Former Henchman managers Siska Lannoo and Louis Opsomer have launched Backbone, a Belgian startup developing an AI platform for real-time quality and compliance management in the food industry. The company is addressing a longstanding weakness in food manufacturing, where checks tied to supplier changes, new products, and raw material deliveries are still often managed through fragmented manual processes. Backbone says its software gives manufacturers continuous visibility into compliance and quality risks before they affect production or reach consumers.
Regulatory Pressure Builds Across Food Manufacturing
The launch comes as food companies face growing regulatory demands and stricter scrutiny on safety, traceability, and quality management across their operations. What was once largely handled as a specialist function now stretches across procurement, research and development, production, and commercial teams, increasing the complexity of day-to-day decision-making. In many businesses, however, the underlying workflows still depend on spreadsheets, documents, and email chains that can slow responses and leave room for error.
Backbone argues that this fragmented approach creates blind spots when companies must verify certificates, technical specifications, supplier records, and lab results under time pressure. If those checks are delayed or incomplete, inconsistencies may only be identified after production has started or after products have already entered the market. The company’s founders estimate that poor quality can cost food manufacturers as much as 15% of revenue, excluding reputational harm and the wider commercial fallout associated with high-profile product incidents.
From Static Documentation to Continuous Risk Monitoring
The company’s central proposition is that most of the information required to improve compliance already exists within food businesses, but it is spread across disconnected systems or retained informally within teams. Backbone’s platform is built to centralise that data and analyse it continuously, drawing from supplier documents, laboratory findings, and internal procedures to support faster operational decisions. Rather than relying on occasional reviews or certification snapshots, the system is intended to help quality teams detect emerging risks in real time.
That positioning reflects a broader shift in industrial software, where companies are looking to move from reactive compliance models to predictive systems that flag potential issues before they escalate. In Backbone’s view, traditional certificates remain useful but provide only a limited picture because they capture conditions at a single point in time. By automating routine administrative work and surfacing risks earlier, the company says food manufacturers can redirect quality teams toward prevention and performance improvement rather than paperwork.
Founders Draw on SaaS and LegalTech Experience
Lannoo and Opsomer previously worked together at Belgian software company Showpad, contributing to its international growth while based in London and San Francisco respectively. They later joined the management team at Henchman, the Belgian LegalTech scale-up, where they gained further experience with workflow inefficiencies and the challenge of turning complex, document-heavy processes into scalable software products. That background, according to the company, shaped their view that advances in AI can now address compliance bottlenecks in food manufacturing more effectively than earlier software tools.
Their move into food technology also reflects a belief that domain expertise will be essential as AI platforms become more widely adopted in regulated industries. Backbone is positioning itself not as a generic automation layer, but as a specialised product built around the realities of manufacturing, safety standards, and operational quality assurance. The founders contend that speed matters in AI-driven markets, but that sustained adoption will depend on whether tools can perform reliably in highly regulated environments.
Seed Funding and Early Commercial Traction
Backbone says it closed a seed funding round several months ago, securing backing from the 100IN fund of serial entrepreneurs Gilles Mattelin and Jorn Vanysacker while still at a pre-product stage. Since then, the platform has moved into live use across multiple production sites, and the company reports inbound interest from both Belgian and international prospects. Early customers named by Backbone include Zoutman, Greenway, Azingro, and Euromeat, suggesting that the company has already gained traction across different segments of the food supply chain.
The new capital is set to support product development and commercial expansion as Backbone seeks to scale beyond its initial customer base. The startup is also pursuing partnerships with standards organisations such as BRCGS and with technology groups including Microsoft, where integrations involving Copilot are among the initiatives under development. Those partnerships could help Backbone strengthen its credibility in compliance-heavy markets while broadening how its software fits into existing enterprise workflows.
Backbone enters the market at a time when food manufacturers are under pressure to improve oversight, reduce waste, and manage rising compliance complexity without slowing operations. By applying AI to fragmented quality and regulatory workflows, the company is betting that manufacturers are ready to replace document-based checking with continuous monitoring and earlier risk detection. With seed funding secured, early customers onboarded, and partnerships in progress, the Belgian startup is now trying to establish itself in a global market where the cost of delayed action can be exceptionally high.