Corporate Open Innovation & surviving the 6-month Pilot timeline- Jara van den Bogaerde, Royal Cosun

About this episode

Jara van den Bogaerde discusses Corporate Open Innovation and the challenges of securing pilot programs in the AgriFoodTech sector.

Episode 86: Royal Cosun: Jara van den Bogaerde on Corporate Open Innovation and surviving the 6-month Pilot timeline In this episode, I sit down with Jara van den Bogaerde, Open Innovation Manager at Royal Cosun, a 125-year-old Dutch food processor and cooperative representing 8,500 farmers. Jara pulls back the curtain on how a massive corporate player scouts and collaborates with early-stage AgriFoodTech startups. We discuss the difference between Cosun’s CVC arm (writing ~$5M Series A equity checks) and its Open Innovation division, which bypasses the equity table to focus on pre-seed and seed-stage pilots, joint ventures, and licensing. Jara details their specific 2026 mandate to find disruptive technologies in alternative proteins, fibers, and side-stream valorization, and explains why founders need to stop pitching with a "trust us, we're great" mentality. 🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Jara’s reality check on the timeline for securing a paid corporate pilot and why startups with only two months of runway are already too late. Key Facts Royal Cosun: Goal : To build a sustainable 10-year innovation pipeline by partnering with startups to co-develop, license, or scale…

People in this episode

Host: Alex Shandrovsky

Guest: Jara van den Bogaerde

Topics covered

• Corporate Open Innovation
• AgriFoodTech
• Startups
• Pilot Programs
• Sustainable Innovation
• Investment Strategies

Keywords

• Corporate Open Innovation
• Royal Cosun
• AgriFoodTech startups
• pilot timeline
• investment
• sustainable innovation
• alternative proteins

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Royal Cosun, AgriFoodTech, CVC, alternative proteins, fibers, side-stream valorization

Places: Netherlands

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