Overview
Carl Jacobs is co-founder and CEO of Apicbase, an Antwerp-based F&B management SaaS platform that raised a EUR 4M Series A, and serves as a mentor at the Birdhouse Accelerator.
Carl Jacobs co-founded Apicbase in Antwerp, building a food and beverage lifecycle management platform for restaurant groups and food service operators. Apicbase covers recipe management, menu engineering, procurement, allergen compliance, and production planning, addressing the operational complexity that arises when food businesses scale across multiple locations.
The company raised a EUR 4M Series A in 2021. Jacobs is also active in the broader Belgian startup ecosystem, serving as a mentor at the Birdhouse Accelerator in Antwerp.
Career history
In the news
- HCL took on 43 new school catering sites in a single week. The Hertfordshire-based caterer now works with nearly 500 schools, from the South Coast to the Midlands, and calls this its busiest year so far. Its five-year plan is to double meal numbers. Many of these schools are moving from microwaved, pre-made meals to food cooked fresh on site every day. CEO John Want says pupils engage more with lunch as a result. That switch changes what every kitchen has to manage. Cooking fresh needs a recipe, a portion size, a supplier and a
- Is that stock variance waste, a discount, or a new starter? Most operators can’t answer that quickly. On 27 November, our CEO Carl Jacobs and Jon Townsend, Head Hospitality Data Strategist at Ometis Limited, work through five questions like this one. For each, they show where the answer sits in your data. They close on the early signs that a site is drifting before the P&L shows it. Friday 27 November, 11:00 CET. Register here: https://lnkd.in/exvZzYBU
- This Friday at 11:00 CET: see how compliance works in Apicbase. From the safety walk to the follow-up to the audit, all in one place. Can’t make it live? Register anyway and we’ll send you the recording. https://lnkd.in/eKwPnqdA
- Badly calibrated coffee machines were set to cost one restaurant group more than €80,000 a year. The baristas couldn’t see it, but the stock data showed it: far more milk left the shelf than sales said there should be. The cause: the machines poured too much milk into every drink. Apicbase compares what you should have used with what actually left the shelf, down to the milk. Once the team saw the gap, they recalibrated the machines.
- Tropical Smoothie Cafe is adding 40 franchise units in the US Northeast, across Albany, Westchester County, the Bronx and western Connecticut. The partner is Aurify Kingstar, an operator that already runs brands such as Five Guys Enterprises and Wingstop Restaurants Inc. Since Blackstone acquired it in 2024, Tropical Smoothie Cafe has grown to more than 1,750 cafes and expects to open its 1,800th by the end of this year. The chain rebranded in September, and its loyalty programme grew 25% in a year to 13 million members.
- Kitchen teams get asked to work safely every shift. How sure are you that every site is a safe place to work? On 30 October, we'll show you how safety follow-up works in Apicbase. Spot risks during safety walks, give every finding an owner and a deadline, and see which ones are fixed and which still need attention, site by site. Save your spot for the live webinar on 30 October, 11:00 CET: https://lnkd.in/ePhbAVhr
- Van food waste naar schaalbaar succes. 🚀 Wat begon als een hardwaretool voor foodfotografie, groeide uit tot Apicbase: een softwareplatform dat cateringbedrijven, hotels en restaurantketens helpt om efficiënter te werken, verspilling te verminderen en marges te verbeteren. Een groeiverhaal waarin ook business angels een belangrijke rol speelden. Via BAN Flanders vond Apicbase drie investeerders die niet alleen kapitaal inbrachten, maar ook kennis, ervaring en een sterk netwerk. Ze werden belangrijke sparringpartners
- Waiting until you have time to do a back-of-house rollout properly? The four foodservice operators in this webinar never found that time either. An arena fixed one ordering habit, a holiday park piloted one park, a hotel group replaced no systems, and a restaurant chain measured for ten weeks. Carl Jacobs (CEO & Co-Founder Apicbase) on where that led. 24 September, 11:00 CEST, 45 minutes.
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