Seeding The Future (STF) Global Food System Challenge 2025 (Up to $250,000 Grant Funding)

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Applications are open for Seeding The Future (STF) Global Food System Challenge 2025. Hosted by Welthungerhilfe (WHH) and funded by the Seeding The Future Foundation (STF), the Challenge is intended to recognize and support breakthrough innovations that can spark transformations of our food systems, with a particular focus on addressing critical challenges in the Global South.

The Challenge aims to inspire impactful and transforming innovations that reside at the INNOVATION FOCUS AREA in which three domains intersect:

Innovations leading to safe and nutritious food for a healthy diet
Innovations leading to sustainable or regenerative practices that enable food systems to stay within planetary boundaries, including food waste and food loss reduction
Innovations leading to equitable access to food that is affordable, appealing and trusted

This annual initiative seeks bold and sustainable solutions that make healthy and affordable food accessible to all—while promoting climate-smart agriculture, nutrition, and sustainability. If you’re developing an innovation that can improve food security, reduce waste, or boost smallholder productivity, this global challenge is for you.

Welthungerhilfe and the Seeding The Future Foundation are calling on all scientists, engineers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and multidisciplinary teams from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profits, social enterprises, universities, research institutions and small/emerging for-profit enterprise to submit game-changing innovations that will help transform food systems.

Grant Funding Details

Seed Grants ($25,000 each) will be awarded to applicants that are planning and nurturing high-potential, innovative ideas and have developed a prototype and/or initial proof of concept demonstrating feasibility.
Growth Grants ($100,000 each) will be awarded to applicants that have demonstrated their initiative is doable and have projected both economic feasibility at scale and high impact potential to transform the food system.
Seeding The Future Grand Prizes ($250,000 each) will be awarded to applicants with a scalable, economically feasible innovation that is compelling to consumers and have demonstrated major impact potential to transform the food system.

Applicants will be required to select which grant level they are applying for. The application process is designed to help applicants determine which level of award they are eligible for and should apply to.

Eligibility Criteria for STF Global Food System Challenge

The following organizations are eligible to compete in the Challenge:

Non-profits or non-governmental organizations located in any country
Academic or research institutions located in any country
Early-stage or emerging for-profit companies or social enterprises located in any country*

*Excluded are countries or territories against which the U.S. and/or Germany maintains comprehensive sanctions (currently, Afghanistan, Belarus, Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Sevastopol, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, the Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, & Zaporizhzhia Regions of Ukraine, and Venezuela).

Individuals are not eligible to apply. Please note, however, that teams of students or researchers may participate as part of an organization’s submission. Organizations are encouraged to form teams to compete in the Challenge. If two or more organizations form a team to compete, they should choose one of the organizations to serve as the applicant.

What will not be funded:

Projects that have a negative effect on either the safety or healthfulness of food, the sustainability of the food supply chain, or that are unlikely to be accepted by the end-user or consumer
Initiatives for which funds will be used to support large for-profit entities in their commercial activities such as R&D, innovation, manufacturing or sales/marketing
Initiatives which are not scalable beyond the initial project scope and have limited projected impact over time
For-profit entities with significant financial assets or which passed Series A financing round
Theoretical concepts or ideas without any experiments or a reduction to practice
Projects associated with political campaigns, capital campaigns, or lobbying
Individual people with no existing organizational entity

How To Apply STF Global Food System Challenge

All applications will require the following information:

Profile: Contact information, organization name, organization type, organization size, previous awards
Financial and Organizational Documents: Tax status, most recent financial statement, mission & vision, and a business plan overview for for-profit or social enterprise organizations
Project Overview: Title of project, executive summary, description of the innovation and its benefits, SDGs addressed, benefitting country/countries, outlook to completion
Project Plan: A comprehensive project plan comprising scope, budget, and timeline must be provided. The budget should be itemized, outlining all projected expenses, anticipated income, and the proposed allocation of award funds
Type and Size of Impact: Estimated size of the project’s impact on society and the environment. Growth Grant and Seeding The Future Grand Prize applicants must include the demonstrated benefits of the innovation and its adoption by end-users
Multidisciplinary: Description of how your project incorporates perspectives from multiple disciplines
Alignment with Seeding The Future’s Mission and Vision: Description of how the project aligns with the vision and mission of the Seeding The Future Foundation
Alignment with the Challenge Focus Areas: Description of how the innovation benefits one or more of the intersecting domains of: safe and nutritious food for a healthy diet; sustainable, regenerative practices, food loss and waste reduction; affordable, accessible, appealing and trusted food. Growth Grant and Seeding The Future Grand Prize applicants will be required to discuss food policy implications. Project must not negatively impact any of these domains.
Maturity, Scalability, Economic Feasibility at Scale: Description of what has been done so far, such as early studies, experiments, pilot scale tests, consumer studies, that demonstrate that the project is feasible at the Seed Grant level, and doable, scalable, and economically feasible at the Growth Grant and Grand Prize levels
Catalytic Effect of the award: Description of how award funds will enable or accelerate the project, and how the project will be impacted if funding is not granted
Description of challenges and risks