Inside the Venture Studio Turning 300 Applicants Into Food System Changers - With Bart van der Zande Director Fresh Ventures Studio episode artwork

EPISODE · Jun 24, 2026 · 1H 11M

Inside the Venture Studio Turning 300 Applicants Into Food System Changers - With Bart van der Zande Director Fresh Ventures Studio

from Tomorrow's Bites with Andrés and Sjacco · host Andrés and Sjacco

What if the missing ingredient in the food system isn't a better product, but a better way to build the people who build the products?In this episode of Tomorrow's Bites, we sit down with Bart van der Zande, Director of Fresh Ventures, a venture studio on a mission to transform the food system by doing something that accelerators and VCs largely don't: building companies from scratch, before the idea even exists, with founders who are selected not just for their skills but for their relationship with a problem.From 3,000 people reached to 300 applications to 25 carefully chosen founders per cohort, Fresh Ventures runs one of the most intentional company-building processes in the agri-food space. Bart has seen what separates the founders who break through from the ones who don’t, and it has very little to do with the technology they build.We explore:Why venture studios are fundamentally different from accelerators and VCs and why the food system specifically needs all threeHow Fresh Ventures selects founders before the solution exists and why "problem-founder fit" matters more than the pitchWhy deep domain experts are often the hardest people to get unstuck and how to coach them back to the problem they're actually best placed to solveThe red flags Bart watches for in founders: fixed mindsets, burning relationships, and falling in love with a solution instead of a problemHow the same venture building model is now being replicated in Uganda and Tanzania and why the approach has to be completely different And much more…This is a conversation about what it actually takes to build companies that don't just grow but change the system they operate in.GOT SOMEONE IN MIND? TELL US WHO WE SHOULD BRING NEXT.🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW If you like our podcast please leave us a review on your favourite platform – even one sentence helps! Thank you for your support; it helps the show a lot and it helps others to discover the show! 👋 GET IN TOUCH WITH US👥 ⁠Linkedin⁠📸 ⁠Instagram⁠🌎 ⁠⁠Website⁠😊 The Guest: Bart van der ZandeLook into: Fresh ventures Venturing Into Regenerative Food Systems for everyone that do not know where to start.

What if the missing ingredient in the food system isn't a better product, but a better way to build the people who build the products?In this episode of Tomorrow's Bites, we sit down with Bart van der Zande, Director of Fresh Ventures, a venture studio on a mission to transform the food system by doing something that accelerators and VCs largely don't: building companies from scratch, before the idea even exists, with founders who are selected not just for their skills but for their relationship with a problem.From 3,000 people reached to 300 applications to 25 carefully chosen founders per cohort, Fresh Ventures runs one of the most intentional company-building processes in the agri-food space. Bart has seen what separates the founders who break through from the ones who don’t, and it has very little to do with the technology they build.We explore:Why venture studios are fundamentally different from accelerators and VCs and why the food system specifically needs all threeHow Fresh Ventures selects founders before the solution exists and why "problem-founder fit" matters more than the pitchWhy deep domain experts are often the hardest people to get unstuck and how to coach them back to the problem they're actually best placed to solveThe red flags Bart watches for in founders: fixed mindsets, burning relationships, and falling in love with a solution instead of a problemHow the same venture building model is now being replicated in Uganda and Tanzania and why the approach has to be completely different And much more…This is a conversation about what it actually takes to build companies that don't just grow but change the system they operate in.GOT SOMEONE IN MIND? TELL US WHO WE SHOULD BRING NEXT.🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW If you like our podcast please leave us a review on your favourite platform – even one sentence helps! Thank you for your support; it helps the show a lot and it helps others to discover the show! 👋 GET IN TOUCH WITH US👥 ⁠Linkedin⁠📸 ⁠Instagram⁠🌎 ⁠⁠Website⁠😊 The Guest: Bart van der ZandeLook into: Fresh ventures Venturing Into Regenerative Food Systems for everyone that do not know where to start.

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Inside the Venture Studio Turning 300 Applicants Into Food System Changers - With Bart van der Zande Director Fresh Ventures Studio

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This episode was published on June 24, 2026.

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What if the missing ingredient in the food system isn't a better product, but a better way to build the people who build the products?In this episode of Tomorrow's Bites, we sit down with Bart van der Zande, Director of Fresh Ventures, a venture...

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