Start a Food Story

Start a Food Story is a food innovation consultancy founded by Mary van Hoek-Hendriks. The company helps food businesses move from insight to execution, supporting start-ups, scale-ups, and larger organisations that want to develop new concepts, strengthen their innovation process, and bring ideas to market with more confidence. Its work combines strategy, creativity, and practical execution. Through consulting, coaching, keynotes, moderation, and books and tools, Start a Food Story positions itself as a partner for teams that want faster, smarter, and more impactful food innovation. The company’s content and services are strongly rooted in the food sector, with a clear focus on commercially viable innovation, sustainability, and real-world implementation. Core Values Impact : The company emphasises innovation that leads to real business results, not just ideas, with a strong focus on measurable outcomes and execution. Sustainability : Sustainability is presented as a core lens for food innovation, alongside profitability and feasibility, rather than as an afterthought. Practicality : Start a Food Story stresses tools, validation, and step-by-step progress so teams can move from concept to action. Creativity : The brand encourages fresh thinking, experimentation, and playful inspiration as essential ingredients in innovation. Collaboration : Its services are built around working with teams, stakeholders, and leaders to align priorities and make innovation happen together. Unique Aspects Founder-led expertise : The company is built around Mary van Hoek-Hendriks, who is presented as an experienced food innovation expert, author, lecturer, and advisor with more than 20 years in the field. End-to-end innovation formats : Start a Food Story offers a clear progression from a one-day session to a one-week sprint to a year-long trajectory, giving clients flexible ways to engage depending on their needs. Published methodology : The book Mastering Food Innovation | Impact by Design extends the company’s approach into a structured framework with tools, examples, and a proven food innovation journey. Creative learning products : The Food Innovation Fun Tear-Off Calendar adds a distinctive, playful format that turns daily inspiration into a practical engagement tool for innovators and teams. Sector-specific positioning : The company is narrowly focused on food innovation, which gives it a specialised voice across product development, sustainability, branding, and market execution.