Bühler launches state-of-the-art Milling Academy

Jun 14, 2025 | Ecosystem news, Partner success stories, Press-releases

Bühler launches state-of-the-art Milling Academy

The Future of Food: Givaudan, Nestlé R+D Accelerator Lausanne and FoodHack launch the 2025 FoodTech World Cup
Valley partner Bühler has opened a new, state-of-the-art Milling Academy – a 1,800-square-meter training center for food and feed millers – at the heart of its headquarters in Switzerland. Designed to meet the evolving needs of the industry, the facility combines decades of expertise with the latest technology and modern teaching methods. Direct access to research and training centers enables course participants to gain unique hands-on insight into key industry areas.

The milling industry plays a vital role in global food security, but it is also navigating an era of significant change and challenge. In addition to ever-higher food safety standards and the need for efficiency and sustainability, millers are facing increasing pressures from climate change, a shrinking skilled workforce, and supply chain volatility.

Against this backdrop, technology and digital solutions are emerging as powerful tools to boost yield, profitability, and resilience. However, realizing the full potential of these advancements depends on a well-trained workforce. This makes advanced, hands-on training programs for millers more important than ever before.

“With the opening of our new, state-of-the-art Milling Academy, we are empowering the next generation of milling professionals by offering advanced training, hands-on experience, and access to the latest technologies,” says Stefan Birrer, Head of Business Area Milling Solutions at Bühler Group. “This ensures customers can meet evolving industry demands and drive continuous improvement throughout the food and feed sectors.”

The Milling Academy is the place where industry professionals can deepen their knowledge, expand their network, and drive innovation for a more efficient and sustainable food value chain. The facility provides participants with direct access to Bühler’s Grain Innovation Center, multiple research and training centers, and the CUBIC innovation campus. Participants gain practical experience across every aspect of the milling process, from raw material intake to final packaging.

Meeting rising training demands

Purpose-built with a strong focus on educational methodology, the Milling Academy is developed to optimize learning outcomes. “The construction of the Milling Academy gave us the opportunity to design and implement everything exactly the way it makes the most sense for our customer training programs. We also took the opportunity to create many more ways for interactive learning directly at the machines,” says Dario Grossmann, Head of the Milling Academy. “Participants tell us that with the Milling Academy, we’ve reached an entirely new level of quality. We are seeing increasing interest in training from our customers and are more than ready to meet this growing demand by continuing to provide the best training for millers in the future.” 

Featuring three modern classrooms, various break-out spaces for self-learning and group work, and an arena located directly in the machine park, the facility offers a range of teaching environments. A welcoming coffee area fosters networking between participants from different courses and encourages knowledge exchange. Practical, hands-on training takes place on both the latest milling machines and older models, ensuring participants receive instruction tailored to the equipment they use in their own plants.

The Milling Academy also integrates advanced digital learning tools and features two laboratories: one for analytical training and another for electronics training and experimentation. It includes a fully automated school mill, which processes 24 tonnes per day, allowing for industrial-scale training. It also houses the School of Feed Technology (SFT), significantly expanding resources for both food and feed milling professionals.

The Milling Academy, alongside the School of Feed Technology, offers over 100 courses a year to over 750 trainees in seven languages. The courses are structured in a modular way and are tailored to the needs of machine operators, head millers, plant managers but also include trainings for executives, laboratory workforce, and electrical and mechanical maintenance engineers. On top of that, customized trainings in Uzwil or directly at customer sites around the world are conducted by Bühler’s Milling Academy personnel.

Bühler’s global learning ecosystem

The Milling Academy also runs specialized programs in partnership with Kansas State University in the US, and at Bühler’s training mill in Wuxi and feed mill in Changzhou, China. Bühler’s African Milling School, located in Nairobi, Kenya has also served millers from across Africa and the Middle East since 2015.

Participants in Uzwil have direct access to the Grain Innovation Center (GIC), where they can test the machines with material and gain insights into the development and testing of advanced grain processing technologies. The GIC is closely connected to Bühler’s network of research and training centers including the Grain Processing Innovation Center in Kano (GPIC), Nigeria, which is dedicated to exploring the industrial potential of local and ancient grains and offers training programs. Bühler’s education and innovation efforts are supported by other research and training centers that serve multiple industrial applications for food and feed, as well as specialist facilities such as the Cocoa Competence Center in Côte d’Ivoire and the International Rice Milling Academy in India. 

This global network is further strengthened through partnerships with leading academic institutes and research organizations, for example the ETH Zürich in Switzerland, DIL in Germany, and the North Carolina Food Innovation Lab (NCFIL) in the US, to name a few. By connecting scientific research with industrial practice, these partnerships support market-driven innovation in areas such as sustainable proteins, digitalization, and next-generation food production. In Singapore, Bühler and Givaudan co-run the Protein Innovation Centre, where new plant-based products are developed and scaled. 

“We continuously invest in strengthening our global education network to equip the next generation of millers with the skills they need to succeed. And with our extensive learning ecosystem, Bühler is shaping the future of food – building skills, advancing innovation, and helping customers to stay competitive while driving a more sustainable and resilient food system,” says Stefan Birrer.

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Vege’tables teams up with Planted and New Roots to drive healthier and more sustainable diets.

Jun 25, 2024 | Ecosystem news, Partner success stories

Vege’tables teams up with Planted and New Roots to drive healthier and more sustainable diets.

Vege’tables teams up with Planted and New Roots to drive healthier and more sustainable diets.

Smart Food consultants, Vege’tables have teamed up with leading Swiss plant-based pioneers Planted and New Roots to drive the adoption of more sustainable diets. We sat down with Vege’tables Co-Founder and CEO, Sophie Hanessian to find out more.

Tell us about the key issues you address and how you tackle them.

We all know that we need to change the way we eat to improve our health and reduce the impact of our food systems on the environment. But in reality, changing food habits is really hard! You need to find time to rethink the products you buy and the recipes you cook. Today many of us are so busy, we just don’t have the time or energy to figure out where to begin.

Vege’tables exists to make Smart Food – food that is healthy, ethical and sustainable, 100% plant-based and mostly whole food – accessible to everyone. We do this by guiding companies and public organisations to develop and implement health and sustainability strategies and by helping catering professionals to develop their Smart Food skills and increase their customer base.

Food service colleagues play a key role in food system transformation. Many providers want to adapt their choices but meat is still often the default for many consumers. To change this, we need to tackle three issues in parallel.

Firstly, we need to educate and raise awareness among consumers, but also among chefs, about the impact of our food choices on our health and the environment. We need to ensure that they understand why some choices will have an immediate positive impact. Then we must ensure that there are more healthy and planet-friendly choices available in out-of-home settings.

Finally, we need to introduce consumers to some of the products on the market to encourage them to adapt their own purchasing decisions and cooking choices. We find that as soon as people cook the products themselves and realise that it’s actually very easy to make the switch, they’re much more motivated to cook them again. Practical training is so important.

How are you collaborating with other Valley partners to boost your impact?

When planning 3 workshops for employees at La Ville de Neuchâtel in 2022, we reached out to fellow Valley partner Planted to see if they would be interested in showcasing their clean label plant-based meats at the event – and we were thrilled to receive a very positive response! After some discussion about how best to collaborate, we cooked a planted.chicken-based dish alongside participants and also shared out some packs for them to take away with them.

Building on this successful collaboration, we reached out to fellow Valley partner New Roots, a Swiss producer of 100% plant-based cheese, and other dairy alternatives. We recently featured their products in a workshop for students at the prestigious Les Roches global hospitality school in Crans-Montana.

At a recent two-day training event for chefs at a creche in Jura, we cooked nearly 140 meals based around Planted products with a New Roots-based cream. Many of the chefs said that cooking with new ingredients and products really helped them to think more creatively about how they could develop their dishes and menus.

For me, these are real win-win collaborations. Chefs leave our workshops inspired and aware of all the great plant-based brands they can use in their recipes and consumers and the next generation get access to healthier, delicious and more planet-friendly choices.

So what’s next?

Demand for Vege’tables’ services is growing and I’m currently looking for funding to scale up and grow my team to enable us to work with a larger range of clients.

This autumn, we’ll be working with GastroFribourg and GastroVaud to provide more training on “The new Smart Food trend”. This will be a great opportunity for our partners to come and present their products directly to catering professionals.

I’m really eager to explore new partnerships with other Swiss plant-based alternative pioneers and consider what more we can do to showcase new brands and connect consumers with innovative products. If you’d like to collaborate, I’d love to connect.

Find out more about Vege’tables or connect with Sophie on Linkedin.

Find out more about Planted and New Roots.  

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Agilery and Helbling to drive sustainable innovation for food and beverage brands

Mar 26, 2024 | Ecosystem news, Partner success stories

Agilery and Helbling to drive sustainable innovation for food and beverage brands

Fruitful AI and Food Brewer
The food and technology industries are increasingly converging. Valley partner Agilery and Helbling saw this as an opportunity to join forces to provide strategic partnership for food brands looking to integrate innovative food and technology solutions. We spoke to Marcin Niedzielski, co-founder of Agilery, Dr. Ludovic Dovat, Head of Business Unit and Partner and Dr. Jonathan Demierre, Head of Development at Helbling to find out more.

📒 The background

SFNV: Tell us a bit about the key issues you address.

Marcin Niedzielski: At Agilery we guide food and beverage brands through the complexities of product creation, production and launch. We recognised that a lot of the brands we work with are working hard to deliver the SDGs around preserving Earth’s ecosystem and ensuring equal and equitable access to healthy diets. We wanted to find new ways to support them.

Dr. Ludovic Dovat: Our work at Helbling is all about creating value by developing more sustainable systems across a broad range of sectors, including the food and beverage sector. By integrating food and technology, we believe that we can create technical solutions that address key global sustainability challenges.

🤩 The opportunity

SFNV: How does working with you contribute to creating innovative sustainable products?

Marcin Niedzielski: We believe that strategic partnerships are the glue that will make the Sustainable Development agenda a reality. By teaming up we’re able to provide our customers with a unique combination of skills and more holistic support.

Dr. Jonathan Demierre: By combining our expertise with Agilery’s we’ll be able to empower food and beverage brands to create products that are both innovative and more sustainable.

🎯  The long term vision 

SFNV: Where do you see the biggest potential for impact?

Marcin Niedzielski: We currently see the biggest potential in relation to promoting responsible sourcing, reducing waste, and enhancing resource and energy efficiency throughout the industry.

Dr. Ludovic Dovat: In future, we’d love to see brands seamlessly integrating food and technology sustainably from the start.

💭 Partner reflections

Marcin Niedzielski: We are excited to collaborate with Helbling on our shared mission to drive sustainability in the food and beverage sector. The partnership will allow us to offer our clients technical and sustainable solutions that align with the SDGs, bringing us closer to a more sustainable future.

Dr. Jonathan Demierre: We believe that by combining our expertise in sustainable technology and product development with Agilery’s deep knowledge in food science and manufacturing, we can have a significant impact for our clients and the consumers. Together, we can provide them the services they need to navigate the complex landscape of sustainability and achieve lasting positive changes.

Are you developing a brand that is integrating food and technology – and you want to do it sustainably from the start? Contact hello@agilery.ch or ludovic.dovat@helbling.ch to find out how Agilery and Helbling could support you.

About Agilery

Agilery is a contract manufacturing company that helps brands of all sizes to bring food and beverage products to market.

About Helbling

Helbling is a leader in technological innovation and engineering for food and beverage systems, supporting its clients in all phases of product development and business processes.

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AgriFood innovation in Fribourg: an ecosystem approach

Sep 24, 2023 | Ecosystem news, Headline, Member news, Partner success stories

AgriFood innovation in Fribourg: an ecosystem approach

Mirai foods burger

In 2022, Valley partner Canton of Fribourg launched a new agri-food strategy. Just months later, their team, supported by fellow Valley partner Cluster Food & Nutrition, has worked alongside countless local partners to transform the words on the page into a series of practical projects.

Valley partner, the Canton of Fribourg, has a strong agri-food sector ecosystem. Both agricultural and industrial, with a dense network of SMEs and leading national and international companies, the canton processes nearly a quarter of Swiss agricultural products.

In 2022, Fribourg defined a new agri-food strategy that set out a new ecosystem led approach, requiring all local actors to change the way they think about how they work within the food system and consider their contribution to driving a shift towards a more sustainable and a circular economy. 

Since then, fellow Valley partner Cluster Food & Nutrition has been working to deliver this new strategy, powered by a CHF 1 million budget. Throughout 2022, a number of interdisciplinary teams worked in close collaboration with leading local and regional companies to develop projects relating to each of the strategy’s priority areas. Let’s take a deep dive into the results of two of the resulting projects, developed in collaboration with 10 ecosystem actors.   

Circular Functionalized Proteins – adding value to agricultural by-products
👩‍🦰 Who
  • BFH-HAFL
  • HES-SO Valais // Wallis
  • Alver
  • SNHF
  • University of Fribourg
  • Translait
💡 The opportunity

Partners saw an opportunity to transform local byproducts into circular ingredients.

🤩 The findings

Sugar beet leaves, a by-product of sugar production, can be used as a nutrient source for growing microalgae, a source of local, sustainable plant protein. Microalgae could then be used to create sustainable meat and dairy substitutes.

Dairy co-products such as whey and buttermilk, complexed with vitamin E from wheat bran oil, improve the assimilation of this micronutrient. Such a prototype can be extended to a wide range of molecules of interest for health, opening the way to new nutritional complexes with high added value.

🎤 A few words from one of the partners

Commenting on the project, Serge Rezzi from the Swiss Nutrition and Health Foundation (SNHF) said: “This project has made it possible to bring together the various players involved in innovation throughout the agri-food sector. That’s something that can’t be done without an inclusive approach that includes all the players in the sector.”

Optimised Nitrogen Fertilisation: New technologies to drive biodiversity
👩‍🦰 Who
  • Grangeneuve
  • Agroscope
  • BFH-HAFL
  • Agridea
💡 The opportunity

Partners recognised that there was an opportunity to develop a predictive tool capable of making targeted recommendations to farmers by accurately calculating the nitrogen requirements of their crops. Thanks to multispectral imagery by drone, this method would make it possible to optimise the quantities of fertiliser products used while guaranteeing good yields and optimum crop quality.

🤩 The findings

The findings suggest that the application of these approaches can help to preserve the environment while optimising yields. The results of the study showed that the quantities of nitrogen applied were generally between -40% and +10% compared with fertilisation standards, while improving nitrogen efficiency without significantly reducing yields.

This project demonstrated how data and digital technologies can be used to strengthen efficiency in agriculture and the food industry more broadly. The project findings could offer significant benefits for farmers, both in terms of yield and sustainability, and in economic terms, by reducing the need for nitrogen fertilisers.

🎤 A few words from one of the partners

Commenting on the project, Aurélie Moulin-Moix from Grangeneuve said: “The project allows us to optimise nitrogen fertilisation, reducing farmers’ production costs and increasing their profits. Applying only the nitrogen that is needed also reduces Swiss agriculture’s dependence on world fertiliser markets. From an ecological point of view, fixing nitrogen from the air requires a lot of energy, thus, reducing the amount of nitrogen applied saves a lot of energy. What’s more, applying too much nitrogen leads to pollution in the form of greenhouse gases and contamination of groundwater by nitrates, which can make local water sources unfit for consumption.”

Based in Fribourg and have an idea for a project?

A total sum of CHF 200,000 is available to support innovative collaborative projects, with a strong potential for economic impact and on the sustainability of the agri-food sector.  You can submit your project here by November 19. Or maybe you’re looking to develop a new solution? A total amount of CHF 45,000 is available to support ideas and projects in the start-up or prototyping phase. You can find out more and apply to benefit from an Innovation cheque here.

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Four Swiss research & innovation leaders team up to shape the future of vertical farming

Aug 7, 2023 | Ecosystem news, Headline, Member news, Partner success stories

Four Swiss research & innovation leaders team up to shape the future of vertical farming

Image of the Yumane team

Many experts recognise the potential of vertical farming in enabling sustainable, local food production. But what more can be done to further reduce costs and boost product quality and affordability? A joint Innosuisse research project between Valley partners YASAI AG, Agroscope, fenaco, and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) is working on answering this question.

The challenge

Climate change, population growth, and loss of arable land threaten the resilience of global and local food systems. Recent events – from the COVID pandemic to the war in Ukraine – have further exacerbated pressures on agricultural value chains, leading to a global rise in food prices.

The opportunity

Swiss start-up YASAI is on a mission to tackle these challenges and democratize access to local, high-quality food, produced sustainably thanks to its soilless, vertical farming system.

Back in 2021, the YASAI team realized that if vertical farms are to become a key part of the smart cities of the future, we need to invest in optimizing the sustainability, quantity, quality, and profitability of operations today. They saw that much of the knowledge we need to do this is readily available, but it’s spread across several companies and stakeholders. So they teamed up with experts at fenaco, Agroscope, and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences to kick off a 3-year partnership project, supported by an investment of close to 1M Swiss Francs sourced from industrial partners and Innosuisse.

The solution

Project partners identified four fields of research that would help to explore vertical farming’s potential to secure local food production in the future:

  1. Sustainability
    The Ecotechnologies and Energy Systems Research Unit at ZHAW is focused on reducing YASAI’s environmental footprint by investigating substrate quality and exploring the selection of light and fertilizer profiles. The ZHAW team led by Dr. Zala Schmautz will then assess the impact of these measures using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. 

  1. Quality
    Agroscope, the Swiss Institute for Agricultural Research, will zone in on improvements relating to yield and quality. Agroscope experts Gil Carron and Dr. Christoph Carlen will lead a comparative study of different crop cultivation systems.
  1. Packaging solutions
    ZHAW’s Food Packaging Research Group at the Institute of Food and Beverage Innovation will explore sustainable and innovative packaging technologies. Prof. Dr. Selçuk Yildirim’s team will focus on selecting sustainable packaging materials and identifying processes and designs that have a lower environmental impact, without compromising the quality of the products.
  1. Profitability
    Working closely with fenaco and ZHAW’s Institute of Natural Resource Sciences, YASAI will also work on improving farm profitability to strengthen the business opportunity for farmers.
The results

In the first year of the project, partners tested different growing substrates that would reduce the farm wastes, different varieties of selected herbs to find the most optimal varieties for indoor cultivation, as well as different packaging options that would make packaging more sustainable and at the same time, attractive for the customer. In this context, packaging made of leftover basil plants had been designed and might be a potential solution further down the development process.

The project will now run until March 2025. The YASAI team will use the findings to inform how they develop their operations.

A few words from the partners

Commenting on the collaboration, Eldrid Funck, Head of Brand and Marketing from YASAI said: “This project enables us to improve on various levels. It’s a great opportunity to collaborate with professional research institutes and integrate their findings perpetually. As a startup, we don’t have the resources to do research on this scale.”

Dr. Christoph Carlen from Agroscope added: “Optimising this production system is very important on the road to profitability and sustainability. This involves finding the most suitable plants and varieties for vertical farming, determining the optimal management of the plants, and robotizing harvesting and packaging as much as possible”.

Daniel Schwab, Project Leader for vertical farming at fenaco went on to say: “The key to profitability lies in scalability and automatization of the processes. We currently produce relatively small volumes and selected products but aim at increasing these step by step”.

Dr. Zala Schmautz, Project Leader said: “With all the current problems that we are facing from climate change to resource availability, local food production independent of outside climate will be even more important in the future. And if at the same time, we can save on space by growing it vertically, reuse the resources such as heat, and make it more sustainable even better!”

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farmer connect® joins forces with Scantrust to drive product traceability and prevent counterfeit coffee

Jun 29, 2023 | Headline, Member news, Partner success stories

farmer connect® joins forces with Scantrust to drive product traceability and prevent counterfeit coffee

Farmer Connect and SCANTRUST join iforces

For our latest Co-create & Innovate case study, we chatted to Valley partners farmer connect® and Scantrust to find out how they combined their respective expertise in global supply chains and product traceability, to create an app that can trace the provenance of Galapagos coffee from supermarket shelves all the way back to the farmer – and fight food system fraud in the process.

The challenge

The Galapagos Islands, a province of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean, represents a challenge for the region’s coffee farmers. The islands host a rich array of biodiversity, and benefit from protected status as a result. This also means that coffee producers must grow their coffee in accordance with specific environmental protection regulations. Only two of the thirteen islands are approved for agricultural production and these regulations, while welcomed, have led to an increase in counterfeit coffee that claims it is grown on the islands, but is not actually genuine.

The opportunity

Through their work with global community development based NGO Heifer international, the Galopogas based Cooperative Asociación de Producción Agropecuaria Santa Mónica de Galápagos (ASOSAMOGAL) spotted a key challenge to driving better incomes and livelihoods for the cooperative’s farmers. ASOSAMOGAL was already selling locally and trying to establish themselves as premium Galapagos coffee outside of local markets but with limited success, hampered by trust and even fraud within the Galapagos origin brand.

This is when the farmer connect® team recognised an opportunity: thanks to their understanding of supply chains, their mature transparency ecosystem and tooling they were able to ensure trust across the cooperative supply chain for their organic Ranti brand coffee. Taking things a step further and leveraging the Swiss ecosystem, they then teamed up with Scantrust, an anti-counterfeiting and product traceability solution provider, to deliver an innovative and non-replicable coffee-labelling program to give consumers full confidence of providence.

The solution

Using farmer connect’s ThankMyFarmer web app, anyone with a camera-equipped smartphone can scan the secure QR code that is found on every Ranti coffee package. This reveals the coffee’s provenance details and verifies the product authenticity of the Ranti coffee thanks to a copy-detection feature – something that has been made uniquely possible thanks to Scantrust’s secure QR codes.

Users of the app are also able to trace the origins of the Ranti coffee label through a visual product journey map and find out more about the producer that grew the raw goods. In this instance, Ranti coffee is traceable all the way to Mr Luis Cango, the coffee grower.

The results

Thanks to this unique solution, coffee sold under the Ranti brand can be verified for authenticity to minimise the potential for fraud by counterfeiters. The team has been able to position themselves locally as a provider of high quality commercial Galapagos coffee, develop their market share and sell their coffee at a higher price. Building on these successes, this year, they’ll be looking to consolidate this position as a specialty coffee brand.

A few words from the partners

Reflecting on the collaboration, Kristian Doolan, Head of Innovation and Partnerships at farmer connect® , said: “It’s amazing seeing what the potential of real collaboration can bring about! It proves that advanced technologies can come together and be complimentary, providing real impact and value for smallholder farmer groups.”

Peter Kostur, Anti-counterfeiting Solutions Expert at Scantrust, added: “We’re proud that our secure QR codes have earned the trust and privilege to protect coffee from Galapagos, one of the rarest coffee production areas in the world, from counterfeiting. Our system is securing connections between the farmers of Galapagos and the final consumers enjoying a truly special coffee product.”

About Farmer Connect

farmer connect® is a Swiss based tech company that enables the unlocking of benefits along global supply chains, connecting farmers to consumers, and everyone in between. It helps small holder farmers to connect digitally to the agriculture supply chain, and its blockchain technology ensures traceability and data validation by all parties. 

About Scantrust

Scantrust is a Swiss-based anti-counterfeiting, product traceability and compliance solution provider that specialises in connecting and authenticating products via secure QR codes. Scantrust helps brands all over the world prevent counterfeiting, improve product and supply chain traceability, and create new channels for consumer engagement. 

About Ranti 

Ranti is fully organic and with every purchase, consumers are directly supporting the coffee growing family from San Cristobal Island, who are also the first growers on the island to start using the technologically innovative coffee-labeling program.

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