Plug and Play Topeka spurs partnership between Cargill, StenCo
Plug and Play Topeka announced that Cargill, a global leader in agriculture technology and production, has partnered with Birmingham, Alabama-based StenCo LLC, a company specializing in sustainable and biodegradable packaging. The partnership was made possible by Plug and Play Topeka, a startup accelerator in Topeka, Kansas, focused on innovation in animal health and agriculture technology. Cargill is one of three founding partners of the accelerator, alongside Evergy and Hill’s Pet Nutrition.
“Cargill is focused on exploring the many advances in science and technology that enable the development of new products, ways of working and solutions for our customers,” said Florian Schattenmann, Cargill’s chief technology officer and vice president of R&D. “We are excited to partner our R&D capabilities with StenCo’s team of innovators, with the goal of jointly bringing cost efficient, sustainable innovations to market.”
“Sustainability and greenhouse gas reduction are top priorities for Cargill, customers and consumers,” said Heather Tansey, Cargill’s vice president of environmental sustainability. “We are committed to collaboration across our complete supply chain to address sustainability challenges, including packaging innovations and materials use reduction. Early-stage partnerships, such as this one, enable Cargill to explore and support potential industry-changing efforts.”
“StenCo’s mission is to create packaging materials that are better for the environment, focusing on affordability and sustainability while protecting the products of world-class consumer brands like Cargill,” said John Brown, CEO of StenCo. “We greatly look forward to working closely with Cargill’s industry-leading R&D and technology teams to create an oxygen-excluding, biodegradable barrier for Cargill’s packaging materials. Working with Plug and Play, GO Topeka and Cargill has been an exceptional experience, and we are extremely excited to develop the partnership further.”
“It’s exciting to see this partnership come to fruition, as it represents the power of our Topeka accelerator,” said Lindsay Lebahn, program manager for Plug and Play Topeka. “Seeing our corporate partners want to engage at this level with the program’s participating startups is exactly why we do what we do. It points to the quality of startups we’re bringing to the area, and to the innovative ideas and products each one brings to the table. We hope this is just the beginning of many more strategic partnerships to come.”
“Partnerships like these are precisely why GO Topeka is proud to have the Plug and Play animal health accelerator in our city,” said Molly Howey, president of GO Topeka. “StenCo represents the future of sustainable packaging, and their innovative processes are going to elevate Cargill’s ability to address supply chain sustainability issues. We look forward to working with the StenCo team to continue showing them our community’s value as they grow and expand in the years to come.”
