SIAL HOSTS ECOTROPHELIA FINALE RECOGNIZING THE MOST INNOVATIVE PROJECTS FROM STUDENTS ACROSS EUROPE
A highlight of this year’s SIAL Paris will be the final of the ECOTROPHELIA Europe, when the winners will be announced on Monday evening showcasing the students talents in developing innovative food projects.
The students, from private or public higher education institutions, will present dishes in a programme co-ordinated by the food federations of their home country.
This year’s winners of ECOTROPHELIA Europe will be announced during the show on Monday October 17th, and there will be plenty of entrants to choose from, with more than a dozen countries involved this year.
Launched in France in 2000 and later made Europe-wide, ECOTROPHELIA has resulted in the creation of 1,500 innovative food projects from around 20 European countries, and has helped to launch around 50 start-ups. It is now a partner of SIAL Paris.
The ECOTROPHELIA competitions have shown a preference for food that is healthy, with reduced fat and sugar content, for example, and light on the wallet.
Some entries have incorporated material that would usually be thrown away, creating dishes that are low cost but do not compromise on taste.
“We have clearly taken a step forward in terms of healthy, easy-to-consume pleasures,” said Dominique Ladevèze, who set up ECOTROPHELIA.
ECOTROPHELIA promotes entrepreneurship and competitiveness within the European food industry by setting up a training network of excellence in food innovation.
In doing so, it captures the energy and creativity of the brightest and most enterprising students from the best European higher education establishments.
By providing students with real situations, it helps them develop their knowledge of working within markets that are demanding and constantly changing.
As well as being an incubator of new ideas, ECOTROPHELIA highlights food trends important to the millennial generation and generation Z.
The food federation of each participating country organises a national competition to select the most innovative food project, and each is presented to ECOTROPHELIA Europe.
This year’s competition involves 14 European countries: Germany, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Spain, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom, Serbia and Slovenia.
In addition to the national teams, a transnational team will participate. Set up in October 2021 thanks to the European project FEEDtheMIND – an online course platform to enrich the skills of young graduates – this team is composed of 10 students from five countries: Austria, Spain, France, Greece and Slovenia and six universities.
The students worked together on the development of an innovative food product mainly remotely, and met in Valencia in Spain to work together on the project, which will be presented at ECOTROPHELIA Europe 2022.
The ECOTROPHELIA Europe 2022 Jury will be led by its president, Bertrand Emon, head of membership and training at Campden BRI UK.
The jury will award three official prizes:
• ECOTROPHELIA Europe Gold (prize: €4,000)
• ECOTROPHELIA Europe Silver (prize: €3,000)
• ECOTROPHELIA Europe Bronze (prize: €2,000)
There will also be a €500 “Communication Strategy” prize awarded by EEIG ECOTROPHELIA EUROPE.
The organising committee of ECOTROPHELIA Europe is made up of the European technological platform Food For Life and EEIG ECOTROPHELIA EUROPE, a European economic interest group made up of national federations from seven European countries.
ECOTROPHELIA Europe benefits from the support of its partners: Nestlé, Campden BRI, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, EEIG ECOTROPHELIA EUROPE and SIAL Paris.
The final of ECOTROPHELIA Europe 2022 will be held at SIAL Paris on Sunday, 16th and Monday, 17th October 2022. The Ecotrophelia winners will be presented during the SIAL, on one of the SIAL TALKS stages, on Monday October 17th from 5pm to 6 pm.
Here are the key dates in the competition’s history:
• 2008: the first session of the TROPHELIA Europe competition is held at SIAL with eight national federations (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Italy and Slovenia).
• 2011: The European Commission gives approval for the Chamber de Commerce et d’Industrie de Vaucluse to launch a European project aimed at promoting eco-innovation in the food industry: ECOTROFOOD. The TROPHELIA competition becomes ECOTROPHELIA.
• 2014: ECOTROPHELIA is at the origin of the creation of FOODLAB, a European laboratory of innovations aimed at promoting and encouraging entrepreneurship among students in higher education. The project is supported by the European Union under the ERASMUS programme.
• 2015: ECOTROPHELIA Europe is held at the 2015 World Expo in Milan, the theme of which is “Feeding the planet, energy for life”. In total,16 European countries take part within the European Commission pavilion.
• 2019: ECOTROPHELIA promotes the development of a strategic partnership project as part of the ERASMUS + programme FEEDtheMIND, which brings together seven partners from five European countries to work on new teaching methods on the acquisition of knowledge and skills.
• 2020 – 2021: ECOTROPHELIA faces the Covid-19 crisis and is unable to organise a physical competition for two consecutive years, but an online event is held instead. The jury and the competing teams connect remotely using Zoom or Skype.
• Replay 2020: https://youtu.be/MGgFi_pLAYQ (please see below)
• Replay 2021: https://youtu.be/IUVmFOiRA0E (please see below)
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