IFST and Campden BRI are pleased to announce the finalists of Ecotrophelia UK 2020. Student teams from the University of West London, Liverpool Hope University, University of Reading and University of Nottingham and will go on to compete at Ecotrophelia UK.
Now in its eighth year, the dragons’ den style competition challenges teams of UK students to develop innovative, eco-friendly food and drink products.
Despite the challenges and obstacles that COVID-19 has created, the competition has been fierce this year, with more teams than ever competing for a place in the final and a slice of the £3,500 prize fund. A panel of product development experts carefully assessed the entries before picking the final five.
After much deliberation, a panel of new product development experts has selected the five finalist teams’ products:
- University of Reading: Betta Indulgence - Betta Banoffee ready to eat banana, caramel, cream and dark chocolate, oat pastry layered dessert tart.
- Liverpool Hope University: Brewers Brownie - The Brewer’s Brownie is a vegan chocolate brownie that is fortified with brewer’s spent grain (BSG).
- University of Nottingham: Eco-Dive - CocoWaffle is a gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan, Dutch-inspired waffle sandwich with a coconut caramel filling.
- University of West London: Plant Up - product range includes two types of vegetable pasta, 1 beetroot and 1 sweet potato. Suitable for vegans, vegetarians and coeliacs. High in protein and prepared in less than 10 minutes.
- University of Nottingham: Re-Dessert - Inspired by the Indian dessert ‘Gulab Jamun’, a syrup infused fried sponge-like doughball, a reinvented recipe incorporates surplus bread, along with new flavour variations such as Jam Roly-poly.
The five finalists will pitch their products to the dragons on 2 June 2020 and the winner will be announced on 10 June 2020, during Campden BRI Week, a major annual event for the food and drink industry.
The ‘dragons’ are senior food experts from across the industry including PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Food Manufacture, Marks & Spencer, Mondelez, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Unilever, Warburtons, Nestle, Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST) and Campden BRI.
This year's entries included teams from the University of Nottingham, University of Reading, University of West London, University of Liverpool, Leeds University, Cardiff Metropolitan University and Liverpool Hope University.
Ecotrophelia is a fantastic platform and source of innovation and inspiration for the industry capitalising on the creativity and energy of our brightest and most enterprising food students supported by the best academic institutions.”
The winning team will go on to represent the UK at the European final which will take place during SIAL in Paris, France on 18-19 October 2020.
For more information, please visit www.ecotrophelia-uk.org and www.eu.ecotrophelia.org.