TFTAK joins the Open Innovation Forum at the University of Cambridge

TFTAK has joined the Open Innovation Forum hosted by IfM Engage at the University of Cambridge, strengthening our role as an applied R&D and collaboration partner for the food and biotech sectors. The forum brings together organisations from across the food, drink and FMCG value chain to share best practice, explore emerging challenges and identify practical opportunities for innovation.

For TFTAK, membership is a natural step. Our work is built on applied research, food science, fermentation and food biotech, but innovation in today’s food system cannot happen in isolation. The most important challenges facing the sector are increasingly systemic: they extend across supply chains, technologies, consumer expectations, sustainability pressures and routes to market. The Open Innovation Forum is designed precisely for this kind of cross-value-chain exchange, helping members combine internal expertise with external insights, ideas and collaboration opportunities.

As TFTAK’s Innovation Director Merli Üle puts it, “Joining the Open Innovation Forum is a strategic step for TFTAK. It gives us a stronger connection to the broader challenges companies are facing across the food system and creates new opportunities to solve them together. For us, this is about combining applied research and scientific capability with meaningful collaboration that helps turn complex ideas into practical solutions.”

By joining the Open Innovation Forum, TFTAK gains access to a network that is focused not only on discussion, but on practice.

The programme includes knowledge sharing between experienced practitioners, a roadmap built around priorities across the value chain, self-assessment of open innovation maturity, and regular opportunities to connect with innovation providers, start-ups and universities. 

This is valuable for TFTAK because it brings us even closer to the broader challenges companies are trying to solve in a complex food system. It helps us better understand where industry needs are evolving, where bottlenecks are emerging, and where scientific and applied development capabilities can make the greatest difference. At the same time, it creates new opportunities to contribute our own expertise and to build stronger international partnerships around practical innovation.

As a member of the Open Innovation Forum, TFTAK will continue to strengthen its position as a trusted partner for companies looking to develop, validate and scale new solutions in food and biotechnology. We see this as an opportunity not only to learn from leading organisations, but also to help shape future innovation through collaboration grounded in science, industrial relevance and shared ambition.