New Ingredient Collective Europe
NICE brings together senior food technology industry veterans with hands-on experience in large organisations, startups and advisory to accelerate ingredient scale-up, commercialisation and investment from lab to market.
"Formo's precision fermentation platform has reached a level of technical and economic maturity that makes industrial scale-up not just possible, but compelling. The fundamentals are in place. My role is to accelerate execution along the cost and scale curves."
Dr Andreas Heyl, as CTO at Formo
About NICE
You are developing, sourcing or scaling a next-generation food ingredient — and you need experienced hands, not a staffing form. NICE gives you direct access to named senior experts who have commercialised ingredients before, and will work alongside you to get it done.
You are a senior food technology, NPD or commercial professional with real-world experience across large organisations, startups or advisory. You want to work on substantive ingredient projects with peers of equal calibre — not compete on a freelancer platform.
Every NICE engagement is led by identifiable, credentialed practitioners with published work and proven track records. We take on projects with full accountability — and stay invested until the outcome is delivered.
Target Segments
Ingredient ventures & scaleups
Corporate food & beverage brands
Agrifood funds & strategic corporates
Core Capabilities
Four ingredient domains where NICE members have direct, hands-on commercial experience — from lab through to market launch.
01 · Fermentation & Bioprocessing
Full-spectrum fermentation expertise covering small molecules, enzymes, proteins and functional components using bacteria, yeast and fungi. From upstream process design through downstream processing, techno-economic analysis and regulatory compliance — with direct experience of the full lab-to-industrial transition.
02 · Functional Ingredients & Nutrition
Deep applied expertise in functional ingredient development — from sweeteners and dietary fibers to prebiotics, probiotics and emerging nutrition platforms such as GLP-1-compatible formulations. Covering the full arc from technology development through regulatory submission, application and commercial strategy.
03 · Sensory Science & AI
Applying AI to predict sensory performance directly from molecular structure — delivering objective, reproducible results that reduce reliance on costly and variable human panel testing. Covering flavour and fragrance formulation, organoleptic profiling, sweetness prediction and digital sensory communication across food and beverage applications.
04 · Scale-Up & Commercialisation
Bridging the gap between scientific proof of concept and commercial traction. Covering process economics, go-to-market architecture, demand partner development, investment readiness and consumer-led NPD — with hands-on experience across both large organisations and high-growth ventures.
"Fermentation is an expensive technique — scaling is essential to bring the price down. I have never doubted that it would work. What we built was new. But we had confidence from the start."
Wim de Laat, as founder at The Protein Brewery
NICE Scans
A NICE Scan is a structured diagnostic — typically 3 expert days — that gives you a clear view of where you are and what needs to happen next. It is the fastest way to engage with senior expertise without committing to a long programme upfront. Choose the scan that fits your immediate decision.
Scan Type A
A rapid assessment to determine if a venture is truly ready to move on the scaling path. Identifies technical, operational and organisational gaps to ensure first-time-right scale-up steps.
Ideal for: Emerging ventures pre-Series A/B who need independent validation before investor conversations or pilot investments.
Scan Type B
A structured exploration to pinpoint the top 2–5 high-value opportunities for demand partners. Reveals where innovation creates real business impact — fast, focused, and market-driven.
Ideal for: F&B companies seeking to integrate novel ingredients but unsure where to start or how to prioritise the innovation pipeline.
Scan Type C
A clear benchmark of how a technology or ingredient performs against alternatives. Defines differentiation, white space, and positioning to strengthen the go-to-market story.
Ideal for: Investors conducting technical due diligence, or ventures preparing for fundraising who need an independent competitive perspective.
How We Engage
Expert support on a temporary or ongoing basis. Fixed-price projects with defined scope and deliverables. Clear accountability, clear outcomes.
Strategic temporary roles — from Senior Lead to CTO, CCO, COO. Execute scale, drive efficient progress, avoid delay and failure. Recruitment and team building included.
Focused acceleration for business model refinement, scaling strategies and operational progress. For founders who want to move faster and with confidence.
We connect you with the right partners, investors and distributors — then facilitate to successful close. Our network is your network.
Hands-on workshops on tech insights, market trends, how to scale, and pragmatic strategy. From half-day to multi-session programmes.
Independent technical and commercial assessments for investment and strategic decisions. Clear, actionable outcomes with no vested interest.
The NICE difference
"We are a collective of industry veterans who have built, scaled and commercialised foodtech — and we take on projects where we can move the needle." — The NICE Collective
Every NICE member is identifiable and credentialed. You know exactly who you are working with — their track record, their background, their companies. Not awaiting who will show up for the job.
We take on responsibilities. NICE members are invested in the outcome — which means we bring business logic and technical solutions to every engagement.
Our focus is tight by design — plant proteins, fermentation, upcycled feedstocks, functional systems. That depth means faster answers and fewer wrong turns than a generalist network.
Cumulatively across the collective, covering large multinationals, emerging ventures and advisory — from R&D and fermentation through commercial launch and investor relations.
"Innovation takes years when significant investments are needed. We adopted a step-by-step scaling process to avoid the valley of death — where a project stagnates in the pipeline and the opportunity is lost."
Mike Vermeer, as senior innovation manager at Royal Cosun
The Collective
Six practitioners with experience across DSM, Frutarom, multinational F&B, fermentation-led biotech, and ingredient investment. Each member is active — contributing to projects, publishing in the field, and accountable for outcomes. This is not a roster of available consultants. It is a working collective.
Chemistry & Digital Sensory
Accomplished chemist, global R&D and business leader, and pioneer in the digitisation of flavors and fragrances. With over 20 patents and 60 publications, he has held senior roles at Frutarom, O'Laughlin, and ReSugar, and now co-founds Mamay Technologies, advancing digital sensory communication worldwide.
Commercialisation & Strategy
Entrepreneurial executive with a solid academic foundation (MBA, MM), dedicated to driving transformative growth across diverse plant-derived sectors. Drawing on extensive experience developing actionable strategies that enhance value creation, foster winning cultures, and unlock shared revenue streams for collective success.
Scaling & Go to Market
Over 25 years of experience in chemical, biochemical, and food ingredient industries, complemented by building and scaling a successful, well-funded synthetic biology start-up. Translating technical insight into scalable development paths, industrial partnerships, and robust go-to-market execution.
Fermentation & Protein
Experienced fermentation and downstream specialist from lab scale to full production scale in a commercial applied R&D setting. Expert in small molecules and enzymes using bacteria, yeast or fungi, including basic engineering studies, Technical Economic Evaluations, and regulatory compliance.
Sweeteners & Fibers
Three decades of technological expertise in the food ingredients & nutrition markets. Expert in sweeteners, dietary fibers and probiotics. Combines technological and BD abilities with a realistic view. Has played CTO, CSO and VP BD roles at leading ingredient companies.
Consumer-Centric Innovation
Consumer-centric innovation and product development specialist. Deep expertise in supply chain, scale-up of innovations across Horizons 1–3, product management with market focus, and delivering sustainable and affordable innovations for global F&B companies.
Full profiles and accolades available on request · New members pending
"It's like wanting to be a pilot. You can fly a real plane, or you can use a simulator. If you go on a simulator, it costs $5. What we are doing is creating a simulator for taste."
Dr Michael Zviely, as co-founder at Mamay Technologies
Insights library
Research paper · Sensory science · Environment
Quantitative concentration data for 19 key odorants in raw influent versus secondary-treated municipal wastewater, translated into sensory impact profiles using the MAMAY Organoleptic Digitizer 1.0. Total odor impact declines by ≈57% through secondary treatment — but residual character shifts from sulfurous to fishy, chloroform and animalic, with indole, skatole and halogenated VOCs dominating the effluent odor signature.
Member story · Precision fermentation & scale-up
Formo, a producer of precision-fermented casein for dairy applications backed by a €35 million European Investment Bank loan, appointed Dr Andreas Heyl as CTO to lead its industrial scale-up and commercialisation. Heyl brings over two decades of experience scaling food, chemical and biotech processes to industrial production, with prior CTO roles at Lonza and ICL Group and as co-founder of industrial biotech company Insempra. His mandate: compress time-to-scale, strengthen industrial robustness and drive cost-down trajectories on a technology platform that has already demonstrated functional performance in commercial dairy applications.
Industry Insight
How ingredient suppliers must move from aspiration marketing to evidence-based commercial partnership — covering total COGS, formulation switch ease, scale-up certainty, and the Intel Inside co-branding model. Grounded in Kotler's marketing principles.
Member story · Fermentation & scale-up
Wim de Laat left a large corporate employer to found The Protein Brewery in Breda — producing plant-based proteins via fermentation using agricultural side-streams such as sugar beet, cassava and maize. The venture has secured regulatory approvals in Singapore and the US, with European novel food procedures underway. His ambition: production on three continents within ten years. A first-hand account of what it takes to go from fermentation lab to global ingredient supplier.
Member story · Digital sensory & AI
Dr Michael Zviely co-founded Mamay Technologies to solve a fundamental problem in food development: taste has no universal language. Mamay's Taste Gage platform assigns numerical values to sensory attributes — starting with sweetness across 70+ compounds — so product developers can run formulation simulations without mixing a single batch. The platform, covered by FoodNavigator, allows companies to predict sensory outcomes from chemical inputs such as GCMS and HPLC data, reducing development cost and time significantly.
Industry Insight
GLP-1 therapies are reshaping food and nutrition strategy. This paper examines the nutritional risks of reduced intake, the role of prebiotic fibers (inulin, sc-FOS, oligofructose) in complementing GLP-1 therapy, and the innovation opportunity for F&B companies at the intersection of clinical nutrition and ingredient science.
Industry Insight
An analysis of the structural reasons food tech ventures fail during scale-up — from process economics to organisational readiness — and what senior advisors can do to close the gap.
Member story · Scaling within a conglomerate
As Senior Innovation Manager at Royal Cosun — parent of Aviko, Sensus, SVZ and Suiker Unie — Mike Vermeer led the development and scale-up of novel plant-based ingredients including RuBiSco (a functional protein extracted from sugar beet leaves) and potato-based cheese alternatives. He describes how a large cooperative shifted from reactive to proactive innovation, built a structured step-by-step scaling process to avoid the innovation valley of death, and developed a venturing model to do more with fewer resources in less time.
Industry Analysis
How AI is revolutionising F&F — from Givaudan's Carto and Symrise's Philyra to MAMAY Technologies' Organoleptic Digitizer. Covers AI-driven formulation, plant-based flavour innovation, sensory digitisation, and the future of personalised scent and taste.
Case Study
A step-by-step walkthrough of a successful fermentation scale-up project — from initial Technical Economic Assessment to validated industrial process, including regulatory milestones.
Research Paper
A machine-learning algorithm forecasting relative sweetness values using only 2D physicochemical descriptors — no sensory panels required. Evaluated across 54 sweeteners with R² of 0.9969 and median error of 6.3%.
Leadership & Organisation
Front-line scientists and engineers in food ingredient companies see clearly where ideas and improvements stall. This article examines the organisational bottleneck that prevents those insights from reaching scale — and what leadership can do about it in food tech and ingredient development contexts.
Want to become a NICE member? Submit your paper, article or case study to be assessed.
Submit contentMarket Context
PwC's Voice of the Consumer 2025 — surveying 21,075 consumers across 28 countries — paints a vivid picture of a food industry under pressure and full of opportunity. The signals are clear. The window to act is now.
Ultra-processed food concern
Of consumers cite ultra-processed foods and pesticide use as more important than price or nutrition — creating urgent demand for clean, functional ingredient innovation.
NICE OPPORTUNITY → Ingredient validation & reformulation advisory
Demand targeted health products
Consumers expect food producers to lead health innovation. Companies that cannot source, formulate or validate functional ingredients fast enough will lose ground.
NICE OPPORTUNITY → Opportunity Scan B for F&B producers
Food ecosystem value by 2035
PwC projects the global food system to reach nearly $10 trillion GVA by 2035 — driven by convergence across health, tech and ingredients. Early movers define the value capture.
NICE OPPORTUNITY → Investment due diligence & portfolio support
Use health apps or wearables
Tech-driven nutrition is mainstream. Ingredients that can claim functional, measurable health benefits — backed by science — are positioned to capture premium market share.
NICE OPPORTUNITY → Science-backed ingredient positioning
Open to GenAI in meal planning
Consumers are ready for AI-driven personalised nutrition. Ventures combining food tech with data intelligence need expert partners who understand both the science and the market.
NICE OPPORTUNITY → Scale-up & go-to-market for food tech ventures
Willing to pay more for sustainability
A large and growing segment will pay a premium for sustainably produced food — but only if the claims are credible and verified. Independent expert validation is the key differentiator.
NICE OPPORTUNITY → Sustainability assessments & regulatory compliance
"The only way to meet the consumer demand for food being healthy, convenient and affordable is for the ecosystem players to rethink how they collaborate, innovate and share risk."
— ELIZABETH HORVATH, VP MARKETING NORTH AMERICA, KERRY · SOURCE: PWC VOICE OF THE CONSUMER 2025
"GLP-1 therapy success may come with a cost. Fewer calories mean fewer chances to deliver essential nutrients. Prebiotic fibers offer a scientifically substantiated tool to complement pharmacological GLP-1 action — and a meaningful opportunity for food innovation."
Dr Fernando Schved, NICE member
Join the Collective
NICE is selectively expanding the collective. We are looking for senior practitioners who want to contribute their expertise to substantive ingredient projects — not build a freelancer profile.
We are looking for people with:
Membership is by invitation or application. The starting point is a conversation and a contribution — submit a paper or case study via the library, or reach out directly.
Functions we are expanding into
The starting point
Submit a short paper, insight or case study to the NICE library. It is assessed by the collective — and it starts the conversation about whether there is a fit.
Submit to the LibraryPrefer to reach out directly? Email us with a short introduction and we will respond within 5 working days.
info@nicecollective.eu →
"Scale-up certainty is not a technical nicety. It is the promise that creates loyalty immune to competitive price pressure."
Mike Vermeer, NICE
Get in Touch
A NICE Scan is the fastest way to get named senior expertise applied to your specific ingredient challenge — with a clear outcome in 3 expert days. Use the form to tell us what you are working on.
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Based across Europe with Global reach
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NICE — operating through Novactum
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