The start of a new year is always accompanied by a unique sense of hope and excitement. A new beginning akin to a new book with blank pages. So before we put pen to paper, we’re going to pause our regular LinkedIn product series (Astaxanthin, Chitosan) to really consider where we want VNF to grow in 2022 by also remembering where we’ve been.
To VNF, a momentous milestone was winning the ‘Future of Nutrition’ Innovation award at the 2019 Food Ingredients (FI) Europe show. We hope you bear with us as we stray from tradition a little and combine our December “End of Year reflections” with January “New Year Resolutions” – like we said, ‘To remember where you come from is part of where you’re going’. So let’s first rewind the clock two years (not 1) to recognize everything that’s happened since our huge 2019 milestone (in a blissful pre-COVID world).
LOOKING BACK:
2019 Fi Innovation Award – a major milestone for VNF
December 2019, VNF won Food Ingredients (Fi) Europe show. (No matter how often we say it, we still need to pinch ourselves that we, as a much younger Vietnamese company, took home first prize on the global F&B stage!)
The Fi competition is a prestigious event aiming to spotlight companies with solutions that will “disrupt accepted food supply chains beyond 5 years”. This statement rang true for our Food Ingredients portfolio as in 2019 as we demonstrated to the world how the protein we extracted from shrimp heads could be turned into nutritious Food Ingredients (shrimp powders, oils, extracts, sauces). As a result, what once was treated as waste could be valorized to feed the population and alleviate global hunger. Furthermore, our work proved that supply chains did not stop just at the main meat but could be extended to include all the by-products (with the right technology) – thus disrupting and changing the ‘conventionally-accepted food supply chain’.
Stay tuned for Part 2 to learn what VNF has accomplished so far in our relentless journey of shrimp by-product valorization and what the future holds for us!