Meet Martin Bregnballe as one of the Invited speakers at WEFTA 2023.

Martin Bregnballe grew up in a family of biologists, scientists and fish farmers. However, Martin took more interest in how to make good food out of nature’s resources, create innovative food concepts and develop strong brands. 

He has worked in many areas of food and business development, beginning his career with brand management, product development and process optimization at Nestlé Nordic.

After Nestlé, Martin took an MBA at London Business School, then returned to Denmark where he established a business in organic convenience food, and gained his first experience with food startups.

The innovative food entrepreneur Claus Meyer, who is recognized as one of the main innovators behind the ‘new Nordic cooking wave’, and his group of food businesses became the next stop and source of inspiration for Martin, where he worked as Development Director.

Having accumulated a diverse knowledge of marketing and innovation in food, Martin then decided to share his insights as a business development consultant for food companies for a number of years. Also, he co-founded Copenhagen Food Space, an incubator and office space for food entrepreneurs.

Now Martin has started a new company, FANGST - canned seafood from Nordic waters. With a traditional technology, but a different take on consumers, marketing and product development, he is now showing a way to turn ‘low value’ species into gourmet foods.

(Sea) food innovation from a non-scientific perspective.

‘If one of our new product launches wins an innovation prize, it’s a sure sign that it will fail in the market…!’ 

Those were the words from an experienced marketing manager in the first company Martin worked in. A sentence that has stuck with him ever since, but also sparked his interest: What drives innovation in food - and what makes it succeed or fail?

Based on his first-hand experience, from the smallest food companies to the largest corporations, from startups to established businesses, from successes to failures, and from land to water - Martin will share his observations and perspectives on food innovation in practice.

Prepare for a no-nonsense, non-scientific and non-research based, but personal presentation.