Aust. Government pledges $5 million to food and nutrition innovation challenge

The LAUNCH Food challenge gives innovators, entrepreneurs, organisations and individuals an opportunity to put forward innovative solutions for improving global health outcomes through better nutrition. The program is seeking solutions with the potential to transform food systems and the behaviours they drive to promote health and prosperity for all people while respecting the planet’s resources.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (DFAT) InnovationXchange, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), are behind the global call for innovations.

At the announcement of the challenge the Hon Julie Bishop MP, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia, said, “Through LAUNCH Food — a partnership with USAID — we will be gathering the best and brightest ideas, putting $5 million into this challenge so that we can come up with ideas that can actually be turned into reality and can make a different, a positive difference to lives of people around the world.”

Changing cultural norms and the globalisation of the world’s food supply is shifting the way people act and eat, resulting in high levels of impaired development, non-communicable diseases and avoidable deaths rising out of the dichotomous challenges of under-nutrition and over-nutrition, particularly in lower income countries.

About half the children in countries close to Australia are suffering the effects of under-nutrition while paradoxically, obesity leading to chronic disease burden is at epidemic levels. For the first time the current generation will have a shorter life span than the previous generation.

LAUNCH Food (part of the LAUNCH innovation platform) aims to create a worldwide coalition of committed innovators and thinkers focused on identifying innovations with the potential to transform food and nutrition systems in a variety of contexts worldwide, while respecting the planet’s resources.

The challenge will give participants the opportunity to have their proposals reviewed by a world-class network of industry pioneers, government organisations, investors and innovation experts. Winning innovations will be funded through the platform.

In its first year, LAUNCH Food is calling for supply- or demand-side innovations that will ultimately impact people’s food choices, whether in the home, market, street, restaurant or community.

A network of experts and key players from across the food landscape will select top applications for participation in the LAUNCH Food experience. These solutions could take the form of products, programs, technologies, services, business and delivery models, alternative modes of production, financial instruments or new development approaches.

LAUNCH is looking for a balanced portfolio of innovations (game-changing, early-stage prototypes) and solutions (post-pilot solutions with the potential to scale within 2 years) that address supply, demand or both, but offer impact at the level of an individual’s personal consumption.

To be considered for the LAUNCH Food challenge, submissions must address one or more of the following:

Food production

• Supply chain infrastructure and practices across the value chain (harvesting, storage, processing/drying/manufacturing, transport, marketing), including food wastage
• Food and food technology
• Production processes and efficiency
• Models of economic incentivisation
• Financial products or services that drive how and where food is produced
• Nutrition-sensitive and climate smart agriculture, including horticulture, aquaculture and livestock
• Harnessing data to understand the supply of and demand for nutritious food
• Growing more (and a more diverse range of) nutritious food
• Decoupling price and quality so that nutritious food is not always the most expensive option

Food consumption

• Empowering and incentivising people to change their eating and feeding behaviour
• Reinforcing positive and nutritious cultural and social practices
• Educating around the needs of humans and the value of food
• Improving people’s understanding of what is and is not healthy
• Helping people make better food and feeding choices
• Helping reinforce and reward good food and feeding choices
• Food messaging and marketing; creative consumer engagement
• Labelling and packaging
• Using food data to drive understanding and behaviour change

Applications will be evaluated on:

• Potential for improving health outcomes
• Technical feasibility and practicality of use
• Pathway to scale
• Sustainability of the innovation/solution
• Evidence of potential for application in lower-income and underserved communities and/or developing markets and countries
• Strength of project team and leadership

The challenge is open for anyone to apply. Responses from academics, companies (small or large), entrepreneurs, inventors, non-profit organisations, research institutions, national laboratories, government agencies, social enterprises and funders are welcome. Cross-discipline and cross-geography teams are highly encouraged to apply.

Submissions for LAUNCH Food are due Wednesday, 16 November 2016 — interested applicants can find out more or share their submissions at launch.org/food. Winning innovators will be announced in February 2017.

Any questions?

Email the LAUNCH Food team: foodchallenge@launch.org