Maastricht businesses in awards

Mosa Meat, a Maastricht start-up that was briefly world news in 2013 with the presentation of the world's first hamburger made from cultured meat, has won the Benelux Climate Tech100 in the Food&Agri category. This and several similar awards - an initiative of Change Inc., MT/Sprout and Amsterdam Standard for innovative and particularly sustainable companies - were presented at a gala in Amsterdam. The jury chose companies that have the potential to create change in their sector. Mosa Meat meets that requirement with its development of cultured meat from a single animal cell.

Earlier this month, another Maastricht company won an award in the field of sustainability. The originally Italian Giulia Bellinetti went home with the Marc Cornelissen Brightlands Award 2024. She received the trophy and a cash prize of 35,000 euros from Provincial Executive Stephan Satijn of the Province of Limburg. Bellinetti receives the award for her project Future Materials. In an online lab, she collects and maps materials with which sustainable products can be developed. Think of human hair, concrete waste, sawdust, urine or organic substances. She developed this initiative at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, where she has been coordinator of the Nature Research department and the Future Materials Lab since 2021. From there, she lifted her idea to a higher, global platform.