Client checks implementation of  student proposals

If you have an innovative idea for a new food product and want to bring it to market maturity, you need valuable experience in addition to scientific and economic expertise - for example from established companies, but also from other young creative people in the industry. But how do you bring founders and those interested in founding a company into a lively peer-to-peer exchange? 
This is precisely where the joint project with the Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences comes in: Food Land Bremen - the innovation hub for the food industry in the state of Bremen - strategically networks business, science and start-ups in order to develop sustainable solutions for nutrition, production and future viability in co-creation mode. The hub focuses on collaborative methods, digital tools and systemic work.
In order to gain fresh impetus for the community, the hub commissioned students from Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences to develop a format that works in both analogue and digital formats and appeals to founders and those who are still planning to take the step into self-employment - at all stages of their development.

Best possible empowerment for established and young creatives

After a briefing by Food Land Bremen, students on the Bachelor's degree programme in Food Technology/Economics worked on the task under the guidance of their lecturer Prof. Dr Barbara Kleine-Kalmer in the ‘Innovation and Market Research’ course. They conducted interviews with players from Bremen's food start-up scene, analysed existing exchange formats of other hubs and developed tailor-made approaches for the state of Bremen. Based on this wealth of information, the students developed different meet-up formats - staggered according to the maturity of the innovation projects. The formats help participants to get to know each other and network in person and virtually, provide product tests and practical case studies and give start-ups the opportunity to present themselves and their ideas to an expert audience.

A lively network for the food industry in the state of Bremen

The students from Bremerhaven have now presented their concept to the client Food Land Bremen in Bremen's Überseestadt district ‘We are impressed by how business-minded the students were - many of them are already active in food companies in Bremerhaven,’ said those responsible at Food Land Bremen. "The format approaches are well thought out and cater to the needs of the various project phases in a differentiated way. We will now evaluate the concepts and then move on to implementation. We hope we were able to get the students excited about start-ups and Food Land Bremen!"
Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences is very satisfied with the performance of its students: ‘I am delighted with how professionally the students approached the analysis of existing formats and developed and presented learnings for their own format,’ praises lecturer Prof. Dr Barbara Kleine-Kalmer. "This collaboration gives students exciting insights into entrepreneurial practice and important contacts with players in the food industry. We are delighted to be an active part of the network for the food industry in the state of Bremen and to make a valuable contribution to strengthening the start-up community."
Translated with DeepL.

By the way: Applications for this and other study programmes are still open until 15 August.