Horeca Challenge’s aim is to develop innovative solutions to three challenges: managing the influx of customers, the health of users and improving the profitability of the sector.
MEDIAPRO Group, Damm and Família Torres support the restaurant sector with the launch of the Horeca Challenge initiative, a call for startups with the aim of detecting and developing new solutions to boost bar and restaurant business in the medium term. The winning startups will be able to develop a pilot of their project co-financed by the promoters of the call.
The initiative, presented in the framework of the EIC Innovation Hub Visit to Barcelona, which is being held these days in Barcelona and is organized by the European Innovation Council and ACCIÓ (the agency for the competitiveness of business of the Generalitat de Catalunya ), is looking for startups that design innovative and effective solutions to help bars and restaurants improve their situation. The aim is to give impetus to a sector that is suffering the impact of the consequences of the Covid-19, but that with the incorporation of innovative solutions can emerge stronger and face a promising future.
In this sense, Mediapro, Damm and Família Torres are looking for startup projects that respond to three challenges: how to manage the influx of customers, how to ensure health conditions ensuring the health of customers and how to optimize the profitability of visits to the premises.
Startups wishing to participate in the Horeca Challenge can submit their project application on the initiative’s website, www.horecachallenge.com. The deadline for receiving applications will end on January 15, 2021. After analyzing the applications, Grupo Mediapro, Damm and Família Torres will select a total of six finalist startups for each challenge, which will be announced at the end of January.
In mid-February, the finalists will have the opportunity to present their projects on a “pitch”, and on February 26, 2021, the winners of the Horeca Challenge will be announced (one per challenge). From then on, each of those selected will be able to carry out a pilot of their proposal co-financed by Mediapro, Damm and Família Torres (6,000 euros per project) for three months. The riders will finish on June 15, while the Horeca Challenge will end with a “Demo Day” on June 30, 2021 where the winners will show the results of their riders to prominent investors and other companies.
Horeca Challenge has the support of ACCIÓ, F6S and the Barcelona Restoration Guild, among other entities.
María Carmen Fernández, Director of Innovation and New Business of the Mediapro Group: “From Mediapro, and more specifically from the areas of Innovation and Business of Canal Horeca, we promote and support this initiative in order to support in the sector and to detect opportunities and new ways to enjoy sports entertainment in bars and restaurants. The growth of digital content consumption, along with a multitude of new services that will be detected and developed, will drive the relationship that is established between the sports fan and the place where all content is consumed, while improving the experience of the client on the premises before, during and after matches. Futbar, the app for living football in bars, is an example of our commitment to the sector, and Horeca Challenge is a new opportunity for growth and development for all actors ”.
Laura Gil, director of digital transformation of Damm: “Open innovation is, without a doubt, an innovative technique to identify ways of collaboration between different sectors with a common goal. The restaurant is the main customer of Damm, so one of our priorities today is to promote all those innovative initiatives that can promote the acceleration of the recovery of this key sector for the economy of our country; Horeca Challenge is one of them. “
Mireia Torres, Director of Innovation and Knowledge of Família Torres: “At Família Torres, we have been promoting open innovation for years, through collaboration with startups and research organizations, to respond to the challenges we face. in areas such as sustainability and digitization. At the moment, our priority is to help the restaurant, so we are proud to participate in this project that will provide the bars, restaurants and companies of the Horeca with tools and solutions that can contribute to its recovery.
About Mediapro Group
MEDIAPRO is a leading group in the unique European audiovisual sector in content integration, audiovisual production and distribution, with activity worldwide through its 58 headquarters on 4 continents. MEDIAPRO provides the creativity and technical solutions needed to design, produce and distribute any audiovisual or multichannel project in any corner of the world. Through the Innovation area, the Group leads the eSports sector with the Professional Video Game League (LVP), the world’s largest Spanish-language eSports organization; and UBEAT, a cross-platform eSports and Entertainment. They also include VISYON, a pioneering company in the creation of immersive technology solutions such as virtual, augmented and mixed reality, and the areas of corporate innovation and new content (tansmedia and branded content).
About Damm
Damm is currently present in more than 130 countries. The company was founded in 1876 by the Alsatian Master Brewer August Kuentzmann Damm and today is one of the leading leaders in the food and beverage sector, with a presence in the catering, logistics and distribution sector. It has 16 factories in the Iberian Peninsula, where it produces and packs more than 19M hectoliters of beer, water, soft drinks, milk and smoothies. In 2019 its turnover reached 1,385 million euros and the total workforce of the company stood at 4,900 people at the end of the year.
About Família Torres
Rooted in the Penedès viticultural tradition since the 16th century, the Torres Family founded their winery in Vilafranca del Penedès in 1870, 150 years ago. Each generation has passed on from parents to children the passion for wine culture from the respect for the land and tradition and the commitment to innovation. Today, the fifth generation focuses on making wines from unique vineyards and historic estates and recovering ancestral varieties to adapt to climate change. The fight against the climate emergency has been one of its areas of action since 2008 through adaptation and mitigation actions to reduce CO2 emissions. Historically present in the Penedès, Conca de Barberà, Priorat and Costers del Segre, the Torres Family also has vineyards and wineries in the main Spanish wine areas -Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Rueda and Rías Baixas-, as well as in Chile and California. She is a member of the Primum Famíliae Vini, an association of twelve of Europe’s most prestigious winemakers, and founder of the International Wineries for Climate Action (IWCA), which promotes the decarbonisation of the sector.
