Entrepreneurial Opportunities and the Food Value Chain

Publication Type

Contribution to conference

Authors

Kuckertz, Andreas

Year of publication

2018

Conference name

5th International ISEKI_Food Conference

Conference location

Stuttgart

Conference date

3.7.2018 - 5.7.2018

Keywords

food, Management

Successful entrepreneurs exploit entrepreneurial opportunities to establish their startups. Such entrepreneurial opportunities may result from changes in supply and demand, exogenous shocks, informational asymmetries or other incongruences in the market. The food industry is a setting in which many such opportunities exist. To shed light on those specific entrepreneurial opportunities, I will illustrate a seven step model of the food value chain from an entrepreneurial perspective (ranging from agriculture over transforming, converting, packaging, shipping, selling to consuming). Based on data drawn from the Dow Jones VentureSource database, I will use the investment behavior of venture capital investors in startups to proxy for entrepreneurial opportunity. Doing so allows to track the changing investment activity of those investors over time and to identify where those investors perceive the most upside potential. Selected cases of high-potential startups that are active at various stages of the food value chain will complete this keynote.