Season 2 of the DuPont NutriScholars Awards (DNA) for the year 2018, which was launched pan-India recently, endorses innovation in bakery foods amongst food science and technology students across India. NutriScholars Awards is the flagship programme of DuPont Nutrition and Health to bridge the gap between academia and industry, foster innovations and empower the Indian food academicians.
The deadline for students to apply online and enter the contest was extended to October 3, 2018, to accommodate students with genuine time constraints.
DuPont Nutrition and Health delivers value to the food, beverage and dietary supplement industries through its unique blend of science, knowledge, insights, solver mindsets and broad portfolio of solutions.
As the leader in specialty food ingredients and safety, DuPont brings together a wide range of sustainable food ingredients to increase the quality of food products, while improving their health profile and shelf life.
The bakery industry is huge in India and offers a wide range of affordable ready-to-eat/packaged foods to the population. The urban and young population is growing at a faster rate and the demand for nutritional, convenient and healthy foods is becoming important. DuPont Nutrition and Health aims to ignite the flame of imagination in students’ minds, and direct innovation towards not only identifying problems, but also enhancement of bakery foods in nutritional and sensory attributes.
The second season of DNA strengthens DuPont’s objective of bringing innovative ideas in bakery food industry, using DuPont Danisco range of ingredients.
The company has partnered with F1rstMR for the rollout of the programme across 200-plus universities and institutions in the country.
It has invited young innovators and students across food science, technology and relevant inter-disciplinary fields from Indian academia to solve the challenges in the bakery food products.
Season 2 of DuPont NutriScholars Awards honours innovation under five exciting categories:
1、The vegetarian cake treat
2、Innovation in muffins and cupcakes
3、Healthy breads
4、Gluten-free and healthy cookies
5、Out-of-the-box bakery innovation
Following the success of the first season, DuPont provides platform and hands-on product development experience for students to innovate and solve challenges in the bakery food products. The programme enables a gateway for the students of food science to enrol, innovate and explore the world of the bakery industry.
Students can participate in the programme as individuals or a team consisting maximum of five members from same institute, including under-graduates, post-graduates and PhD students, as well as a professor/research scientist as mentor.
In season 2, organisers have conducted successful roadshows in 12 academic institutes, across the country. Students were presented about the programme guidelines and award categories. These roadshows will act as an excellent platform for students to directly interact with the experts from DuPont. University and college students from 11 cities situated in eight different states were motivated by and benefited from this outreach.
The DuPont NutriScholars Awards programme is conducted in two phases, ending October 3 and November 16, respectively. Applications received will be shortlisted and 10 finalist teams for each award category will be supported on financial and technological basis. Based on the bakery product developed from the experimental concept, five winners across each award category will be selected and honoured at an award ceremony in December 2018.
The adjudicating panel will include esteemed industry experts from leading food companies, experienced academicians, scientists and DuPont representatives. Key basis in selecting the best bakery food ideas in all the five product concept categories rely upon the product’s innovativeness, potential to be successful in the commercial market and the technical skills using one or more DuPont Danisco ingredients during the development of the products.
Sharing his perspective on the programme, Anurag Jain, business director, South Asia, DuPont Nutrition and Health, stated, “We are so excited to come up with the second season of DuPont NutriScholars Awards. We are planning to include extensive roadshows to engage academic institutions and universities pan-India to motivate and encourage the appetite for innovation among young minds of the future researchers.”
He added, “Unique feature of this season is that all the winning team members will avail an opportunity to interview for internship with DuPont. Internship is for the period of four weeks with food application centre of DuPont Nutrition and Health in Gurugram in the calendar year 2019. This professional exposure, interaction and learning from industry experts can certainly shape up a student’s career in food and food ingredient industry.”
