CLEVERFOOD will host a masterclass at Impact Festival in Frankfurt on 25–26 November 2026. The session is titled Making Impact Investment Work for Food Systems: Why do funded innovations fail to scale? It brings impact investors, researchers and decision-makers together in an exclusive room of up to 30 participants for a focused, 60-minute discussion on what it takes to move food-system innovations from funding to market.
The masterclass centres on two connected cases. The first is a real case from an impact investor’s portfolio, which grounds the discussion in an actual investment decision. The second is an illustrative case that Wageningen University & Research developed from CLEVERFOOD findings. It explores the “second valley of death”: the point where a funded innovation struggles to gain traction because market demand has not yet caught up. A panel discussion, live polling and an open floor will then address three questions:
- What should the sector align on first when defining “impact investing”?
- How can the market recognise a genuine impact investor?
- How can patient capital and demand-building work together so that innovations can scale?
The session builds on the interactive Science Labs that CLEVERFOOD has run since 2023, starting at ImpactFest 2023 in The Hague. Insights from these labs, from interviews with food SMEs, impact-driven founders and accelerators, and from two co-creation workshops have shaped this year’s more targeted format.
Masterclasses are open to IMPACT Pass holders, and places are limited. The session schedule will be available on the festival programme page: Program | IMPACT FESTIVAL 2026
Photo credits: Headway on Unsplash