A natural solution for post-harvest protection of fruits and vegetables

ended

45% of fruits and vegetables are lost globally; food waste has massive economic, social, and environmental impacts. Post-harvest losses amount to more than €200 billion globally and has a global carbon footprint of 3.3 GtCO2 eq. per year according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). If food loss was a country, it would be the third largest emitting country in the world. 80% of these losses are due to fungal contaminations. Farmers lack natural solutions to tackle this issue and rely almost exclusively on chemical products that are gradually being banned by regulations since they raise health and environmental concerns. Antoferine, based on a patented disruptive chemical-free extraction process, is a natural vine extract that contains polyphenols, a potent natural fungicide and antioxidant. It presents itself as a very attractive natural solution for post-harvest protection in agriculture. Antofénol is a French biotechnology SME founded in 2014 and dedicated to the development of biocontrol products from natural substances. To date,Antofénol’s highly skilled team consists of 9 engineers, scientists and business executives with a background in biotech engineering, biochemistry, agronomy and business development. On the back of 5 years of R&D, industrial development and successful field-testing results, Antonfénol’s innovation has reached TRL 8. Over the next 24 months we will 1/ scale-up our extraction process, 2/ optimise Antoferine's marketable formulation and 3/ request the homologation of the active ingredients. The company is therefore soliciting a blended finance package of €3.56m (€2.06m grant/ €1.5m equity) through the EIC Accelerator program. We project a turnover of €26.7m and an Ebitda of €12.9m by 2025 propelled by Antoférine. Our headcount will increase with 25 new direct jobs. Furthermore, our product will allow to save 11,000 tons of pesticides, 1m tons of CO2e and save 2.15m tons of fruits & vegetables in the European Union.