“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 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.

Join us at FXT26 during "From Start to Scale", Thursday afternoon from 15:00 to 17:45, followed by "Bistro Effixtée" from 18:00 to 22:30.