What the judges are looking for in the World Food Innovation Awards – part 1

There’s just three weeks left to enter the World Food Innovation Awards, to be presented at IFE in London on 20 March. These awards have been running for many years and are a fantastic way for you to bolster and enhance your brand. By entering the World Food Innovation Awards you can ensure that you get both your brand and your products noticed by top names in the industry.

To help you along with your entry, we’ve asked four of this year’s judges what they’ll be looking out for in this year’s awards.

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Amir Zaidman
The Kitchen – FoodTech Hub vice president business development

Read Amir’s full profile

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The World Food Innovation Awards is a place for the most innovative ideas in food and beverage to shine their brightest. When considering the applicants there are a few parameters I need to consider. Added value is first and foremost! I believe any innovation in food and beverage should provide clear and significant added value to at least one of the following ‘customers’:

• The consumer – any innovation that will address consumer needs and growing trends such as foods that are ‘free-from’, natural, nutritious and so on
• The industry – I am looking for innovations that will allow the food and beverage industry to provide more accessible food and to meet consumer preferences. For example, foods with longer shelf-life or new ways for accessing the right foods at the right time
• The environment – I strongly believe that a sustainable food system is a ‘must’ rather than a ‘nice to have’. Food innovations with environmental aspects are very important

Our vision at The Kitchen Hub is better industry, better food, better world. I strongly believe in this vision and feel that it is definitely applicable to the World Food Innovation Awards. Other parameters that I am looking for in the award candidates are:

• Uniqueness – when I use this term I mean that I am looking for something that is significantly different from what currently exists (a significantly different product concept, ingredients, package, experience, and so on)
• Disruptiveness – I apologise for using this over-used term but, it describes situations where something can be done significantly differently than the way it is done today, and by that, doing it better. One example that comes to mind is building a person’s diet based on his genome or microbiome. This can be a disruption. Another example might be generating personalised foods using 3D printers. These are just some fairly obvious examples of what disruption might look like in the food space
• Business model – it is not enough to have a great product, service or technology; it has to be supported by a viable business model in which a customer will see the value and be willing to pay enough to create a business
• Scalability – a new innovation is only interesting if it can be executed on a large scale, even a global scale. Local initiatives are nice but a real impact can only be achieved by scalable innovation

Good luck to all the participants!

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Guillermo Dufranc
Tridimage graphic design coordinator

Read Guillermo’s full profile

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2016 was a great year for packaging design. We have seen many innovations regarding usability, sustainability and customisation. 

Winning design should showcase clever innovations but they must be driven towards consumer convenience.

Usability is one of the most important human-centrered design assets. Packages that offer far more than a mere container make a difference. Nowadays, especially millennials, we tend to live, work and study inside and outside the house or office. Packages should find creative ways to allow us to eat or drink on the go.

Sustainability has many faces. There are many material developments that involve technology. On the other hand there are clever package or product designs such as concentrates or collectibles to reduce waste and the amount of garbage sent to landfills.

Customisation is one of my favourites. Different designs among a product range can be easily achieved thanks to digital printing. This kind of packaging design should provide great fun for consumers, and designers in a previous instance.

 

More or less, I would love to find great structural and graphic aesthetics in product categories I wouldn’t expect such as dairy products. It is easy to think that there are going to be amazing premium food package designs, but I think we deserve some of their magic every day.

In the digital era in which we are living, packaging remains as inevitable an object that consumers can’t avoid as ads. This is the reason why packaging design is vital to create a real consumer experience. Great design builds a great experience.

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Christine Spliid
Crobar founder

Read Christine’s full profile

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Food innovation is becoming incredibly exciting, with developments like lab-grown or vegetarian meat, the rise of alternative protein sources like insects and algaes, as well as nutritionally optimised foods becoming more prevalent. Not only is this field exciting, but with the rise of obesity, the population crisis, and not least the immense strain we are putting on our planet in terms of CO₂ emissions and resource depletion, we need intelligent innovations more than ever before… innovations in terms of how we farm, produce, conceptualise and market food and drinks.

At present, cattle farming takes up 70% of the global agricultural area, and conventionally produced meat is responsible for 18% of CO₂ emissions. With the risk of sounding dramatic, our health and that of our planet depend on intelligent food innovations.

When judging the best in new foods and drinks, everything from the thought behind the product to the taste, feel, even the sound of consuming it, down to the details on the packaging, all play a role. The product has to be exciting, and deliver benefits over present alternatives already on the market. For me, the more benefits in terms of health, animal welfare, environmental, taste or financial that a product can demonstrate, the more truly innovative it is.

There is no point in innovating just for the sake of creating a novelty product which might make people smile, but won’t deliver any real, long-term benefits. Food innovation is about pushing the boundaries, changing people’s perceptions of what is normal in order to create great products that enhance the lives of people, animals and/ or the planet. It is also about being able to stand the test of time and become more than just a fad product. Whether the problem being solved is great or small, as long as it challenges conventional thinking and is in some way better than products already out there, it has got a good chance of winning one of the contested FoodBev awards.

I’m very excited to see what’s new in the world of food this year, and wish all the contestants the very best of luck!

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Ben Hyde
Innovation specialist

Read Ben’s full profile

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My top criteria for entries in the World Beverage Innovation Awards are:

• Brand story – I want to find out what is behind the product and how they do business, what makes them unique and why they started, and what was their motivation behind creating the product and marketing it? What can they share that separates them from their competitors?
• Concept – is the product relevant to today’s consumer and is it on trend? Does the product solve a problem that exists and is it truly innovative? Does the product deliver on its promises and meet its target market objective? What is the product’s clear point of difference and innovative qualities?
• Ingredients – does the product use quality ingredients in its formulation that deliver on quality and taste while providing an honest product that reflects its promises and claims on its packaging? Does the formulation use new or interesting ingredients or a combination of these to provide the consumer with a new product experience? Are the ingredients used on trend or representative of a health benefit that can be delivered through their functions?
• Packaging – the packaging must develop interest from the consumer and evoke a reaction. It must also display the brand story and the product’s key attributes and product claims. Is it pleasing to the eye and does it capture your attention? Will it pop out on the shelf or get lost when on display?

These are some of the points I will be looking out for in submissions.

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Set that trend

Have you launched a new product? Then the World Food Innovation Awards are for you! We regularly come across new products and trends, providing them with the platform to get the exposure they deserve. Showcase your latest innovations and set that trend! Find out how to enter here.

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