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National Startup Awards 2021 – Food processing startups shine

The National Startup Awards 2021 was recently held where 46 startups were felicitated. During the ceremony, the results of the National Startup Awards (NSA) 2021 were declared. The award was presented by Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles.

Uipl Innovations bagged the award in packaging and retailing. The start has innovated UNIWRAPS, a 100 per cent bio-degradable, certified food wrapping paper with distinct properties to handle Indian food items. The unique innovation has an 88 per cent lower carbon footprint than aluminium foil, which is generally used to wrap food. Technology has to lead to sustainable management of water along with ensuring overall environmental sustainability.

Arboreal Bioinnovations has bagged the award in the food processing sector. The startup is a vertically integrated industrial-scale producer of high-quality Stevia extracts for food and beverage companies. The start-up owns Magicleaf, India’s fastest-growing direct-to-consumer zero/low-calorie food products brand, being a best selling sugar substitute product on online platforms. 

The second edition of the awards invited applications across 15 sectors and 49 sub-sectors. The sectors included agriculture, animal husbandry, drinking water, education and skill development, energy, enterprise technology, environment, fintech, food processing, health and wellness, industry 4.0, security, space and transport and travel. 

Six special categories were also introduced to recognise exceptional startups contributing to the good of society. The 2021 edition of the awards also recognised exceptional startups innovating solutions to promote Indic languages and to complement national efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

A total of 2177 applications were received from startups across the 49 sub-sectors along with applications from 53 incubators and six accelerators for the ecosystem enablers categories. These applicants included 863 women-led, 414 innovations for combatting COVID-19 and 253 startups working in rural areas.