The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), in partnership with the Seeding The Future Foundation, has announced this year’s Seeding The Future Grand Prize and Growth Grant winners for the  Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge. The program awards a total of $1 million USD annually for innovations that can transform food systems to be more equitable and lead to safe, nutritious, and trusted food using sustainable practices. 

This year’s winning innovations include nutrient-dense porridges for schools in Zambia, solar cooling hubs for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, an innovative approach to addressing food insecurity in Indonesia, novel nutritious and affordable composite flours for school feeding programs in Uganda, and a regenerative agriculture model helping farmers in India transition away from chemical-based farming approaches.

Since its inception three years ago, the challenge has attracted more than 2,400 teams of scientists, engineers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and multidisciplinary teams from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profits, social enterprises, universities, research institutions as well as small and emerging for-profit enterprises to submit their game-changing innovations that will help transform food systems globally.

“When we created the annual Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge, our purpose was, and still is, to create a powerful, steadily growing pipeline of high-impact innovations that address the most pressing challenges food systems are facing globally. We encourage impactful innovations that help food systems to be more sustainable, resilient, and equitable, and lead to safe and nutritious food that is affordable, appealing, and trusted by the end user,” says Seeding The Future Foundation founder Bernhard van Lengerich, Ph.D. “It has been truly inspiring to see how many dedicated teams of food scientists and innovators around the world have embraced the Challenge and are working tirelessly creating those transformative innovations.

“Congratulations to the winners and a special thank you to all teams who submitted their ideas,” van Lengerich continues. “We again saw a tremendous number of applications in each award category.”

Out of the more than 900 submissions from 78 countries this year, three Growth Grant winners (each receiving $100,000) and two Seeding The Future Grand Prize winners (each receiving $250,000) were selected. Growth Grants are awarded to organizations that have created food system innovations that are doable, have projected economic feasibility at scale, and have high-impact potential to improve the lives and health of people and the environment. Seeding The Future Grand Prizes are awarded to organizations that have demonstrated that their innovations are scalable, economically feasible at scale, are trusted and compelling to the end user, and have major impact potential to improve the lives and health of people and the environment.

Seeding The Future grand prize winners

  • The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on behalf of its HarvestPlus program for their development of nutrient-dense porridges for use in school feeding programs in Zambia. These porridges utilize biofortified traditional food crops that are farmed and produced by women as additional contributions to the household income. IFPRI and HarvestPlus aim to uplift and equip vulnerable youth to grow into healthy, productive adults.
  • Naandi Foundation for its implementation of ReGen, a synergistic regenerative agriculture model to support farmers transitioning away from conventional, chemical-based farming approaches in India. Prioritizing biodiversity over monocultures, regeneration over-extraction, and biological agri-inputs over chemical, Naandi Foundation provides a variety of free materials and knowledge tools to help eliminate dependence on high-cost chemical fertilizers and pesticides and improve the health of soil ecosystems and the foods produced. 

Growth Grant winners

  • Association 3535 for establishing four solar cooling hubs and offering cold storage as a service to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. By installing large, cold storage refrigerated containers and standalone cooling systems that are attachable to existing storehouses, Association 3535 (a 2021 Seed Grant winner) provides smallholder farmers and small-scale fishermen with the ability to keep produce fresh, reducing post-harvest losses and increasing food security and potential income.  
  • Kopernik for its Pangan Initiative, addressing food insecurity in West Timor, Indonesia. By adopting an innovative approach that prioritizes the return to and use of indigenous farming practices, food preservation technologies, and a circular economy approach utilizing black soldier flies to convert organic and food waste into animal feed and compost for farming, the Pangan Initiative will create a more climate-resilient and self-sustaining food system and community.
     
  • Nurture Posterity International for its development of NutriPosh, nutritious and affordable composite flours for use in school feeding programs in Uganda. In addition to providing enhanced nutrition through the inclusion of pumpkin seeds in a stable composite Maize flour, NutriPosh sources ingredients produced through regenerative agricultural practices, utilizes solar-powered dehydration technologies in their flour production, and uses biodegradable packaging. The NutriPosh approach ensures environmental sustainability across the entire supply chain. Nurture Posterity International is a 2022 Seed Grant winner. 

“IFT is proud to support and help advance the work of its members, the science of food community, and programs such as the Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge to ensure food security for a growing global population,” says IFT CEO Christie Tarantino-Dean.