Nestlé USA Partners With Start-ups Disrupting The Healthy Snacking And Plant-based Foods Categories

Nestlé USA today kicked off three of its newest partnerships as part of the TERRA Food & Agriculture Accelerator founded by RocketSpace and Rabobank. The program, which brings together innovators from both large corporations and emerging growth companies, announced the participants of its third cohort last week. Nestlé is proud to be working with Jackson's Honest, Miyoko's and Here – each of which is creating on-trend foods focused on plant-based nutrition, simple labels and fresh ingredients. 

"These companies represent the future of food," said Ashlee Adams, Head of Open Innovation at Nestlé. "Our open innovation efforts are focused on meeting companies where they are in their stage of growth and designing win-win partnerships that accelerate that growth. We look forward to working with these companies to share learnings, develop new capabilities and create something better together as we bring people more options in categories that are in high demand – healthy snacking and plant-based foods." 

More on each company: 

• Here - Here Foods turns fresh produce ingredients grown by independent farmers into produce packed products like cold pressed juices, spreads and dips and salad dressings. Here sources directly from farmers and is working to create a community of farmers and consumers who celebrate food created in a way that is good for people and the planet. 
• Jackson's Honest - Jackson's Honest offers an entire portfolio of more than 20 non-GMO Project Verified snacks, including potato chips, tortilla chips, and grain free puffs all cooked "low and slow" in organic coconut oil.  
• Miyoko's - One of the fastest growing food companies in California, Miyoko's is revolutionizing the dairy industry by combining proprietary technology with age-old creamery methods to craft cheese and butter from plants. Through an innovative approach to traditional cheesemaking methods like fermentation, culturing, and aging of plant-based ingredients, Miyoko's makes real food with complex flavors and textures reliably and at scale. 

Additionally, 7 other corporate partners and 15 other food and agriculture startups will participate in the cohort and have the opportunity to collaborate and learn from one another. 

Nestlé's open innovation approach is part of the company's broader hybrid innovation strategy, which focuses on reinvigorating its base brands, using new internal incubation models to launch products quickly, and leveraging strategic partnerships with emerging growth brands – like those in the TERRA program. Nestlé previously took part in TERRA cohort II, where it helped companies raise funding and launch new innovation.