Nestle’s YEP Program To Support Young People Advancing The Global Food System

Nestlé has introduced a new online platform, the Youth Entrepreneurship Program (YEP), designed to give young entrepreneurs access to education and career development opportunities, with the broader goal of generating ideas to benefit the global food system.

YEP, announced last week, is focused on accelerating innovation in four areas – regenerative agriculture, plant-based products, affordable nutrition and packaging and circularity – by engaging young people through its virtual academy and promoting its twelve accelerator programs along with a variety of market initiatives. The new platform will also invest in early-stage companies innovating around these priorities.

“We work with startups, entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers to drive innovation, bring good ideas to market fast and provide nutritious, sustainable and affordable products for a growing world population,” said Stefan Palzer, Nestlé CTO, in a press release. “Our new digital platform supports young people to bring great ideas to life across the food value chain, shaping the future of food.”

The platform is free to access and is centered around Nestlé’s academy, which offers lessons in entrepreneurship, business development and mindset, and its R&D Accelerator programs. Instead of supporting a specific product or early-stage company, the accelerators use an “open innovation mindset” allowing individuals and student-led teams as well as startups to participate and work to solve a problem within one of its four areas of focus.

R&D Accelerator participants are given access to the company’s food technologists, nutritionists, regulatory and food safety experts, designers and packaging experts, and also receive mentorship from senior management. The end goal of these programs is to get participants to bring a product to market in six months that addresses and solves an issue within the food system.

These programs mark an evolution in Nestlé’s focus on younger brands, having first introduced its Nestlé Needs YOUth program in 2013 following a report from the International Labour Organization (ILO) that revealed two out of every five young people are unemployed or hold a job that keeps them in poverty.

“Young entrepreneurs need guidance, support, and above all, opportunities and platforms where their voices can be heard and their ideas realized,” said Laurent Freixe, Nestlé’s CEO for Latin America and founder of the Nestlé Needs YOUth initiative, in a statement. “This includes building their knowledge and skills, testing their ideas in real-life situations, getting feedback from their audiences and receiving support to take their concept to the next level”

The global food company estimates more than 4 million people have already benefited from its youth-focused programs and said it aims to support 10 million young people with economic opportunities relative to employability, agripreneurship and entrepreneurship by 2030, according to an annual report. YEP will accelerate that goal by bringing all of its initiatives onto one platform.

Companies including plant-based chicken brand Sundial Foods, birch sap beverage maker Osel Birch and seaweed-based packaging company B’Zeos were created in Nestlé’s accelerator programs. In the case of Sundial, which closed a $4 million seed round last fall and launched into foodservice in April, the concept also resulted in a co-branded offering with Nestlé’s plant-based food brand Garden Gourmet which was tested in 40 retail stores in Switzerland.

Food and beverage corporations like Kraft Heinz and Mondelēz offer employment opportunities designed specifically for young people; however, those options are in the form of internship, fellowship and training programs and require participants to be pursuing a bachelor’s or masters degrees at minimum rather than being open to all people regardless of education level.