Mondelez head of SnackFutures Innovation (Global) Brigette Wolf sat down with Food & Drink Business at the inaugural Global Table to talk about the program and the launch of its market hub in Australia.
SnackFutures was launched in 2018 as an independent and venture club. Wolf said its mission within Mondelez International is “to disrupt big food”. The sector is no longer just about where consumers are going, their lifestyles and health trends, in their consciousness, there is now also a commercial consciousness.
Wolf said where Mondelez is as a company is a “prime example” of that. “How do we not just react to what's going on, but anticipate what's happening and help shape the future of snacking for consumers,” she said. The ethos for Mondelez is about creating start-ups within the company as well as partnering with start-ups, entrepreneurs, and people who are closer to the consumers and trends.
The company has been collaborating with lots of different entities, from incubators to accelerators, with the aim of opening up an ecosystem of partnership and collaboration versus doing it alone. "We are a huge $26 billion company and we have a lot of resources and great talent, but we don't know everything and most certainly the world is moving much, much faster than anyone could have anticipated,” Wolf said.
“By going deep into regions that are on the cutting edge of consumer, cultural and environmental trends we can build tailored ecosystems to drive better, faster snack innovations that are hyper-focused on local consumers but also have global relevance.”
Since Dirk Van De Put became CEO in late 2017, and chair in April 2018, the company has had new growth strategies and consumer centricity, with a “very deliberate” approach to managing risk, Wolf said. It is about behaving like a start-up – smaller, experimental, working closely with consumers, utilising social media and going to market. “It is very different from the classic big food model of product development ending in a huge reveal and crossing your fingers it works. There are going to be failures but they are also opportunities,” she said.
Snacking Pitch Competition
At Global Table, SnackFutures held a Future of Snacking Pitch competition. Six finalists from around the world were selected to pitch their solutions to foster a more sustainable food system in areas such as food waste reduction, sustainable sourcing and packaging, alternative ingredients, circular and regenerative snack solutions and emerging technologies.
For Wolf, it was the uniqueness of their stories that makes SnackFutures special. “Very different focuses and areas. Some were finished products, some were ingredients, some were technologies. And at the end of the day the founder's passion came through in all of them. So the selection process was very difficult.”
They included probiotic juice company, Perkii, hand harvested Australian seaweed company alg Seaweed and wheat stem straw company, Stroh.
The two winners will be announced at a special event on Wednesday night.
