Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge returns to support innovations that will transform the food system

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The Institute of Food Technologies (IFT; Chicago, IL), in collaboration with the Seeding The Future Foundation, has announced the return of the Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge. The goal of the challenge is to inspire and support the development of game-changing innovations that help transform the food system, make healthier diets more accessible, and empower consumers to make choices that benefit both personal and planetary health.

“IFT and the Seeding The Future Foundation share similar visions of a world where science and innovation are universally accepted as essential to improving food for everyone,” said Christie Tarantino-Dean, chief executive officer at IFT, in a press release. “Last year’s Challenge was a great success with nearly 900 organizations engaging from around the world, and we strongly believe this initiative will be impactful for years to come by helping to accelerate scientific breakthroughs.”

The innovations the challenge is looking to support should have a potential for significantly impact at scale and over time, and benefit at least one or more intersecting domains that include: nutritious food for a healthy diet; sustainably produced; and accessible, appealing, affordable, and trusted by consumers.

To incentivize innovation, the challenge offers three levels of awards that total $1 million. They include:

• Seed Grants ($25,000 each) awarded to organizations that are planting and nurturing high-potential, innovative ideas and have developed a prototype and/or initial proof of concept demonstrating feasibility. Innovation must benefit at least one, ideally two domains with no negative impact on the others.
• Growth Grants ($100,000 each) awarded to organizations that have demonstrated their innovation is doable and have projected both economic feasibility at scale and high-impact potential to transform the food system. The innovation must benefit at least two, ideally three domains with no negative impact on the others.
• Seeding The Future Grand Prizes ($250,000 each) awarded to organizations that have created innovations that are scalable, economically feasible at scale, trusted, and compelling to consumers, and have demonstrated major impact potential to transform the food system. The innovation must benefit at least two, ideally three domains with no negative impact on the others.

“We believe that the most revolutionary ideas start at a very small scale, come from passionate and diverse teams, and have the potential for a big impact,” said Dr. Bernhard van Lengerich, founder of the Seeding The Future Foundation. “Our hope is the Challenge creates a robust and powerful innovation pipeline that leads to transformative change within the global food system.”

Applications for the challenge are currently being accepted and the deadline for applying is August 1, 2022. Seed Grant recipients will be announced in September 2022, and Growth Grant recipients and Seeding The Future Grand Prize recipients will be announced in January 2023.