David Nini

Background

About David Nini

David Nini, D. Sc. in Chemical Engineering and Applied Science (Columbia U, NYC) and 42yrs of experience in the food industry in the USA and Israel, most of which centered around R&D and innovation related to food technology and product development. Started my career at General Foods (GF) Corp R&D center in Tarry Town, USA, as a member of the innovation team with a mandate to introduce new and innovative processes and products to the company. Specifically, I was involved in development and implementation of new separation technologies (supercritical CO2, membranes), encapsulation, decaffeination, coffee extraction, aroma recovery, waste reduction and recovery of valuable components from waste streams, natural color extraction, vitamin encapsulation and more. In addition, I was involved in new products development for the various GF divisions (e.g, nutrients rich water, fiber rich coffee, decaffeination filters and more). A major activity of my job was to search and identifying new technologies around the US and Europe with potential for implementation at GF company operations worldwide. In 1998 I joined Elite Coffee division, now part of Strauss, as a chief scientist involved mainly in applied R&D, and development of new and innovative products for the coffee division. During this period, I oversaw the upgrading of Elite coffee technology, establishing coffee technology center (CTC), building an advanced analytical lab and developing unique products and aroma separation technology that still serve the company. Jan 2015, I joined the Kitchen, a food-tech hub, as chief technology officer (CTO) responsible for scouting innovative technologies from the academia (in Israel and abroad), research centers, industry and elsewhere. In this position I was responsible for technological due diligence of projects submitted to the Kitchen, filling applications to the Israeli Innovation Authority (IIA) and, once admitted, providing technical support and guidance to resident startups. Since Sep 2020 I am serving as the Kitchen Chief Scientist responsible activities related to deal flow including searching and identifying new technologies, technological due diligence, preparing and submitting applications to the IIA, for approval. In addition to my technological career, I served between 1998 and 2001 as financial adviser at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter managing around 180 accounts and 17.5 million dollars in assets.