Students from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering have won top prizes in a European food innovation competition designed to develop healthy and sustainable food for everyone.
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The EU-supported Food Solutions Project is part of EIT FOOD – a program that fosters innovation to create healthy and sustainable food for all. The premise of the competition was to take real-world nutritional and sustainability challenges faced by the food industry and come up with solutions that can potentially transform the food system and promote sustainability and health.
Experts and mentors from top European universities supervised the student's progress, together with leading companies Nestle, Danone-Nutricia, Döhler, IMDEA and Puratos. Two Technion teams won first place prizes, and another came in third.
This year, the Technion's participating teams chose to tackle two challenges: GrOAT: creating an innovative, healthy, and sustainable product using an oat-based ingredient (a challenge presented by the Finnish company Myllyn Paras, which invests considerable resources in "plant-based innovation"); and FoodFE: (Food for the Elderly) – to design novel food products for the elderly that address the issue of loss of taste, palatability, and efficiency of nutrient uptake.
Once the teams had formed, they spent some six months developing their products. The process involved attempts to assess product manufacturing at the Technion's food pilot plant and support from senior industry representatives. The students also consulted with chefs at Tel Aviv culinary school Bishulim, who helped refine and resolve some of the culinary aspects of the projects.
The Bioat Group – graduate students Maayan Ben-David, Liora Bernstein, Carolina Lejterer, and Gil Raphael – won a first place prize for their vegan "labaneh" cheese spread, based on a fermented oat ingredient. The team's product also came in first in the crowd favorite category.
Judges praised their vegan labaneh as delicious, and employees from a company with origins in the Middle East said that the taste was very close to that of dairy-based labaneh.
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The CRACKEAT Group – Dor Abu Hazira, Shlomit Hakim, Hadar Kochavi, Victoria Skortov, and Linor Rochlin – won first place for a soy-based, creamy treat for the elderly with a crisp cookie on top. The product was praised by the judges for its unique presentation and taste. The final product provides a complex experience of different textures, while also being more environmentally friendly than current packaging solutions. It is high in protein and fiber, sugar-free, and low in saturated fat.
Coming in third place in the Food Products Challenge for the Elderly was another group from the faculty – Shahar Hefner, Nova Neumann, Christine Oviad, and Dana Raz. The four developed Lite Delight, a unique nutritional snack based solely on natural ingredients and tailored to the needs and desires of the senior population. The product offers something chewy, but not too chewy, that is portable and tasty. The individual brownie-like cake bar was praised for its soft, fluffy texture, combined with a sweet taste and no added sugar.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the groups did not fly to Europe to present their products but sent them by courier to the judges so that they could taste them first-hand. The judges praised Bioat, CRACKEAT, and Lite Delight for their quality and congratulated the teams on their professionalism and attention to detail in their packaging and branding.
"This win wraps up a whole year of hard work," said faculty members and mentors Dr. Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, Professor Uri Lesmes, and Professor Avi Shpigelman.
"This achievement demonstrates the excellence of students in this faculty, not only in the engineering and technological aspects, but also creatively and in their ability to deal with all aspects of the process from market research, creating a business feasibility study, addressing regulatory and marketing issues, conducting shelf-life analysis, planning the commercial manufacturing process, and of course presenting their product to experts," they said.
