Mexico-headquartered baked goods producer Grupo Bimbo has formed a Chile-based accelerator called BakeLab, Food Navigator-Latam has reported.
BakeLab is a four-month, equity-free program focused on food and supply chain technology covering areas including ingredients, packaging, waste optimisation, automation, renewable energy, payments, retail and sales.
The scheme is open to startups founded within the last two years as long as they have a validated product, in addition to older companies with a solid business model and established clients.
BakeLab will focus on Latin American nations apart from Grupo Bimbo’s home market of Mexico where Eleva Food Technology, the accelerator it founded in 2017 to build on the launch of the Bimbo Ventures open innovation division, will now exclusively operate.
The company is accepting applications for BakeLab through to March 20 this year, and for Eleva until April 16. Eleva has graduated 17 startups including coffee by-product processor Natucafé, Spanish-language chatbot creator Guschat, virtual road safety software developer DrivR and solar energy system provider Cosolpo.