Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial opportunities in the food value chain

Abstract Successful entrepreneurs exploit entrepreneurial opportunities to establish their enterprises. The food industry is a setting in which many such opportunities exist. To shed light on those specific entrepreneurial opportunities, we combine a five-step model of the food value chain ranging from agriculture to consumption with classic economic sources of entrepreneurial opportunities, that is, changes in supply, changes in demand, exogenous shocks, or informational asymmetries prevalent in the market. We proxy for entrepreneurial opportunities by shedding light on where start-up investors assign their capital in the food value chain. Data drawn from the Dow Jones VentureSource database is recoded to illustrate this investment behavior. Consequently, we are able to (a) illustrate where in the food value chain in particular investors perceive the most upside potential and (b) construct a map of the entrepreneurial opportunity space in the food industry. The results are informative, particularly for aspiring food entrepreneurs searching for entrepreneurial opportunities and aiming to raise funding for their entrepreneurial endeavors.