Food Solutions

Food Solutions brings together multi-disciplinary teams to tackle real-life industry challenges and develop innovative new solutions for the food system

2021

2023

Applications for 2024 challenges are open!

These are our 2024 Food Solutions challenges:

EcoBite Delights: Adding diversity to bakery and patisserie goods for a more inclusive food system.
Pea-licious: Developing veggie protein delights for healthier children challenge.
ZeroWaste Design: Reducing food and packaging waste for a sustainable supply chain challenge.

Food Solutions takes real-world sustainability challenges faced by the food industry and supports multi-disciplinary teams to find innovative new solutions with the potential to transform the food system.

Mentoring by industry experts and teaching delivered by our academic partners equips teams with the specialist knowledge they need to tackle their challenge. This is paired with a thorough course on innovation and entrepreneurship, led by world experts, to take students through their entrepreneurial journey from scoping out a potential market to pitching their final concept to industry at the end of the programme.

Teams from previous Food Solutions cohorts have gone on to establish their solution as a start-up venture!

In 2023, over 100 Food Solutions students worked to tackle the following industry challenges:

Develop tastes: Developing new product concepts for better taste.
Develop healthy food: Developing new products for a healthier lives challenge.
Reinvent specialities: Re-inventing local food specialities for a circular economy challenge.

Would you like to know more about Food Solutions? Are you interested in getting involved? Get in touch with us at food.solutions@eitfood.eu.

Testimonial from Federica Galli, Health & Well-Being R&D Manager at Puratos

Our Previous Students' Experiences

"You will never know how capable you are of innovation until you take the first step. And in our case it was stepping to take part in EIT Foods with mentors helpings us to navigate in the right direction".

"Our Generation is the one that must change the way our food system works. We have to believe in our values: The circular approach in the Develop Tastes Challenge gave me an understanding we can change the system, bite by bite. "

"I enjoy learning about new business opportunities and how to develop healthy products to meet customer needs in such a way that the product is sustainable".

"I [learned] a lot in [taking] part in the program and the insights I gained help me a lot in finding orientation for what I want to do in the future. Thank you!"

"Brilliant experience all round. Opened up [the] opportunity to collaborate with other faculties and local business as well as further afield.”

"Combining theoretical interests with the challenges a startup has to face was a very interesting and fun experience"

"For me, EIT Food Solutions was a great chance to learn about the challenges in building up a business (e.g. planning, milestones, partners)."

"[Food Solutions] made me realize how many challenges have to be faced from a first product idea to having a prototype"

“I really like this project and hope that students from many other universities also have the chance to participate”

Why Join Food Solutions?

Build your professional skills
Develop your entrepreneurial mindset
Network with food industry professionals
Chance to win financial prizes
Gain specialist food industry knowledge
Access technical facilities and visit industry sites
Receive mentoring from industry and academic experts
Opportunity to pitch to the food industry

What You Will Achieve

Analyse the food system and identify a problem that can be addressed by a sustainable solution
Collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team and mobilise resources to develop a solution to a food system problem
Evaluate a target market and competitors in order to assess the commercial potential for a product innovation
Critically assess alternative product concepts to craft and communicate a sustainable value proposition
Iteratively design a prototype using MVP (minimum viable product) principles
Adopt technologies and techniques to deliver an innovative product and viable business case