hoeing solutions, robotics, integrated weed control strategies, bio-fungicides, bio-stimulants, bio-fertilizers, SIR (systemic induced resistance), ASR (acquired systemic resistance), rnai technology
- Farming systems supporting biodiversity incl. bee/insect-friendly pest control
- Soil microbiome diagnostics & targeted soil health services for plant health and yield improvement
- Novel solutions for capturing carbon, CO2 soil storage, agricultural carbon sequestration and organic farming
- Support New Breeding Technologies in order to get tolerant/resistant/resilient varieties adapted in a short time to new pest and diseases and climate change
Sustainable manufacturing
We explore new ways to make manufacturing more sustainable.
We welcome proposals regarding any technology, process innovation or service for CO2 reduction or CO2 conversion in large scale industrial manufacturing, i.e. large scale heat and power systems, but also novel CO2 reduction as well as decarbonization technologies and solutions for our operations.
Of particular interest are economical TRL4+ CO2 capture, utilization, storage, and conversion technologies – including microbial and enzymatic solutions.
We’re also looking for post-combustion CO2-capture and oxy-combustion technologies for existing fossil-based heat & power systems.
our team
Meet your Fellow
Planthusiasts
Matthias Magin
Head of Corporate Development, Südzucker Group
Severin Guski
Innovation Project Manager, Austria Juice
Dr. Alain Graf
Head of BENEO Innovation Cell, BENEO
Geert Van Aelst
Head of Sustainability, Südzucker Division Sugar
Diana Johnson
Global Account Director, Freiberger Lebensmittel GmbH
Don’t take our word for it:
Hear 
it straight from the startups that are
Zelfo Technology
Zelfo Technology revitalises a wide range of cellulosic and ligno-cellulosic sources, imparting new application capabilities to these materials. Essentially, this adds value to sources that previously had little or no worth while promoting the use of renewable and biodegradable materials as an alternative to fossil-based solutions. The company’s main current applications are in pulp moulding, paper and packaging, and fibreboards.
Ullmanna
Ullmanna set out to develop the fastest and most efficient intra-row weeding machine in the world. Powered by AI, this next generation robotic weeding technology aims to reduce the need for pesticides and will help to scale organic farming.
LXP Group
LXP Group GmbH has developed a patented, state-of-the-art process to gently break down lignocellulosic biomass, particularly from residual and waste materials, making available the main components cellulose and hemicellulose (both complex sugars) as well as high-purity, natural lignin. The proprietary technology digests a wide variety of different biomasses, is scalable, and will unlock the potential of 2G biomass for the production of advanced biofuels and biochemicals.
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