Accelerated Academic Research Translation in the Food Sector

Background

Imperial College London’s Centre for Translational Nutrition and Food Research, and Quadram Institute have been awarded a UKRI/BBSRC Seeding Award Fund to rapidly translate research outcomes into the food system. The research – which had also included John Innes Centre and was published in Nature Food, had shown how a naturally-occurring genetic mutation in pea, leading to different type of starch, could impact on energy and glucose homeostasis in humans, and contribute to the prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Brief

The clients asked us to design and run a Hack. The objective was to engage SMEs in the food sector and demonstrate how collaboration across the value chain could contribute to BBSRC-funded research translation. The ultimate objective was to access follow-on funding to demonstrate the commercial viability of novel food products..

Concept proposals would have to be produced during the Hack responding to challenges in growing and processing variant peas, and then to design and launch desirable and affordable food propositions that consumers want to eat three times a day, and are able to prevent diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Approach

With a very tight deadline of just 60 days of preparation due to funding requirements, we adopted strict management of the preparation process:

• We organised workshops with the clients to define challenges, identify partner SMEs — across the entire food value chain — and fine-tune the messaging which will be used to prepare material (e.g. website and emails) to recruit participants and to design the Hack
• We led food industry engagement to invite participants, consumers, mentors, speakers and judges
• We created challenge-based teams based on confirmed participants
• We designed Hack facilitation material, including review of keynote speeches and preparation of workshop material, templates and facilitation guide
• We have planned logistics, coordinated participants, speakers and judges.

On Wednesday 26th February we kicked off Food Hack 2020, 2.5-day Hack aimed at guiding challenge-based teams through a process for ideating concepts able to deliver impact from BBSRC-funded research, and prevent diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

A team of three venture builders and facilitators coordinated concept ideation and validation with industry mentors, rapid iteration, roadmap planning across the value chain and pitch preparation.

On the last day, we organised a final showcase with public pitches of concepts.

Outcomes

As a result of our food industry engagement, we have brought together 24 organisations from the entire food value chain:

• Supermarket chain Waitrose and Partners
• Multinational beverages, sauces and ingredients producer Tate & Lyle
• Premium nutritional supplement brand Nuzest
• Leading charity Diabetes UK
• Energy drink producer Tenzing
• Natural great tasting condiment producer Dr Wills
• Drink startup My tea is mighty
• Snack manufacturer Snack Creations
• Food marketing and research agency MMR
• Snack startup Liobites
• Pasta manufacturer Pasta Foods
• Food enterprise zone Food Enterprise Park
• Processors and Growers Research Organisation
• Frozen meal brand By Ruby
• Pulse and grain pioneer manufacturer Hodmedod’s
• Growers G’s Growers
• Breeder Syngenta
• The Knowledge Transfer Network
• Food consultancy New food Innovation

Three teams have created new food concept proposals focusing on three opportunities: on the go, fortified staples and curated meals.

We are now supporting the client to bring these concepts forward into a follow-on funding round to launch the propositions on the market.