Vivent is a Swiss leader in plant electrophysiology, cleverly using tech to turn plant intelligence into business intelligence. We caught up with Marina Martin Curran, Vivent’s Sustainability Manager, to find out more about their groundbreaking technology system PhytlSigns that’s been called the ‘FitBit of Plants’, and their recent certification as a B Corp.

Describe your company in a single sentence.
PhytlSigns is a pioneering technology system developed by our team here at Vivent which provides early warnings of a wide range of crop stressors, well before visual symptoms, enabling growers to increase yields and to choose environmentally preferable crop protection.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?
We're really proud to be playing our part in transforming the future of agriculture, delivering safe and secure food for everyone, with a reduced environmental impact. 

What projects or innovations are you and your team working on at the moment?
Our company, Vivent SA, just received a growth loan worth 500,000 CHF from the Foundation for Technological Innovation (FIT). This will allow us to develop and launch a second plant monitoring system aimed at larger fields and greenhouses. We'll now also be looking to finalise and launch PhytlSigns Scout, a smaller, cheaper, wireless and more convenient plant monitoring system.

Tell us about one of your open innovation success stories.
Plant researchers at Agroscope, another SFNV member, are currently using PhytlSigns to measure the responses of tomatoes and aubergines to stressors, insect attacks and agrochemical use, and to track changes of nectar production in flowering plants. We've been working with Agroscope for some time, thanks to Innosuisse and OFAG funding that allowed us to collaborate to identify the signals that plants produce when different stressors are applied. Thanks to machine learning we've been able to train algorithms for these different stressors which can then be deployed commercially to support more sustainable agriculture.

We've also been successful in obtaining an NTN Innobooster Award and will be working with Agroscope on potatoes in storage. This project aims to reduce the amounts of germination inhibitors that are sprayed on potatoes during the storage period.

How do you support the Swiss ecosystem beyond your core business offer?
We're always willing to engage with other stakeholders. We're already working with researchers from other companies to improve and hone how PhytlSigns works in practice. In addition to our collaboration with Agroscope, we've also worked with the schools of Applied Sciences in Fribourg and Yverdon. We'd really like to connect with other members of the Swiss ecosystem to support their work and to accelerate our own product development. We're always open to hearing from anyone who's interested in collaborating!

What support could the SFNV community offer to help you achieve your goals?
We are particularly eager to connect with agritech companies, vertical or indoor farm operators, greenhouse growers, producers of biostimulants and other novel crop protection. And we're actively looking for support to enter the greenhouse market in Switzerland.

Tell us a fun fact or something we didn’t know about your company.
We recently received news that Vivent has been awarded B Corp status! To become a B Corp, we had to meet rigorous social and environmental standards - and it’s not a one-time thing. We have to apply to be recertified every three years. So you could say we’ve truly committed to a process that privileges continuous improvement and ever higher standards. But that’s something we’re glad to be able to do. We want to do business in a meaningful way and pursue purpose as well as profit. We're also in good company, as fellow SFNV members Ecorobotix and CleanGreens, are also Swiss B Corps!

To find out more about Vivent's work, or explore collaboration opportunities, contact Marina at marina.curran@vivent.ch. 

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B'ZEOS is working to replace single-use plastic with natural and sustainable solutions. We caught up with Founder, Guy Maurice, and Technology Lead, Adriana Kyvik, to find out how they're using seaweed to shake up the packaging industry.

Describe your company in a single sentence.
B’ZEOS develops innovative seaweed-based packaging solutions, which are home-compostable, bio-based as well as bio-digestible.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The fact that we're tackling such a big problem: plastic pollution. Around 275 million tonnes of plastic waste are generated each year and only 14% of that is currently recycled. 

What are you and your team working on at the moment?
We're currently working on pilot scale production of a flexible film which is seaweed-based. We believe that seaweed is a great biomass source because it's very efficient at sequestering carbon, it grows very quickly and doesn't require fresh water or pesticides. We're also busy working on other applications to extend our product portfolio, like using our formulation for paper coating applications.

What's your company’s primary goal?
We want to replace petroleum-based plastics in applications where using home-compostable materials make sense. This might be food packaging or other types of protective packaging. We’re particularly targeting materials that end up in landfill or being incinerated - or where materials are contaminated by food or simply too small to be recycled. The main component of our materials are seaweed biopolymers, but we also add functional additives and plasticisers - all bio-based - to tailor the final material properties.

Tell us about one of your open innovation success stories.
We just finalized our second collaboration with fellow Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley member, Nestlé. We first partnered with them in 2019. Back then, we worked on adapting the formulation of an edible straw into flexible packaging. As part of this new collaboration, we've been working on optimizing the material properties and on pilot scale production. We've also been in touch with a number of other Swiss corporations. 

How do you support the Swiss ecosystem beyond your core business offer?
We've been helping to connect stakeholders in the field across different entities, and sometimes even within the same organisation. While collaborating with Nestlé, we helped to connect people and departments working towards common goals within the company itself.

What support could the SFNV community offer to help you achieve your goals?
We’re really excited about strengthening our industry connections through our membership of Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley. This will allow us to accelerate our business growth and amplify our network within Switzerland. 

Tell us something we don’t know about your company.
Our name often throws up questions! B’ZEOS is actually an acronym. B stands for bio-based, Z stands for zero waste, E stands for edible, O stands for marine origin and S stands for soluble. And if you're wondering how to pronounce it, it's: "Bee-ze-os!"

Find out more about the B’ZEOS team's work on their website.

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