Future of Food Reflection
Issue date:2019-12-30Oct 20th, Yushan Academy Centre for Design and Innovation X BreakLine together took UWC and local students on a “safari” to explore global frontier food innovations and technologies within one day of experiential workshop.
The founder of future food lab - YEAST, Food Portfolio Director at IDEO and mentor to China’s first food accelerator - BitsxBites, Federico shared his insight into food design and food system through his personal experience shifting from being a fine-dining chef to a food designer.
He dived into a series of case studies and industry relevant examples to expose students to the major challenges and advanced innovations across the different stages of the food value chain, including Impossible Foods - reinventing how food is made, Bella Puppa - creating value from waste and CVI - transforming food with data.
He didn't only explain issues of food industry related to sustainability and how can food design create a greater impact over our food system, but also introduce participants to emerging careers and opportunities in the food industry, in order to inspire students to discover challenges and opportunities on food R&D, business model innovation and system transformation.
Having worked extensively in product innovation for global food giants such as KFC, McDonalds, Wanza Matou and so on, host Federico shared his methods in designing food innovation. Students are split into 5 groups to design their own food innovation solutions in given challenge scenarios. Each scenario given represents the main challenge our food system is facing.
With the guidance of the workshop host, each group identified the pain point in their particular challenge and successfully design an innovative solution through extensive teamwork. But only ideas are not enough for real innovation. Following each group is given a new challenge - use food and nonfood artifacts to rapid-prototype and materialize their solution demo.
During solution pitch, participants asked questions actively on each others’s solutions. In the end, 3 award winners were selected with Best Innovative Solution Award, Best Business Potential Award and Best Social Impact Award.
“I really enjoyed this Future of Food Innovation Workshop. It not only stimulated our imagination about the possibilities of food in the future but also inspired us to rethink the relationship between food and the ecological environment. A simple topic sparked deep meanings.”
Future of Food Design Innovation Workshop is only a start. To educate the next generation for the future, Yushan Academy Centre for Design and Innovation X BreakLine will together bring more future-oriented workshops for students in Changshu and beyond.