Tips from the Preliminary Judges on producing the perfect dossier
Read the brief and think what it means and how it applies to your product.
Make sure your product has a strong eco backbone and doesn't feel like it has been shoe horned into the competition with tenuous links to eco themes. Cover the environmental aspects in a comprehensive and meaningful manner from the start, rather than attempting to justify them afterwards.
The competition is a European one - so do not make it all about food miles in your village unless it can be replicated in villages all over the EU
Have a robust HACCP plan and an understanding of what makes the product safe and how it would be manufactured in an industrial way
Remember it is food, has anyone eaten it? Can it be made/or/ sold safely & legally in all EU countries? How will it be presented to the customer?
Conduct consumer panelling on your product. Recognise its limitations. Don't just make the research fit your objectives
Put some thought into the factory scale-up with a proper consideration of the challenges and how they might be overcome
Plan how your dossier should be laid out. It should be logical and make effective use of appendices instead of dumping lots of info into the report. Apply the same sense you do to writing an essay - what do you get marks for? Have you covered all of those?
Make sure your passion and ownership of the project comes through from your dossier
