Nestlé has the world’s largest private food and nutrition research organisation, involving about 5,000 people in around 30 Research and Development (R&D) centers worldwide, including the R&D Center in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, which opened in 2008. With nutrition at its core, Nestlé R&D is committed to make the Nestlé portfolio even tastier and healthier, to fulfil its purpose of enhancing quality of life of people and contributing to a healthier future.
The R&D innovation challenge is part of Nestlé’s Global Youth Initiative which has an ambition to help 10 million young people around the world have access to economic opportunities by 2030. The R&D innovation challenge calls for novel solutions across four areas: environmentally friendly packaging solutions, sustainable cocoa plantlets, affordable nutrition and new routes to market. The R&D innovation challenge will take place in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South-Africa. The goal is to work collaboratively with universities to identify sustainable and scalable science and technology solutions that help to accelerate the innovation of products that meet local consumer needs. The challenge is classified into four themes namely:
REINVENTING FOOD DISTRIBUTION
How can your startup help us find innovative solutions to deliver efficiently our products in key neighbourhoods of African cities, taking into account specificities such as lack of road assigning system or informal distribution networks and wholesalers?
REINVENTING FOOD & BEVERAGE PACKAGING
Imagine a future where thanks to technology, packaging will not be an issue anymore for the planet, and where it will help improve the whole customer journey by giving key information from the nutrients composition of the food, to added value contents such as recipes, and instructions for its preparation. Does your startup have a technology that can help us create sustainable, smart and eco-friendly food packaging?
REINVENTING PLANT CONTAINER
Plantlet is the beginning of what will become incredible products consumed each day by millions of people. How can your solutions and services help us in the development of smart, cost competitive and sustainable solutions for growing and transporting cocoa plantlets thus, impacting positively the quality of the whole value chain.
REINVENTING MATERNAL NUTRITION
Every mom and mom-to-be deserves the right to have a quick access to affordable and quality maternal food. Is your startup specialised in FoodTech? How can you help us create affordable, tasty, high-density nutrients maternal food for every mom and mom to be?
Stefan Palzer, Nestlé Chief Technology Officer speaking on the innovation challenge said: “…to engage with local start-ups, Nestlé partnered with Kinaya Ventures as part of the Spring Fellowship Programme, which is designed to accelerate corporate start-up partnerships and catalyze digital entrepreneurship.
The challenge also calls upon universities in Central and West African countries to submit solutions, he added. Selected teams would enter an accelerator programme to help advance and potentially commercialise their ideas. During the accelerator, the start-up and university teams will have access to Nestlé’s R&D expertise and infrastructure at the R&D Centre in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, including shared labs, kitchens and pilot-testing equipment. At the end of the accelerator, teams will have the opportunity to pitch their proof of concept to Nestlé management.’’
REQUIREMENTS:
- Team of 3 students
- Master level
Interested? Apply here
Application Deadline: July 7th 2019
Source:
PM News
Kinaya Ventures
Featured image source: Comunicaffe International
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