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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.
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.
With a very tight deadline of just 60 days of preparation due to funding requirements, we adopted strict management of the preparation process:
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.
As a result of our food industry engagement, we have brought together 24 organisations from the entire food value chain:
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.
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