Samriddhi 1.0: Innovation in Food Technology Incubation (India)

Applications will be reviewed by a panel of experts, and shortlisted teams will be invited to participate in the first round of pitching. This round will assess both the technical and business potential of the proposed innovations. Selected teams from this stage will progress to the final pitching round.

Funding Information

• Winning teams in the final round may receive incubation support and funding of up to ₹10 lakhs. The exact grant for each winning team will be determined based on the declared need of the team and the recommendations of the evaluators. Selected teams will also be offered a hybrid incubation opportunity (online & offline), ensuring flexible access to resources, mentorship, and infrastructure throughout the incubation period.

Problem Statements

• Innovative food production and processing: Focuses on technologies that enhance how food is produced and processed—improving efficiency, nutrition, safety, and sustainability. Encourages solutions such as advanced processing methods and scalable models for a future-ready food ecosystem.
• Sustainable Packaging & Preservation: Startups developing eco-friendly, biodegradable packaging solutions or smart packaging technologies that enhance shelf life and ensure food safety, including innovations in Nutri-Tech and functional foods. This theme addresses the need for sustainable packaging and preservation methods that help improve food safety, reduce spoilage, and support environmental sustainability.
• Smart Processing, Automation & Consumer-Centric Innovation in Food Tech: This theme looks for ideas that improve food processing and supply chains using smart technology. It includes small, efficient processing units, AI tools for quality checks, and IoT for tracking food. It supports solutions that help small producers work better and meet growing demand for healthy, ethical, and easy-to-access food.
• Food Waste Management & Circular Economy: Technologies aimed at reducing post-harvest losses, repurposing by-products, and converting food waste into value-added products such as bioplastics, bioenergy, or animal feed. This theme addresses a critical challenge in the food ecosystem, with potential to enhance sustainability, improve resource efficiency, and lower operational costs.
• Food Safety, Quality & Nutritional Innovation: Highlight startups working on ensuring food safety, enhancing nutritional profiles, and complying with evolving standards — through traceability, contamination detection, clean-label processing, and health-focused reformulations.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants having a stake in the submitted innovation must be Indian nationals by both origin and citizenship.
• Applicants should have an innovative idea that has progressed at least to TRL-4 (Technology Readiness Level-4), demonstrating a minimum viable or working prototype in laboratory environment.
• The ideas submitted for the event must be innovative, novel, and proprietary to the applicant. Any idea that has been copied, plagiarized, or adopted from elsewhere will not be considered.
• The pitch presentation can be made by the primary applicant or their declared associate or team member as specified in their application. Multiple applications from the same applicant are not valid. The primary applicant or associated team member should not be a member of any other applications registered for the event.
• Applicants should be a startup or willing to register as a startup immediately after the selection process.
• The founder/co-founder must have a full-time engagement with the entrepreneurship plan and interest.
• Prior applicants who submitted their ideas/concepts to any of the TECHIN incubation calls during the last three months are not eligible to apply for this call for application.

For more information, visit TECHIN.