EIT Food Challenge Lab 2022 final invited different innovation agents to face the problem of the Mediterranean Food System

This two-day innovation hackathon invited different innovation agents in the food industry to design innovative solutions to a relevant problem facing the food sector. This dynamic competition was designed to spark co-founder relationships, build links between industry, academia, and start-ups, and drive creative business models and prototype proposals.

13 teams from over 9 European countries participated in Design Thinking methodologies to ideate over 100 solutions to the challenge. In the end, each team pitched their solution to an expert jury and the top three teams were awarded with financial prizes.

• 1^st place: A new Carbon Credit market system for farmers with social, economic and environmental impact. John Deere use case.
• 2^nd place: Research-based service company born to promote an efficient pest management with fast and accurate approaches for pathogen and pesticide resistance detection.​ Continente Producers Club use case.
• 3^rd place: Multi-faceted project involving seawater desalination, mycelial composite packaging materials and gourmet mushroom production to reduce food waste and water scarcity. Logifruit use case.

The winning team will go on to compete for a larger prize in a final event with Northern European winning team. The competition will take place virtually on November 24^th 2022.

The Challenge

The future of our roots: reimagining a sustainable Mediterranean food system: How can we provide end-consumers with affordable and high-quality local products?

We collaborated with our partners – John Deere, Continente Producers Club and Logifruit – to design relevant use cases that touched on different aspects of the challenge. Each team came up with a solution for one of three use cases:

The Use Cases

• Digitization (John Deere): How can we incorporate integral digital solutions to monitor crops, map and register jobs, implement remote traceability and reduce the overall carbon footprint of food production?
• Sustainable production (Continente Producers Club): How can we improve production methods for all relevant Southern European actors, ranging from traditional big groups to small, local producers?
• Distribution and logistics (Logifruit): How can we modify reusable packaging for fruit and vegetables to further extend the packaging’s lifespan and promote sustainability?