A Swedish company that is developing a new carrier bag for grocery deliveries called iFoodbag gas been awarded a €1.7 million grant from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 SME Instrument programme. The food bags are designed to keep frozen and chilled produce in good condition for many hours and could help revolutionise the food delivery market.

The company launched the product in November. The €1.7m, that will be provided over a two year period, will give iFoodbag a budget of €2.5 million to develop its next generation carrier bag.

Xavier Aubry, the founder of Zaz Ventures (that helped the iFoodbag team draw up the funding application), said: “We can’t overstate what an achievement it is to be awarded this grant, especially considering that only 3% of all applications receive financial support. The award is a seal of credibility, as it is a very selective programme in which only the best of the best are selected. The programme is also the pathway to reaching future partners and investors, as the European Commission is developing a networking community around the SME instrument winners.

“We think that iFoodbag’s concept has the potential to revolutionise food deliveries. Our funding application ranked first out of 62 applications submitted at this deadline, and iFoodbag is one of the only two companies to have been awarded funding in the food area.”

The grant will now increase the company’s production budget for its second generation product by a factor of five over the budget it had to develop the original carrier bag last year.

According to iFoodbag: “The thinking is that the second generation of the bag will be even more environmentally-friendly, will keep its contents chilled for even longer and will be even cheaper to produce.”

Karl Fallgren, CEO and founder of iFoodbag, added: “This development has come around at just the right time, as the European Commission realises the importance of working to create a sustainable world, which coincides completely with what we want to achieve with our flexible packaging solutions. With generation two, we are putting our efforts into such things as improving the cost-effectiveness of the carrier bag, that more people should be able to afford to shop online, the environmental impact and reducing both CO2 emissions and food waste.”