Lena Mareike Wenzel

Innovation Manager, EIT Food · 1 appearance on the record.

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She manages startup and scaleup support programs at EIT Food's RisingFoodStars, collaborating with agrifood tech companies. In addition to consulting at Vertical, she has contributed academic research to European sustainable food initiatives such as the FoodSHIFT 2030 project at the University of Copenhagen.

12statements → 4claims → 1claims resolved → 3.83/5average certainty → 1.33/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated →

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 4 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

4 assertions · 5 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Lena argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

EIT Impact Fund invests €500K to €1.5M in EIT Food companies

“We do have, for example, our own, we call it EIT impact fund basically operates as a VC and they invest in companies that are part of EIT food. So that's a prerequisite and they invest Anything up to 1.5 million euros per company, usually starting with about 5…”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 5:28 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Lena Mareike Wenzel on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said12 Episodes1

Everything Lena Mareike Wenzel said on Innovators & Investors that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight

Wenzel: Startups Alone Cannot Disrupt the Food System

“Because you can't just have only startups, because they just won't be able to disrupt the system, right? So you need everybody else on board as well.”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 17:44 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Assertion Supported

EIT Impact Fund invests €500K to €1.5M in EIT Food companies

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 5:28 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Insight

Wenzel: Scaling Founders Must Transition to CEOs or Risk Failing

“Also you as a founder, right? You're not a founder anymore. You're basically becoming a leader, a CEO. That's a switch that people also just have to do. And sometimes, yeah, sometimes miss to do correctly.”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 18:32 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Insight

Wenzel: FoodTech startups struggle with commercialization rather than creativity

“Most companies come out of R&D, right? So you have a very heavy R&D focused companies usually that then all of a sudden have to be become sales organizations, right? So I think it's rather the opposite challenge that you have rather creative, inventive people …”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 20:36 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Disclosure

Wenzel: RisingFoodStars supports later-stage scale-ups aligned with EIT Food missions

“And so also within Rising Food Stars, it is our scale-up It is one actually of three of our flagship entrepreneurship programs. We work with the latest stage companies, and so any of our companies that we support in that program has to basically fulfill one of…”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 1:20 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Disclosure

Wenzel: RisingFoodStars focuses on IP-heavy tech over B2C consumer apps

“What we work with is quite IP heavy. So we don't work with the usual B to C consumer apps though I'm sure there's great solutions out there, but what we really focus on is more of a tech heavy focus, right?”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 2:06 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Disclosure

Wenzel: RisingFoodStars onboards only 15 new companies annually

“We onboard only 15 new companies each year, but companies can stay with us for up to three years.”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 3:58 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Wenzel: EIT Is Europe's Largest Network of Food System Actors

“EIT is actually the largest network of food system actors in Europe.”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 7:15 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Wenzel: Food as Medicine Is Strongly Increasing in Popularity

“That's also an area that's really strongly increasing in popularity right now.”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 9:48 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Insight

Wenzel: Early-Stage Startups Underestimate Corporate Bureaucracy and Budget Constraints

“Startups, especially the younger they are, they often have a very, yeah, wishful thinking about how to interact with corporates, right? They're basically just cool. We just have to pitch and they will love our product, but that's just not how the world works. …”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 15:17 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Insight

Wenzel: All crop and meat nutrients originate in soil health

“All of the nutrients that are in our crops and that subsequently are in our meat come originally from the soil, right? So we really need to find solutions on how to nurture that soil and not let it die.”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 22:05 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Assertion Not checkable as stated

EU Food Projects Partner With Africa and Asia Over the US

“There is a lot of, yeah, cross continent work going on specifically a lot with African countries, but also with Asia. With the U S I actually haven't come across so many projects. I have to say, I wonder if that's just my bias or general industry.”

Lena Mareike Wenzel Mar 25, 2025 ▶ 22:51 34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
34 - Scaling Food Innovation: How RisingFoodStars Supports Startups in the Food Industry	Mar 25, 2025	16m

Lena Mareike Wenzel

The record, in short

Their most notable supported claim

How they sound: not measured why? →

Appearances (1)

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