Nomad Foods has partnered with global innovation network Innoget to launch an open innovation portal to accelerate food tech collaborations.
The portal will expedite solutions for some of the most pressing challenges facing the food industry, such as exploring new protein and packaging technologies, the Birds Eye parent said.
It will be open to academics, subject experts, start-ups and SMEs that aim to develop new partnerships, beginning with the ideation phase through to product development and eventually, launching into the market.
Stéfan Descheemaeker, chief executive officer of Nomad Foods, said, “Consumer demand for nutritious, high-quality, sustainable food and sustainable packaging solutions is growing and the role of technology in delivering these needs is accelerating.[…]
“Our new open innovation portal will help us to unlock the potential we see in important areas such as alternative protein as we play our part in helping to deliver a more sustainable food system and bring to life our purpose of Serving the World with Better Food.”
Open Innovation Portal
The portal’s activities will include co-developing product solutions, consumer testing, facility testing and funding, or building new ecosystems.
Initially, it will focus on four areas, including the scalability of frozen mussels and other bivalve products and recyclability solutions for products that are currently in multi-material, non-recyclable vacuum packaging.
It will also look into solutions to enable recyclable paper-based meal trays or bowl packaging to be used for frozen foods and clean-label replacements that replicate the properties of methylcellulose in food applications.
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Dr Stella Peace, chief research and development and quality officer at Nomad Foods, commented, “We believe that great innovation goes together with collaboration and the scale of the challenges facing the food industry today will require partnership if we are to meet evolving consumer needs and our ambitious environmental commitments.
“As the clear category leader, we are proud to be working on new innovations that consumers will love and that could help to resolve some of the key challenges facing the food industry today.”
Food Technology
Nomad Foods’ Birds Eye brand was one of the first companies to ever freeze food and, more recently, it introduced products such as the Fishless Finger as part of its Green Cuisine range.
The company is also collaborating with a range of external partners, such as Map of Ag, to encourage sustainable and optimised agricultural practices, such as maximising carbon capture in the pea production process.
Last year, it teamed up with US company BlueNalu to develop seafood products grown from cells in a laboratory.
© 2022 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest technology news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
