Dutch food development company opens branch in Catalonia, thanks to the Enterprise Europe Network’s Agrofood Sector Group.

The step from research to commercial application can be tricky, but it is one that Dutch sustainable food company Tournois Dynamic Innovations (TDI) negotiates well. It takes new technologies developed by companies clustered around nearby Wageningen University, such as low-temperature pasteurisation, known as pascalisation, and finds public funds or private investors to help take them into production and onto the market.

Keen to go further afield, TDI approached Mylène Mesters of Agentschap NL, the Enterprise Europe Network branch in The Hague. The Enterprise Europe Network brings together 600 partner organisations in 50 countries and specialises in helping turn innovation into marketable products.

Agentschap NL is also a member of the Network’s Agrofood Sector Group, which is a powerful connector for thousands of European companies in that industry.

In 2010, TDI went to the Alimentaria food fair in Barcelona, a matchmaking event organised by Mònica Duran Roca of Acc10, Mesters’ Network counterpart in the Catalan capital. “We work very well together,” says Mesters, “because we want to give our clients a high level of service.”

The following year, they co-organised a Catalan mission to the Netherlands. The companies were all involved in sustainable manufacturing and concerned with such health issues as reducing sugar and fat content.

“We visited TDI,” says Duran Roca. “A month later they were negotiating with Sairem, a Catalan company that is developing similar and complementary technologies.”

TDI has now opened an office in Barcelona to further develop its work in Spain. “The positive meetings we had in the Netherlands with the Catalan companies influenced our decision to open our first office abroad in Barcelona,” says TDI’s Senior Project Manager Ed Westerweele.