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$50k grand prize up for grabs in food waste challenge
Lineage’s Food Chain Innovation Challenge invites students and start-ups to pitch their innovative technologies or data solutions that address postharvest food waste.
The English leg of the competition will take place at the London Science Museum on 14 November, where competitors will present their ideas to an elite panel of judges from across the food sustainability space. Similar events will be held in Amsterdam and San Fransisco on 19 November.
Lineage’s regional vice president Claire Walters will join director of food at FareShare Simon Millard, WRAP chief executive Harriet Lamb and Paul Randle from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leaders at Cambridge University.
Grand prize
Judges will select a regional winner, who will be awarded a $5,000 (£3,796) cash prize and a spot in the grand final event on 2 December. One winner will then be chosen to receive the $50,000 grand prize and an invite into a six-month, executive-led incubator program tailored to their unique business goals.
Greg Lehmkuhl, president and chief executive of Lineage, said: “Beyond our own operational improvements, the Food Chain Innovation Challenge is a platform for us to support the industry's most promising talent and innovations. By collaborating, we can develop solutions that not only address food waste but also promote sustainable practices for the long term.”
At the events, participants will be asked to pitch their existing ideas across four specific areas – reducing food waste, food preservation techniques, access to nutritious food and data-driven insights and analytics.
New innovations
FareShare director of food Simon Millard added: “At FareShare we believe that no good food should go to waste, so it gives me great pride to be a judge at Lineage’s Food Chain Innovation Challenge this year, which is supporting the need for new innovations and technologies to reduce food waste. It’s simply not acceptable that so much food waste occurs when so many people suffer food insecurity.
“As the problem of food waste continues across the UK, now more than ever we need clever people and smart organisations to step up and help. This is going to be vitally important in helping to deliver food safely and responsibly to those most in need, and I can’t wait to see what some of our most brilliant minds are doing to tackle this most urgent of needs.”
Meanwhile, London charity The Felix Project has launched a new platform designed to help the food industry reduce the amount of edible food going to waste.
