Two local businesses win Grow-NY competition

A total of twenty finalists competed for $3 million in prizes in the Grow-NY Food and Agriculture Business Competition this week in Syracuse. Bergen’s Craft Cannery earned a $500,000 second prize and Rochester’s Sweet Pea Plant-Based Kitchen received a third prize of $250,000.

The competition received nearly 400 applications from 52 countries. Of those entries, 92 of them were from New York state. In the competition, a total of seven finalists received prize money.

Craft Cannery uses individual recipes from restaurants or food production brands and makes them work in large scale production. With this expertise, the company has become the producer of many well-known brands of sauces, dressings, and marinades. Among the brands are Red Osier, Guglielmo Sauce, Sticky Lips BBQ, Old Pueblo Grill, and many others.

Sweet Pea Plant-Based Kitchen is a meal service and nutrition coaching business that helps individuals to maintain a healthy, plant-focused lifestyle.

Each year, the Grow-NY competition focuses on enhancing emerging food, beverage, and agriculture businesses in Central New York, the Finger Lakes, and the Southern Tier. All those who win provide Grow-NY with a small equity investment stake in their operations. In addition, the companies must operate for one year in the Central New York, Finger Lakes, or Southern Tier regions.

Judges based their decisions on the following criteria: 

• The viability of the startup’s business model
• The diversity, quality, readiness, and completeness of the startup team
• The value that the startup offers customers
• The agrifood innovation that that the startup has invented

The grand prize winner of $1 million was ProAgni of Lavington, Australia.

For more information about the competition, visit Grow-NY.