“Does Food Need Its Own Wintercircus?”

Four months ago, Limburg entrepreneur Stijn Bex posted an interesting observation on LinkedIn that immediately sparked a wave of reactions. "Why are there so few hubs for food & beverage startups in Belgium? In tech, you see accelerators and hubs everywhere. In food & beverage, almost none." Abroad, we see succesful initiatives like Kitchen Republic (The Netherlands) or KitchenTown Berlin (Germany). So that seemed a very relevant discussion to continue at FXT26. Not to keep talking, but to take action. That is why Stijn will host an interactive session engaging with the participating food entrepreneurs, where we aim to map out the opportunities, bottlenecks, and, above all, the next steps.

Stijn Bex

Stijn is a driven entrepreneur with broad and in-depth expertise in the Belgian FMCG, retail, hospitality, and festival sectors. As one of the driving forces behind Bullseye Distribution, he combines a sharp vision on brand strategy and beverage distribution with a strong operational and commercial background.

His professional career spans the entire breadth of the landscape — from multinationals and established SMEs to an agile start-up and scale-up. Thanks to this unique combination of experience in retail, hospitality, events, and marketing, he succeeds in successfully positioning brands in the market by building strong and sustainable partnerships within the Benelux.

Driven by an innovative vision of entrepreneurship, he cherishes the ambition to create a powerful ecosystem for innovative F&B brands. His dream is to join forces, tackle challenges together, and thereby create collective value within the sector.

With panel:

Marc Beenders

Marc is Senior Corporate Community Manager at LRM / Limburg Startup. He is a community builder for startups and intrapreneurs, driven by the power of soft skills, strong networks and events that bring people, ideas and organisations together.

Johan Jörgensen

Johan is co-founder of Sweden FoodTech and a strategic advisor and systems thinker working at the intersection of food, technology and entrepreneurship. With years of experience building and connecting food innovation ecosystems, he brings an international perspective to the discussion on the infrastructure, networks and support food startups need to successfully grow and scale.

Paul-Emmanuel Vanreusel

Paul-Emmanuel Vanreusel is Chief Executive Office and a third-generation member of the Limburg-based family business Beltaste, known for brands including Vanreusel Snacks. Drawing on his extensive experience in the food industry and his commitment to connecting food entrepreneurs, he brings the perspective of an established food producer to the discussion on how startups, industry and the wider ecosystem can strengthen one another.