The LDC Climate Resilience Prize, awarded by Louis Dreyfus Company with support from MassChallenge, recognizes startups with the greatest potential for positive climate impact in the food and agriculture sectors, with over 700 companies competing for the prize this year.

 

MassChallenge Switzerland is a renowned acceleration program for startups focused on sustainability, co-created by partners such as LDC, Nestlé, Givaudan, Bühler, Omya, Puratos, and DSM-Firmenich, who seek innovations ready to be implemented in their organizations.

 

For EcoBean, this award confirms that their solution provides tangible benefits for the environment and addresses real business needs. EcoBean fully utilizes the potential of spent coffee grounds, a rich biomass produced by the coffee industry at a rate of 12 million tons annually. EcoBean’s technology processes these grounds into five fractions of bio-based ingredients coffee oil, antioxidants, lignin, PLA, and protein additives, which serve as low-emission alternatives in the cosmetics, food, pharmaceutical, packaging, and animal feed industries. The company estimates that it could help avoid up to 9 million tons of CO2e emissions annually.

 

Marcin Koziorowski, Co-Founder & CEO: “The most important thing for us is that these awards were granted by industry giants, confirming that the EcoBean solution is needed in the market, scalable, profitable, and has documented positive environmental impacts. This is a huge step forward for our growth. We won’t waste a single grain of this opportunity, as it opens doors for collaboration with companies like LDC, Nestlé, Bühler, and Givaudan. Great things are coming!”

Kacper Kossowski, Co-Founder & Board Member: “Winning this prestigious competition, especially receiving the award from Louis Dreyfus Company—a leading player in the green coffee trade and instant coffee production—confirms that our technology for processing spent coffee grounds in a circular model fits perfectly with the sustainable business models of LDC and other coffee industry firms. They are seeking scalable, profitable solutions that simultaneously reduce their environmental impact. The satisfaction is further enhanced by the fact that the competition featured carefully selected, innovative startups from around the world, all demonstrating significant commercial potential.”

“The development of tools, products, and skills in the circular economy is at the heart of our investment strategy. We believe that the upcoming wave of reindustrialization requires a new approach to waste management. The success of EcoBean and its growing partnerships with global leaders, including Nestlé, Bühler, and Givaudan, demonstrates that clean technologies can reveal entirely new – and commercially viable – value in waste,” commented Marcin Lewenstein, Innovation Officer at EIT InnoEnergy Central Europe.